[B-Greek] Bloody Sweat
Vasile Stancu
stancu.c.vasile at gmail.com
Thu Mar 24 15:21:54 EDT 2011
On 3/24/2011 1:01 AM, George F Somsel wrote:
> Ὡσεί hWSEI indicates a comparison. It does not indicate identity.
>
> george
> gfsomsel
>
>
> … search for truth, hear truth,
> learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth,
> defend the truth till death.
>
>
> - Jan Hus
> _________
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Alexander Ring<akring at mac.com>
> To: greek B-Greek<b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Wed, March 23, 2011 2:49:18 PM
> Subject: [B-Greek] Bloody Sweat
>
> Lk 22:44
> καὶ ἐγένετο ὁ ἱδρὼς αὐτοῦ ὡσεὶ θρόμβοι αἵματος
>
> KAI EGENETO O hIDRWS AUTOU hWSEI QROMBOI AIMATOS
>
> Every year this bothers me, but I don't think I've ever posted a question about
> it here.
>
> I always understood this verse to say, "And his sweat became like large drops of
> blood"; where hWSEI means something like "could be compared to", not "turned
> into". Yet every Lent we hear about the "bloody sweat".
>
> So what is the natural meaning of hWSEI here?
>
> Rev. Alexander Ring
> 11214 3rd Ave E
> Tacoma, WA 98445
>
> akring at me.com
>
> The human mind had never invented a labor-saving machine equal to algebra.
>
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As I read this text - and there are many other passages toward which I
would have the same kind of attitude - I tend to just marvel, rather
than try to analyze what that would mean in concrete terms. I agree with
George that a comparison is what the author has here in view. However, I
feel that the question asked would be not really answered this way. As a
reader of this text, I see the author describing a fact as seen by an
eye witness: Jesus in agony and sweat dropping from his face onto the
ground, that looks like drops of blood. An eye witness (at least one of
those present there at that event) would simply marvel seeing some
extraordinary sign of the intensity of Jesus' agony and would be not
interested at all to rush and check whether that was real blood, or
whatever else.
Vasile Stancu
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