From: clayton stirling bartholomew (c.s.bartholomew@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Thu Jul 06 2000 - 00:56:06 EDT
on 07/05/00 5:00 PM, Timothy E. Mills wrote:
> the weight of
> scholarship is against me
Timothy,
Indeed, the weight of scholarship is against you. The first five
commentaries I could grab on John (B..F Westcott, H.A.W. Meyer, D.A. Carson,
L. Morris and R. Brown) all neglected to even mention the possibility of the
reading you propose. This should give you food for thought.
> If "hO PATHR" & "hO THEOS" are read as "God the Father" or as "the Father,
> even God," with "hO THEOS" being an adjective of "hO PATHR," (TOUTOV begins
> the adjectival phrase), then why is "hESPHRAGISEV" between the two phrases?
> Would not "hESPHRAGISEV" also be part of the adjectival phrase, thus
> describing the one sealed as God, rather than "God" being a quality of "the
> Father?"
>
> Could this be read as "this one the Father sealed as God," Jesus having
> been sealed by the Father as God?
No I don't think this is a possibility. One reason is the case of hO PATHR
and hO THEOS tie these items together and the case separates them from the
object of hESPHRAGISEV which is TOUTOV. But syntactical considerations are
perhaps the least significant reason that your suggestion will not work.
Back off from Jn 6:27 and take a look at what is happening in the big
picture. Starting with the "bread of life" discourse on through the end of
chapter eight we have a mounting controversy. One of the central issues of
this controversy is the identity of Jesus and one of the major questions put
to him by Jesus opponents is "who is your Father." This discussion gets
very heated toward the end of chapter eight. In light of this major thread
in John 6-8 the significance of hO THEOS in Jn 6:27 becomes obvious.
There is also clause level discourse issue here which is worth pondering.
The constituent hO THEOS comes at the end of the clause which is a
pragmatic slot*, i.e., a position which is often employed to mark a
constituent as having special pragmatic significance. In light of what I
have just said about the importance of the question who is hO PATHR, this
clause final position should be understood as placing a high level of clause
level prominence on hO THEOS.
Clay
--
Clayton Stirling Bartholomew
Three Tree Point
P.O. Box 255 Seahurst WA 98062
*See page 32 of Levinsohn, Stephen Discourse Features of New Testament
Greek, 2nd Ed. SIL 2000.
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