From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Sat Apr 21 2001 - 07:10:49 EDT
At 2:47 AM -0400 4/21/01, David Thiele wrote:
>This is my first posting.
>
>I am wondering if someone can explain to me why the relative pronoun in
>John 1:15 is in the accusative case where the genitive appears to be more
>appropriate. It reads hOUTOS HN hON EIPON (This is he whom I said). The
>meaning is "This is he of whom I said" which to my thinking should be
>hOUTOS HN hOU EIPON.
>
>Seeing as neither commentaries or grammars which I have consulted have
>discussed the problem, I feel I am missing something basic. I don't know
>what it is.
There's an ellipsis here (common enough in Greek usage) of a nominative
pronoun (e.g.) EKEINOS or noun (e.g. hO ANQRWPOS) which is actually
"squeezed" into the accusative; the accusative is the object of EIPON.
Literally, it's "This was (the one) whom I said (i.e. 'meant')." At any
rate, quite commonly in Greek the antecedent is omitted and the relative
pronoun is in the case required for its own clause.
--
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad@ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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