The problem of who said what - as we have had in the b-greek list of late - has
brought to mind the old chestnut, "The preacher became the preached."
In the gospel of John we have exactly this problem. Consider this possibility :
Jesus said "EGW EIMI" but as a prophetic preacher, much in the same way the OT
prophets said "I am wroth with this generation..." or "I am pleased with
Israel..." John recorded the saying and then in the process of quoting Jesus,
proclaimed Jesus the Christ. (Something which never happened to any OT
prophet.)
Much of the latest debate does come down to the intention of the writer, many
of the NT "geschichtliche" methods would help inform us of the intentions
evident in the texts (never finally providing the ultimate intentions of the
writers however). We should be able to look at the text and see hands of
redactors, the setting for a particular pericope, the particular form of the
pericope, and so on. Perhaps these issues could clarify some of the problems
associated with the meaning of words and their grammar. The b-greek list has
not been doing much of this of late. (There is the danger that we would often
go far beyond the scope of "discussing greek grammar," but we have been far
away from that brief in so many interesting discussions in the list already.)
We impute an awful lot into these traditionally most important of christian
texts, and so we get hot under the collar when we discuss them. (And this does
not even start on the assertions about "the word of God.")
I thank you and Carl Conrad for your level-headed concern for b-greek.
Regards,
Stilman Davis