Re: KAI in 1 Jn 1:3

Trevor M Peterson (spedrson@juno.com)
Wed, 03 Sep 1997 22:17:19 EDT

On Thu, 04 Sep 1997 07:00:06 -0800 Paul Zellmer
<zellmer@isabela.faith.edu.ph> writes:
>Friends,
>
>We've been copying the mail through the digests, and see that all is
>still going strong. It almost makes me feel at home again.
>
>A question came up as we were reviewing the draft of 1 John in our
>translation project. In the phrase APAGGELLOMEN KAI HUMIN in 1 Jn 1:3,
>
>with which part of the clause does the KAI go?

I would take it as "we also declare unto you that which we have seen and
heard," using KAI to connect the ideas of having seen and heard with that
of declaring. The context establishes John as an eyewitness of the
things he is declaring: "hO AKHKOAMEN, hO hEWRAKAMEN . . . hO EQEASAMEQA
. . . EYHLAFHSAN . . . hEWRAKAMEN KAI MARTUROUMEN . . . ." So, John
seems to be indicating that he intends to declare the things that he has
experienced in these various ways--to go beyond simply having experienced
them and add to the experiencing a sharing of the experience with his
readers. I don't see any grammatical indications that would get us any
closer to an answer than this, but I'll defer to the experts on that.

Trevor Peterson
M.Div. Candidate
Capital Bible Seminary
Lanham, MD