Re: John 21:19/21 AKOLOUQEI (was APOLOUQEI)
Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Fri, 29 May 1998 05:40:27 -0400
At 4:51 PM -0400 5/28/98, Ron Rhoades wrote:
>>George Blaisdell said:
>>My difficulty with this approach is that to my thinking, Peter does not
>>>NEED to be told to follow Jesus ~ He wants nothing less or else than to
>>>follow Him. His problem is in knowing THAT and WHEN he IS following Him,
>>>and his distractibility when he is doing so, as evidenced by his seeing
>>>the 'beloved disciple' also following and wanting to know 'What about
>>>him?'
>
>>Hence the context, to me, dictates the indicative AND the imperative,
>>>and the Greek morphological ambiguity is exactly on point...
>
>>Jim West said:
>>I think this is highly unlikely. The fact that Peter follows, and then
>>>waffles, and then denies, means that there is more to it than indicated
>>>here.
>
>
>I found this discussion very interesting. While I agree that that the
>evidence seems to demand an imperative rendering of )AKOLOUQEI, I also
>seem to want more than a simple "Follow me" as most translations read.
>
>To fit the context of Peter's "distractibility" or "waffling" I like
>William's translation "Keep on following me." Robertson's in his Word
>Pictures states without comment "Do thou me keep on following."
>
>In looking at several lexicons it appears to me that )AKOLOUQEI
>inherently retains a meaning of continuous commitment or attachment. And
>so where the context seems to indicate a slackness in following I like
>the added force of "keep on...", "continue..."
>
>What do you think?
The question you raise doesn't really concern the form itself, AKOLOUQEI,
which is agreed to be an imperative 2nd sg.; rather it concerns the aspect
of AKOLOUQEI, which is "progressive." Now that I think of it, I don't
believe I've ever seen an aorist equivalent (AKOLOUQHSON/AKOLOUQHSATE: "Be
(a) follower(s)").
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
Summer: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/