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Re: Mt 19:17


On Wed, 26 Oct 1994, Philip L. Graber wrote:

> The man asks what good he must do have eternal life. Jesus' answer is,
> "Why do you need to ask? There _is_ only one good. If you want eternal
> life, keep the commandments" (loose paraphrase). The point of Jesus'
> response in Matthew seems to be that Torah is good, and the only good
> thing to do, in this context, is to keep Torah. My question is this: are
> there GRAMMATICAL grounds for translating the clause in question as the
> English translations all do ("there is One who is good")? 

Fascinating idea.  The only question I would have is why Jesus would 
consider the Torah "one" when he broke it down into numerous commandments 
even in this very passage - the 10 commandments, and elsewhere 
broke it down into two commandments.

Greg Jordan
jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu
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