From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Fri Aug 18 1995 - 14:39:49 EDT
At 3:09 PM 8/17/95, KevLAnder@aol.com wrote:
>Just a note about David L. Moore's treatment of J 10:10. My interest was
>piqued by his discussion because, frankly, I had never taken a close look at
>J 10:10; and when I opened my GNT and read J 10:10 I realized that a
>straightforward reading of the Greek text appears to favor his view that
>PERISSON be taken as a substantive adjective instead of as an adverbial
>qualifier of ZWHN. I then did some lexicon checking. It so happens that
>Thayer classifies PERISSON in J 10:10 as Moore would, translating PERISSON
>ECHEIN as "to have abundance." Thayer also cites a cognate usage of the
>adjective in antiquity: HOI MEN . . . PERISSA EXHOUSIN, HOI DE OUDE TA
>ANAGKAI DUNANTAI PORIZESTHAI ("On the one hand, those who have abundance, but
>on the other hand, those who do not have the wherewithal to get along" [my
>rough translation]), Xen. oec. 20,1. (Note that in this example PERISSA is
>anarthrous.) I thought David would also be interested in Alfred Plummer's
>comments on this verse.
>
> _have it more abundantly_] Omit 'more;' it is not in the Greek, and somewhat
> spoils the sense. More abundantly than what? Translate, _that they_ may
> have abundance.
>
>Marcus Dods in the _Expositor's Greek Testament_ also has some enlightening
>commentary:
>
> With quite other intent has Christ come: EGO HLTHON . . . ECHOSIN, that
> instead of being killed and perishing the sheep "may have life and may
> have abundance." This may mean abundance of life, but more probably
> abundance of all that sustains life. PERITTON ECHEIN in Xen., _Anab._,
>vii. > 6,31, means "to have a surplus". "The repetition of ECHOSIN gives
>the second
> point a more independent position than it would have had if KAI alone had
> been used. . . ." Meyer.
>
>I discovered that some translations, such as the NASB, list in the margin
>"have abundance" as an alternate translation.
I've been rather busy over the last couple days, and didn't have a chance
to look closely at the reasoning proposed for reading PERISSON EXWSIN in
John 10:10 to mean "have an abundance." Now that I've had a chance to look
carefully at David's two notes and Kevin's as well, there are some
questions I think need to be resolved about this passage and particularly
about the usage of EXEIN PERISSON.
(1) When the neuter of an adjective is used substantivally it normally
either is used with an article (Plato's well-known TO KALON, TO AGAQON,
etc.) or with a pronoun like TI, or there is at least an implicit noun with
which the form of the adjective should agree. If in this instance the noun
is ZWHN, then the form of PERISSON ought properly to be PERISSHN. But that
is not what's being argued here; in fact, I think that the argument is
precisely that PERISSON here is a substantive having the sense of
"superabundance" (in fact, its normal sense is "excessive, transcending the
norm").
(2) Examples have been cited especially from Xenophon of an expression
PERISSON EXEIN. In particular, Anabasis 7.6.31 reads: PERITTON D'EXONTES
TOUTO EI TI ELABETE PARA SEUQOU? But here there's the pronoun TOUTO for
PERITTON to agree with, so it's not a substantive (TOUTO TO PERITTON,
theoretically, "this superabundance"). A passage from the Oeconomicus has
been cited (20.1) HOI MEN ... PERISSA EXOUSIN, HOI DE OUDE TA ANAGKAIA
DUNANTAI PORIZESTHAI. This strikes me as at least a little ambiguous
because Attic idiom has a way of using the verb EXEIN with an adverbial
expression in the sense "to be in a _____ state or condition." Moreover
there's a tendency to use either the neuter singular or the neuter plural
of an adjective as an adverb (call it, if you like, an internal or
"adverbial" accusative. In this sense the above passage would be
understood, "Some people are excessively well off, while others cannot even
scrape together what they need."
(3) If we look at John 10:10 in this manner, what prevents our
understanding the text EGW HLQON hINA ZWHN EXWSIN KAI PERISSON EXWSIN as "I
came so they might have life and be in a superfluous state." What, you may
ask, is a superfluous state? Well, it's not the most felicitous English
word in the context, but in terms of root meaning, it means to be in an
"overflow" condition. The parallel with the saying to the woman at the well
in Samaria has been noted 4:14 TO hUDWR hO DWSW AUTWi GENHSETAI EN AUTWi
PHGH hUDATOS ALLOMENOU EIS ZWHN AIWNION. This notion of the PLHRWMA, the
inexhaustible resource of life offered by Jesus, is a distinctly Johannine
theme. The fundamental notion of ZWH AIWNIOS seems to be the transcendance
of finitude, of every power to put an end to anything.
(4) There's one other tiny little item I might mention: David argued that
it is troublesome that we don't have a pronoun like AUTHN with PERISSON
EXWSIN in John 1:10. That really can't be a very serious consideration in
itself, given the natural tendency of Greek expression toward ellipsis.
However, as I've argued, it just may be that EXWSIN here doesn't take even
an implicit ZWHN.
I don't really think the meaning of the verse differs significantly from
one way of reading it to the other, and it may well be that you are right,
David, in this interpretation, but I'm not sure that the classical examples
cited are sufficient to prove PERISSON/PERITTON was actually used
substantivally rather than adverbially.
Perhaps this is all quibbling. I don't really think it changes the
fundamental sense that we derive from John 10:10.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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