From: dalmatia@eburg.com
Date: Sat Jul 04 1998 - 13:56:47 EDT
-- ****************************************** Lisa Messmer..................ICQ# 5666415 George Blaisdell dalmatia@eburg.comHave you seen Dulcie? Look for her Heart! http://www.eburg.com/~dalmatia/dulcie.html
Last Chance for Animals...Fight Pet Theft! http://www.lcanimal.org Message-ID: <359E6259.9A68EFA@eburg.com> Date: Sat, 04 Jul 1998 10:11:53 -0700 From: dalmatia@eburg.com X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: WmHBoyd@aol.com Subject: Re: Jn.3:8 PNEUMA, PNEI, FONHN References: <1916-379@franklin.oit.unc.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
WmHBoyd@aol.com wrote: > > John 3:8 is commonly translated > "The wind blows where it wills and the sound of it you hear ..." > But it is commonly commented that the passage should read, > "The Spirit breaths where it wills and the voice of it you hear..." > The commentators provide justification for the latter. What defence can be > given for the common translation? and What translation began to make this > distinction?
TO PNEUMA hOPOU QELEI PNEI KAI THN FONHN AUTON AKOUEIS ALL'OUK OIDAS POQEN ERCETAI KAI POU UPAGEI hOUTWS ESTI PAS hO GEGENNHMENOS EK TOU PNEUMATOS
William ~
Our western languages just do not seem to have a word tht links wind/breath/spirit as the Greek does here in John, so we are left with the analogy of the wind, which seems to work pretty well, and the analogy is carried a step further with FINHN, which is the audible sound that wind makes when it blows. The analogy would seem to be finalized by the word hOUTWS, which I take to mean 'It is like this.'
The final PNEUMATOS then, in virtue of hOUTWS, means Spirit.
I prefer to keep the tenses in the ongoing present, rather than the indefinite simple present:
The wind where it is willing is blowing And the sound of this you are hearing But you are not knowing from where it is coming And where it is going Thus it is for everyone Who is [has been] born out of the Spirit
Nicodemus 'hearing' of the 'sound' is, imho, the reason why he is there having this conversation with Jesus in the first place. And just as the wind makes its own kind of sound, so also does the Spirit make Its 'sound', and I do not believe that sound is audible in the same way that the wind is. Perhaps it is 'spiritually' audible. The word FONHN also has a strong connection in meaning with KALLEW, and Nicodemus would seem to have heard his calling in his birth out of the Spirit, and not knowing what to make of it, has come to Jesus 'by night', where he will not be seen... He is a ruler of the Jews, and a Pharisee, after all, and would thus not be exactly fully prepared for this kind of event in his life! :-) Yet he knew just where to go.
In this vein, I do not think that 3:10 is a question. It is a simple statement of fact, said by Jesus to help Nicodemus get his feet solidly set in the firmament of Spirit, rather than his inadequate cultural and spiritual and religious training. All of which is happenning in the ongoing present tense, where the scriptures [what is written] are not in view, and only the Spirit is... And Jesus... And Nicodemus...
Grace to you...
George
PS ~ Happy 4th of July to Everyone!!
-- ****************************************** Lisa Messmer..................ICQ# 5666415 George Blaisdell dalmatia@eburg.com
Have you seen Dulcie? Look for her Heart! http://www.eburg.com/~dalmatia/dulcie.html
Last Chance for Animals...Fight Pet Theft! http://www.lcanimal.org
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