Re: kosmos being translated as "Christians" or "God's people" or"the chosen"

From: clayton stirling bartholomew (c.s.bartholomew@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Sat Apr 01 2000 - 14:14:12 EST

<x-charset ISO-8859-1>on 04/01/00 10:48 AM, Wayne Leman wrote:

> Hmm, personally I think we're skating too close to eisogesis to say that
> KOSMOS in John 3:16 might *refer* to anything other than the the usual
> meaning of KOSMOS (unless we see evidence to the contrary), i.e. KOSMOS =
> world, world system, humanity, etc.

Wayne,

I didn't intend to suggest that this was a correct understanding of the
referent. I don't think it is. But as a linguist you certainly are in he
habit of keeping the issues of sense and referent sorted out when doing
lexical analysis.

How is KOSMOS used in the Johannine writings?

The pattern of the Johannine use of KOSMOS makes it highly improbable that
KOSMOS would be used here or anywhere else to refer to the elect. The
pattern of Johannine usage of KOSMOS runs from an ethical/moral neutral term
when referring to the created universe to an ethical/moral negative term
when referring to the organized system of spiritual and human evil which
grips the universe. For this reason I find it nearly impossible to picture
John using this word to refer to the elect.

I read through the longish EDNT article on KOSMOS just now to refresh my
memory on this. Pauline use of the term is also worth looking at since there
are some Johannine/Pauline parallels.

Here is what two standard lexicons on the use of KOSMOS when it refers to a
group of people.

Louw and Nida
9.23 KOSMOS m: (a figurative extension of meaning of KOSMOS åcosmos,
universe,¼ 1.1) people associated with a world system and estranged from God
ã åpeople of the world.¼

UBS Lexicon
KOSMOS, m world, world order, universe; world inhabitants, mankind
(especially of men hostile to God);

Cheers,

Clay

--
Clayton Stirling Bartholomew
Three Tree Point
P.O. Box 255 Seahurst WA 98062 

---
B-Greek home page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek
You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu]
To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-329W@franklin.oit.unc.edu
To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu

</x-charset>

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:41:05 EDT