From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Fri Jun 29 2001 - 07:30:30 EDT
At 7:35 PM -0700 6/28/01, Richard Allan Stauch wrote:
>I have a question concerning the Greek grammatical construction of John
>5:18b, and the import that someone has insisted the construction implies.
>Here is the text according to the UBS GNT3:
>
> DIA TOUTO OUN MALLON EZHTOUN AUTON hOI IOUDAIOI APOKTEINAI,
> hOTI OU MONON ELUEN TO SABBATON,
> ALLA KAI PATERA IDION ELEGEN TON QEON ISON hEAUTON POIWN TWi QEWi.
>
>The second line above is what we were talking about. To state his case in
>short (and I sincerely hope that this is not considered "out of bounds" as a
>matter of interpretation, but my correspondent insists that this is actually
>a matter of Greek grammar): The construction of hOTI with the indicative
>verb (ELUEN in this case) necessarily means that the author believes what
>follows hOTI within its clause to be true. That is, not that it was believed
>to be true by those mentioned in the primary clause, but that on John's
>authority ELUEN TO SABBATON was in fact true.
No, that isn't so. While classical Attic tends to use the optative after
hOTI when the quoted statement follows an introductory verb in a past
tense, the indicative is not at all uncommon--EVEN in classical Attic--in
such a case; that is to say, the practice of Greek speakers and writers was
by no means rigidly restricted in reported past discourse. You might want
to look at Smyth's grammar (#2614) at Perseus:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0007&query=head%3D%23610
>Additionally, I understand (correct me if I am wrong) that John's grammar
>was, to some degree, unsophisticated by comparison with (for instance) Paul
>and Luke. That is to say, in the Gospel at any rate, the number of
>grammatical forms are limited. Is it possible, considering the answer to the
>last is "yes," that 1st-Century Galilean provincials understood this type of
>construction differently than 6th-Century Greeks did?
6th-century A.D. or B.C.? I really don't think so. There are stylistic
differences, to be sure, between GJn, GLk, and the Pauline letters,
Nevertheless, the most remarkable thing about John's narrative style is
that it is quite readable, probably more readily readable than any other
narrative style in the GNT. I would not think that Greek-speakers/writers
five hundred years later would have had any difficulty understanding what
he wrote.
--
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
Most months: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad@ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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