From: backusfam1@bluefrognet.net
Date: Sat Apr 06 2002 - 23:10:44 EST
I would like to thank all of those who responded to my question, especially
Reverend Ben Crick, whose contribution seemed the most plausible. He
attributed the plural form of hIEROUSALHM to the fact that the Hebrew used the
plural form of which the Greek, no longer using the dual in the New Testament,
reflected the Hebrew by using the plural. However, I felt that some did not
understand the question. My question in regard to Jerusalem in John 2:23 has
to do with the fact that it occurs there in the dative plural with the definite
article, however, previously in v.13, he used the form hIEROSOLUMA. Since the
LXX used hIEROUSALHM 90% of its occurrences, which is the indeclinable form,
therefore static, then why employ the dative and genitive plural forms when
hIEROUSALHM does not require a grammatical conformity? Luke's gospel, for
example, is highly consistent in using one particular form to represent the
spelling of Jerusalem.
In John 2:13 & 2:23 Jerusalem is in different forms, however, there is no
significance in the spellings, both contexts are similar in construction as
well as to the event taking place (the Passover). I'm not losing sleep over
this, it's really a matter of curiosity. I was just wondering why the author
used a different form when hIEROUSALHM, occurring some 78 times in the NT, was
not his choice in the verses cited above, as well as in John 5:1 and 5:2 where
this same instance is presented again. Actually, John's gospel shows the
highest percentage of mixed forms(some 66% of Jerusalem's occurrence is in the
dative and genitive). I guess I'm trying to understand the apostle John's
mind, or reasoning, for what seems to be a curious difference in form.
Thanks again,
Vance Backus
---
B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [jwrobie@mindspring.com]
To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-327Q@franklin.oit.unc.edu
To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:37:23 EDT