Dear b-greekers, On Fri, 29 Jun 2001 06:37:44 -0500 "Carl W. Conrad" writes: > In the message I sent a few minutes ago, I now realize that I never > did > clearly answer the chief question: I DON'T think that readers should > assume > that what's cited in the hOTI clause is believed by the writer > himself to > be true; he's simply reporting or telling what he thinks the > reasoning > behind their action was. 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. IWAN. E 18 Carl, Of course the writer himself believed that the content of the hOTI clause was true! Thus he believed the following three statements to be true: 1) Jesus claimed to be the unique (IDION) Son of God. 2) Sonship implies equality with the Father. 3) Jesus broke the Sabbath. Surely no one can doubt that John believed 1 and 2 to be true. In fact, he not only believed that Jesus CLAIMED to be God's Son, but also that the claim was true. If he believed that the claim was true, then naturally he believed that Jesus actually made the claim. I don't think I need to cite any proof texts for this. As for equality with the Father, I think nearly everyone on this list could cite several verses from John's gospel to show this. Now while it is true that John shared his belief in the truth of 1 and 2 with the Jews, did he also share their belief in the truth of 3? Did he believe that Jesus broke the Sabbath as the Jews believed? The hOTI clause is composed of two sub-clauses set in the form of the OU MONON ... ALLA KAI structure. The rhetorical effect of this structure is ADDITIVE and is called **a minore ad majorem**. John builds his argument from the lesser to the greater. He begins with the weaker cause for putting Jesus to death: he broke the Sabbath. He then goes on to state the stronger cause: he claimed God was his Father in a special way, which is tantamount to claiming equality with God. If John was willing to own the greater cause for killing Jesus (and by implication his followers) as true, why should we think he would not or did not own the lesser cause? The additive and parallel nature of the hOTI clause leads me to conclude that if the stronger assertions about Jesus in the ALLA KAI sub-clause are John's own beliefs, then weaker one in the OU MONON sub-clause is his as well. Carl, the section of Smyth which you cited, #2614, is irrelevant. The relevant sections which support my contention are #2086 and #2242 and also see #2622. Yours in His grace, Richard Ghilardi -- qodeshlayhvh@juno.com New Haven, CT USA Nibai kaurno hwaiteis gadriusando in airtha gaswiltith, silbo ainata aflifnith: ith jabai gaswiltith, manag akran bairith. --- 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