- The Greek words (ho pisteuon) as used in John 3 verses 15, 16 and 18 and also in 1 John 5 verse 10 refers to our belief.
There is an article on your sit stating that it is a PRESENT PARTICIPLE PORTRAYING A SINGLE MOMENT. If it however maens keep on believing (Present continuous) then it means if I stop believing I can lose my salvation. What is the case here? - In 1 John 3:9 the Greek words (hamartian ou poiei) (sin not he do) and also (hamartanein) (to sin). Does this mean keep on sinning or does not sin any more. Therefore stopped doing sin. It will make sense to me if it means does not sin any more.
If we get reborn, saved, it is our spirit that is reborn out of God and although our body and soul still commits sin, our spirit remains without sin. Is my interpretation correct?
You might want to try hermeneutics.stackexchange.com. I doubt that you’re going to get a purely linguistic answer to what is mainly a theological question.
Please give us some information so that we can find the thread, such as its date and title. (I know they sent you scary messages when you signed up saying not to post links, although I doubt that they care about internal links on the site to some other thread.)
I think this might be the one rmroode refers to. The OP’s claims were questioned by respondents at the time.
http://discourse.textkit.com/t/pas-ho-pisteuon-is-a-nominative-present-partic/5044/1
I’m not sure that anybody in that other thread was being very clear, and the original poster’s points seem to have been somewhat misunderstood.
A present participle can refer to a single state at a single time. This is in relation to the the main verb.
ὁ ἔχων ὦτα ἀκουέτω. Let the one having ears listen. (Having ears right now.) The imperative ἀκουέτω sets the time frame.
δίκαιος ὢν καὶ μὴ θέλων αὐτὴν δειγματίσαι, ἐβουλήθη λάθρᾳ ἀπολῦσαι αὐτήν. Being righteous (at that time) and not being willing (at that time) to make her a spectacle, he wanted to divorce her in secret. The aorist ἐβουλήθη sets the time frame.
There’s no meaning of the participles that can be deduced outside the timeframe of the main verb. Nothing about the participles indicates “always and forever” in the above.
But don’t take my word for it. Questions like these were why I wanted to learn Greek. Uncertainty about what was translation and what was Greek was terribly annoying to me in John (and more in Plato). In my opinion, if it’s important to your salvation, it’s worth spending a few years (or less) to learn to read Greek fluently.
First of all, these texts are probably not going to address your theological issue, and you need to think in terms of the broader context and common sense hermeneutical “rules.” Secondly, with regard to participles, it’s aspect relative to the main verb of the sentence or clause, and not tense, as your post seems to imply. The present participle simply shows that the state or action of the participle is occurring at the same time as the main verb, and you shouldn’t read too much more into it than that. With substantive participles, such as ὁ πιστεύων, the time of the verb relative to the main verb becomes an even less important distinction. The participle then is simply treated as a noun which describes its referent in terms of the action of the participle. Joel’s example is good here, ὁ ἔχων ὦτα, “the one who has ears.” ὁ πιστεύων “the one who believes, the believer…”
Any of Jesus’s actual teachings that survive in the gospels are already translations of what he said in Aramaic (apart from the small number of places where his Aramaic speech is directly represented in transliteration). Knowing the Greek language will get you closer to John, but the gospel of John is already very far removed from Jesus’s life and teachings, not just linguistically but also temporally and culturally (especially with all of the negative references to “Ἰουδαῖοι,” as if Jesus and Mary hadn’t been Jews). I’m an atheist, so religious believers won’t care what I think about salvation, but given that Jesus was an illiterate peasant who scorned “scribes,” it seems extremely odd to me to imagine that one’s salvation could hinge on a correct interpretation of a participle in an elaborate Hellenistic literary work like John.
Are you quite sure? There is increasing evidence that Greek was widespread in ancient Palestine at the time of Jesus, and that Jesus might actually have used that language along with Aramaic. And you know for a fact that Jesus was illiterate? He “scorned” the Scribes not for their education, but for their interpretation of certain OT passages and their actual practice, which he saw as flawed. We’ll never know exactly how literate Jesus was, but if the gospels are at least mildly accurate in their representation of him, he certainly knew some stuff…
John’s use of Ἱυδαῖοι is interesting, as it appears not so much a racial distinction as John’s term for the ruling class in opposition to Jesus.
To me too. Even if the use of the participle had not been completely misunderstood. (And salvation from what? The very premise is objectionable.)
Ben hit the nail on the head.
After reading this thread and the earlier πας ο πιστευων thread, it’s abundantly clear to me that I’m going to be consigned to eternal perdition in the flames of hell.
Make sure and look me up, and I’ll buy you a cold drink. I’ll be the guy suffering some appropriate punishment for inflicting hard physics problems on innocent students.
It was of course widespread as the lingua franca of government, as well as probably in commerce when Aramaic-speaking Jews interacted with Hellenized peoples, although there is some pretty good archaeological evidence that places like Nazareth were extremely insular and systematically avoided that type of interaction. Jesus also seems to have systematically avoided Hellenistic Sepphoris (which is very close to Nazareth) in favor of places like Capernaum (which is much more distant).
There is of course plenty of room for speculation about this, especially among religious fundamentalists and biblical literalists who want the language of the gospels to have some closer connection to Jesus.
It’s the most likely hypothesis if you accept naturalistic and historical assumptions, but of course we’ll never really know anything for sure about Jesus’s life beyond a very short list of basic facts.
He certainly would have heard the oral targums in Aramaic. (Writing them down in that language was forbidden at that time.) As with all these other things, we’ll never know with absolute certainty, but if Jesus had been scribally literate, then it would seem inexplicable to me that he left no writings. My own view of the gospels as historical documents is that they probably don’t rise to the level of “mildly accurate,” but of course religious believers will not agree with that.
Before I respond to your response, when I was in grad school at OSU, each department had their own dedicated room at the library. The physics department room was right below the classics department, and one day I accidentally got off on the wrong floor and ended up in the physics department. Out of curiosity, I pulled one book from the shelf. I couldn’t make sense out of the first page, so I left with my tail tucked to work on the Homer project for my seminar class at that time.
And as for beer, beer’s good… 
Pardon my dissent, but it is perfectly possible to say with a reasonable degree of certainty that Jesus was literate. (I attempt no argument for “absolute certainty”, which is foreign to all historical enquiry.) The evidence that comes to mind is Luke 4.14-20, in which he reads Isaiah 61, and hands it back to the attendant.
Maybe Luke, like John, is less than “mildly accurate”, but I don’t think that judgment is quite fair. Even those of us who will not want to accept the full historical accuracy of the gospels as a whole must explain them in some way, and they do hold plenty of evidence about Jesus, some of which is more controversial, some of which is much less so. A passage such as Luke 4 does not contain controversial elements, it is entirely acceptable to think that it could have been remembered until record, and I see no reason to discount it.
There are, it is true, many things about Jesus which are inexplicable, but that he did not write anything down is not one of them. Socrates, very clear literate, also did not write down his “teachings”. We have a similar problem of trying to discern the “real” Socrates, but there is plenty that can be said without going beyond the purported historical sources available. (We also struggle to interpret the lives of those who have left large legacies of writings, such as Cicero.)
But to take a step back, I must say that, as a Christian, this topic does make me chuckle - Christ the “Word”, he who made rhyme and reason itself, and the tongues of men to speak his praise, illiterate? Wonderful!
And to return to the wider thread, Ben is right that it is odd for salvation to rest on the interpretation of a Greek participle. Salvation depends on no such thing. But for teachers and willers-to-know, we must pick apart participles in order to know what is certain, what is doubtful, what is not so. And for that, Joel is right to say that study of the Greek is worthwhile.
Better still, rmroode (if you’re still reading), learn the Greek with someone else you know. It will be more fun, and you won’t get stuck in the middle of forum commentators’ debates 
Salvation from what? Maybe from being a poor Christian? And maybe salvation from being a poor human being?
Reading fluency in the most important Christian texts, as opposed to quote-mining them for argumentative purposes, seems like something that will certainly help someone be a less poor Christian. And I think that a chance to have a soul-to-soul moment with an author like John or Paul, to hear him give his lecture or elevator speech, as if he were right there in the room with us, well, that might be a worthwhile thing from a human perspective too.
Same for the classical texts and being saved from being a poor classicist.
Is it unacceptable to read John because he’s not Jesus himself? I don’t agree. I personally expect that Jesus close up might have been somewhat disappointing. It might have been easy to take him for a small-time religious leader or faith healer, preaching to backwards people. It takes distance and perspective to see a great man for what he really was. The social and historical remove from Napoleon or Caesar are what let us understand and judge their greatness.
Also, John may have something to say for himself.
Now, the issue of πίστις is interesting. We live in a less credulous age nowadays, at least for educated people. The reason, I think, is that there is so much more persuasive communication everywhere (printed text, advertising, and in the last 20 years, spam, SEO, etc.), and anyone with the credulity to believe whatever he hears is instantly filled with nonsense. But that’s really an issue with the communications medium. Living in a high noise level medium doesn’t actually give us special knowledge about the world. The opposite really. So if I don’t think that we can get the answers through a dedicated study of the meagre evidence, I also don’t think that we have to surrender to living as spiritually stunted animals either. We can have πίστις.
This is precisely what I was going to cite, you beat me to it.
And to return to the wider thread, Ben is right that it is odd for salvation to rest on the interpretation of a Greek participle. Salvation depends on no such thing. But for teachers and willers-to-know, we must pick apart participles in order to know what is certain, what is doubtful, what is not so. And for that, Joel is right to say that study of the Greek is worthwhile.
Of course “salvation” doesn’t depend on one word, even a feisty participle. For Christians it should be the analogia fidei, the whole text with each individual component read in context. For that matter, shouldn’t that be how we read all texts, since it’s not the individual words, but the words in context that truly bear the meaning of the text?
Robert said in his intro post that he had specifically theological reasons for wanting “explanation of Greek words” and wanted a place where he could ask experts (such as we have… ). He has perhaps gotten more than he bargained for. At age 73 I don’t think he plans to learn the language, which is unfortunate – I always remember the women who at age 95 started NT Greek through Moody Correspondence school, got her certificate after two years, and then started Hebrew…
There is also the passage in John 8.8 where Jesus writes something on the ground.
Of course “salvation” doesn’t depend on one word, even a feisty participle. For Christians it should be the analogia fidei, the whole text with each individual component read in context. For that matter, shouldn’t that be how we read all texts, since it’s not the individual words, but the words in context that truly bear the meaning of the text?
Robert said in his intro post that he had specifically theological reasons for wanting “explanation of Greek words” and wanted a place where he could ask experts (such as we have… >
Hope he hasn’t been scared away.
I’m amazed that we’re into this contentious discussion of religion, and yet everybody is being very civil. Textkit seems to be a very atypical corner of the internet. Yay
I think one’s attitude about the gospels as historical evidence is going to be very different depending on whether one is a religious believer or not. I don’t generally go out of my way to pour scorn on people’s religious beliefs online, but by the same token I’m sometimes surprised when religious believers online expect strangers who are not coreligionists to adopt a credulous view of their beliefs. As someone who does not believe in Christianity, my evaluation is that the bible is >30% morally harmful, about 20% nonsense, >30% lying propaganda, ~5% literature with intrinsic merit, and <1% morally positive. So when we’re told by Luke that Jesus read a scroll, I don’t really consider that evidence. It’s about as reliable as using the gospels as evidence of various other propaganda-motivated historical implausibilities, such as the birth in Bethlehem or the family’s trip to Egypt.
The question of Jesus’s literacy has been discussed by many learned people. AFAICT, the consensus among people who are not fundamentalists or biblical literalists is that he was almost certainly not scribally literate, and was probably not literate at all. People like Crossan have gone into this sort of thing. But obviously it depends on who you read, and on whether you accept their foundational assumptions, such as supernaturalism versus naturalism.
Ben, I assume there’s some overlap between your “morally harmful” and “lying propaganda” categories.
Let’s go with that narrative…
I think one’s attitude about the gospels as historical evidence is going to be very different depending on whether one is a religious believer or not. I don’t generally go out of my way to pour scorn on people’s religious beliefs online, but by the same token I’m sometimes surprised when religious believers online expect strangers who are not coreligionists to adopt a credulous view of their beliefs. As someone who does not believe in Christianity, my evaluation is that the bible is >30% morally harmful, about 20% nonsense, >30% lying propaganda, ~5% literature with intrinsic merit, and <1% morally positive. So when we’re told by Luke that Jesus read a scroll, I don’t really consider that evidence. It’s about as reliable as using the gospels as evidence of various other propaganda-motivated historical implausibilities, such as the birth in Bethlehem or the family’s trip to Egypt.
Of course. if you are going to take the text presuppositionally more or less at face value, then you are going come to one set of conclusions. If you are going to presuppositionally reject the text as a later fabrication with various layers of composition, then another set of conclusions present themselves. Or somewhere in between…
Caesar’s De Bello Gallico. How much is actually historically reliable, and how much is propaganda?
The question of Jesus’s literacy has been discussed by many learned people. AFAICT, the consensus among people who are not fundamentalists or biblical literalists is that he was almost certainly not scribally literate, and was probably not literate at all. People like Crossan have gone into this sort of thing. But obviously it depends on who you read, and on whether you accept their foundational assumptions, such as supernaturalism versus naturalism.
Interesting discussion indeed. A lot has to do with general literacy and how we define it, and there’s a healthy amount of literature on that as well. We need to do our best to evaluate such arguments on their merits, and not on anyone’s religious preference.
Paul’s letter to the Galatians, which isn’t in much doubt as a historical source, could be used to make a case for the literacy of some of Jesus’ close associates.
Ἰάκωβος καὶ Κηφᾶς καὶ Ἰωάννης οἱ δοκοῦντες στῦλοι εἶναι δεξιὰς ἔδωκαν ἐμοὶ καὶ Βαρνάβα κοινωνίας ἵνα ἡμεῖς εἰς τὰ ἔθνη αὐτοὶ δὲ εἰς τὴν περιτομήν μόνον τῶν πτωχῶν ἵνα μνημονεύωμεν
Here, James, Peter, and John, have given Paul franchise rights for worldwide gentile preaching (in return for a little something for the poor).
But notice just a little before, where Paul described his visit with them (Peter and James at least) in Jerusalem.
Ἔπειτα μετὰ τρία ἔτη ἀνῆλθον εἰς Ἱεροσόλυμα ἱστορῆσαι Κηφᾶν καὶ ἐπέμεινα πρὸς αὐτὸν ἡμέρας δεκαπέντε ἕτερον δὲ τῶν ἀποστόλων οὐκ εἶδον εἰ μὴ Ἰάκωβον τὸν ἀδελφὸν τοῦ Κυρίου…Ἔπειτα ἦλθον εἰς τὰ κλίματα τῆς Συρίας καὶ τῆς Κιλικίας ἤμην δὲ ἀγνοούμενος τῷ προσώπῳ ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις τῆς Ἰουδαίας ταῖς ἐν Χριστῷ μόνον δὲ ἀκούοντες ἦσαν ὅτι Ὁ διώκων ἡμᾶς ποτε νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται τὴν πίστιν ἥν ποτε ἐπόρθει καὶ ἐδόξαζον ἐν ἐμοὶ τὸν Θεόν
Now when Paul visited Syria and Cilicia, they didn’t know Paul by face, but had heard about him. How? It sure sounds to me that they were in written communication with other churches, specifically the one in Jerusalem. It strikes me that the “pillars of the church” that Paul interacted with were likely somewhat literate. (We even have supposed letters of Peter and James, which are either real, or if not, a contradiction of the supposedly “inexplicable” event mentioned above of the most important Christian figures leaving behind no writings.)
So here we have close associates of Jesus, apparently literate.
In fact, Paul throughout his letters seems to make lots of casual inferences of literacy. There are some in the gospels as well (Pilate’s sign, for instance). I think that literacy may have been more widespread (as was Greek) than is being assumed.
EDIT: However, I agree that the Jesus (and Peter and James) of the Gospels seem less likely to be literate, as described, given their family and careers. But neither do the Gospel versions seem to fit perfectly with Paul’s description of them, nor with their surviving attributed letters. I suspect that Paul’s letters are a bit closer to the actual historical figures on this point.
It is an interesting discussion and quit civil too.
I’m a non-believer but I accept the claim that Jesus was literate at least to some degree. In any case, I don’t think one is unreasonable for believing otherwise.
Also, think you might be interested in Robert Alter’s “The Art of Biblical Narrative”. The book only deals with the Old Testament, but in it he makes a very good case for treating it as great literature. Certainly English and American literature owes a great debt to the Bible.