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Thursday, September 17, 2009

John 2:19

ἀπεκρίθη Ἰησοῦς καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· λύσατε τὸν ναὸν τοῦτον, καὶ ἐν τρισὶν ἡμέραις ἐγερῶ αὐτόν.

Rough Word-by-word:
he answered Jesus and he said to them, "You destroy the temple this, and in three days I will raise up it."

Smooth Translation:
Jesus answered and said to them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."

Notes:
I really wanted to translate the quote, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise him up."

ἀπεκρίθη verb aorist passive 3rd singular from ἀποκρίνομαι (I answer) "he answered"

Ἰησοῦς proper noun nominative masculine singular "Jesus"

καὶ conjunction "and"

εἶπεν verb aorist active indicative 3rd singular from λέγω (I say) "he said"

αὐτοῖς pronoun dative 3rd plural "to them"

λύσατε verb aorist active imperative 2nd plural from λύω (I loose/I destroy) "you all destroy" (note: it's not indicative because there is no augment)

τὸν definite article accusative masculine singular "the"

ναὸν noun accusative masculine singular "temple"

τοῦτον demonstrative pronoun accusative masculine singular "this"

καὶ conjunction "and"

ἐν dative preposition "in"

τρισὶν adjective dative feminine plural "three"

ἡμέραις noun dative feminine plural "days"

ἐγερῶ verb future active indicative 1st singular from ἐγείρω (I raise up) "I will raise up"

αὐτόν pronoun accusative masculine singular "him" (note: The antecedent is ναὸν... or is it?)

3 comments:

Linda Davison said...

Since John wrote near the end of the 1st century, I am sure that the early church must have felt the same way as you do in wanting to translate it "him". The double meaning would have likely been obvious.

Katie said...

This is one of those passages where English translations already do some exegesis for us based on whether they translate it as "it" or "him." Just another benefit of digging into the original text! :)

marty said...

Yes!
God's Word is soooo..... amazing.