Calzaer

It would seem to me that a consistent use of "the father" would have prevented Jesus from charges of blasphemy, but it also would have made him out to be nothing more special than your standard run-of-the-mill street preacher.

Chris Weimer

Wow, I wonder how I missed this topic too! Interesting stuff, spin. I'll be back to start giving some more analyses on it, just don't have the time at the moment. Keep this alive!

Rick Sumner

My concern is that, while it is certainly possible, perhaps even probable, that this did at one time signify a break, successive copying may have skewed it--a "my father" in place of "the father" here and there renders it impossible to determine what the originals were.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Chris Weimer

But then you use other textual criticism to place the redaction, the difference in the fathers' is only a starting point. Great find spin.

chapka

I don't think anyone has answered this. My Greek is a bit rusty, but based on a quick look at an online koine version, it appears that "the father" generally represents some form of "tou patros," while "my father" generally indicates "tou patros mou" or some form thereof.

However, bearing in mind that I don't read Greek, in some cases I don't see an obvious possessive. For example, John 10:29 is translated as containing two "my father"s. The Greek is:



The first "my father" appears to be "o pater mou," but the second is "tou patros" alone. Again, I'm not really a Greek reader, so I can't tell you if the "moi" earlier in the sentence could modify the "tov patros" to justify the "my father" translation or not.

In summary, some quick spot-checks of 5-10 occurrences turned up mostly correspondences but some inconclusive results, so it may be worth checking the Greek before you start drawing conclusions. Anyone with better koine chops care to take a crack at this?

Rick Sumner

Do we have early enough versions for anything approaching useful textual criticism on this point? It's such a minor change, and such a perfectly understandable mistake, that it could find ubiquity by sheer serendipity.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Chris Weimer

My Koine is decent, so I can take some of that burden.

spin

John 10:29...
There's a good reason not to use the AV as a yardstick. It has, in translation, infected "the father" making it a "my father".

Go by the Greek. It uses possessive pronouns as though they were adjectives, so you get

"the father my" -- "o pater mou" = "my father"
"the father your" -- "o pater umwn" = "your father"
etc.

And Rick, yes, there could easily be scribal and gloss contamination, but further analysis should be able to have something to say as to whether there is more to the difference than that.

Incidentally, there are 59 instances of the simple "the father" and 35 of "my father". I think there is quite a good sample of the two to see some trends if there are any to be seen.


spin

Chili

Yes but spin, "your father" is not the same father as "my father" and "the father."

spin

Ma come mai non capisci un cazzo di cio' che si trova nel discorso??