| 28. Linguistic Exegesis The verse is built around two coordinated aorist verbs, apekrithe {ἀπεκρίθη | a-pe-krí-thē} ‘he answered’ and eipen {εἶπεν | eî-pen} ‘he said’, which together frame Thomas’s response as both an act of reply and a spoken confession. The dative auto {αὐτῷ | au-tô} ‘to Him’ identifies Jesus as the direct recipient of the confession. The climactic quotation ho kyrios mou kai ho theos mou {Ὁ κύριός μου καὶ ὁ θεός μου | ho ký-ri-os mou kaí ho the-ós mou} ‘my Lord and my God’ uses repeated articles and matching nominative forms that function as direct address; the normal Greek vocative is replaced here by a solemn nominative-for-vocative construction, making the confession sound formal and emphatic. The repeated mou {μου | mou} personalizes both titles and turns the statement into a personal allegiance rather than a detached theological claim. |