| 11. Linguistic Exegesis The verse opens with the compound element kakeinoi {κἀκεῖνοι | ka-keî-noi} ‘and those ones’, combining the connective kai with the demonstrative ekeinoi to resume and specify a known group of disciples. This subject is followed by the aorist participle akousantes {ἀκούσαντες | a-koú-san-tes} ‘having heard’, which functions adverbially and temporally: the hearing is completed prior to the main verb, so English renders it as “when they heard” or “having heard.” The conjunction hoti {ὅτι | hó-ti} introduces the content of their hearing in an indirect discourse structure. Within this hoti-clause, two coordinated finite verbs share the same implied subject: ze {ζῇ | zē} ‘he lives’ (present tense stressing ongoing life) and etheathe {ἐθεάθη | e-the-á-thē} ‘he was seen’ (aorist passive marking the completed appearance). The agent of the passive is expressed in the prepositional phrase hyp autes {ὑπʼ αὐτῆς | hyp au-tês} ‘by her’, foregrounding the female witness as the one who saw Him. The clause then moves to the main aorist indicative epistesan {ἠπίστησαν | ē-pís-tē-san} ‘they did not believe’, which summarizes their response as a definite, completed act of unbelief. Greek word order places the hearing and the full content of the testimony before the climactic statement of disbelief, creating a rhetorical progression from report to rejection; the English renderings preserve this by keeping the participial clause at the front and culminating with “did not believe” / “would not believe” as the final assertion. |