Is κυριος Nominative or Vocative?

Someone pointed out the other day that the only time Jesus is directly addressed in the nominative κυριος as opposed to the vocative κυριε is in Thomas’ declaration, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28, ο κυριος μου και ο θεος μου). Is there any significance?

On the one hand, the nominative can be used to function as the vocative, so there is no necessary significance. And yet it is interesting that this is the only example of κυριος being used this way of Jesus. In every other case (as far as I can tell) it is κυριε.

I wouldn’t have thought much about this distinction except that it is such an important passage. It is one of clearest statements of the divinity of Christ, and although our Christology does not depend on explicit statements, it is nonetheless important (see the discussion in Carson’s commentary).

Morris has a helpful footnote. If it is not the vocative, then the question is: what has been dropped out of the sentence? "It is my Lord and my God. My Lord and my God has indeed risen". One of the trickier areas of Greek is this entire issue of leaving words out. It would be nice if everyone followed Daniel Wallace’s carefully defined Greek grammar. It would be nice if we all spoke our language precisely. But the fact of the matter is that we do often leave words out, and those omitted words can often explain the grammar of the words that do appear.

But I doubt that there is any special significance here. The text specifically says, "And he [Thomas] said to him [Jesus]." Most likely the nominative is functioning as a vocative, nothing more.

Wouldn’t it be great if Greek unlocked the mysteries of the universe—every time? But it doesn’t. Sometimes the hard work of exegesis just gets us back to the mundane and ordinary. That’s okay. Last week’s blog caused enough discussion, as will next week’s.

William D. [Bill] Mounce posts every Monday about the Greek language, exegesis, and related topics at Koinonia. He is the author of numerous books, including the bestselling Basics of Biblical Greek (third edition coming in 2009!), and general editor for Mounce's Complete Expository Dictionary of the Old and New Testament Words. He served as the New Testament chair of the English Standard Version Bible translation. Learn more and visit Bill's blog (co-authored with scholar and his father Bob Mounce) at www.billmounce.com.

Comments

[Dan Phillips]

It's interesting that you would focus on this. Because of my (now infrequently-updated) Greek blog, a Jehovah's Witness evidently found my phone number and called me out of the blue under the pretext of asking me a question. He actually wanted to lecture me.

He claimed to know Greek, though I soon found that he could not read it at all, and had simply pecked here and there.

He tried very hard to gut this passage by insisting that the use of the nominative as vocative was unparalleled. I went right where you did: (A) the nominative is indeed used for the vocative, and (B) regardless, the passage explicitly says that Thomas answered and said to Him.

But since when has context been significant to a Jehovah's Witness? It wasn't this time, either. Sadly.

[Richard W. Wilson]

Hi,
I'm not a Greek scholar, and a rather poor student of same (despite years of efforts). However, as one who came to faith in Christ and experienced God as directing me to find truth primarily in and through Scripture, I'm curious why you say the following regarding Thomas' affirmation of the divinity of the risen Christ: "it is one of clearest statements of the divinity of Christ, and although our Christology does not depend on explicit statements, it is nonetheless important." Just exactly why shouldn't our understanding of Christology--by which I think you mean Trinitarianism--be based on explicit statements of divinely inspired scripture?
All the best in Christ,
Richard W. Wilson

[Richard W. Wilson]

Oh, I thought you might not be eager to answer that question. Why? Is dependence on the explicit teaching of scripture a problem? Is this getting to be the elephant in the Christian theological room perhaps? The past president of ETS re-reformed into Roman Catholicism and noted in an interview with CT that you couldn't get to trinitarianism directly from scripture. Hummmm.. . . . So, does the divergence of church tradition from scripture bother anybody else out there?
Yours for an in Christ our Lord, God, and Savior,
Richard W. Wilson

[Jonathan G]

I think most would agree that this could simply just be a nominative used as vocative. One reason it could be different is because most times Jesus is addressed as kurie, the speaker is simply stating Christ's title before they speak. (Kurie, blah blah blah).
However, if we were to make Thomas' statement a complete sentence, it would read "YOU ARE my Lord and my God." The verb is understood. In this case, you grammatically don't use the vocative, so the Nominative makes perfect sense because it’s the object of the copulative verb.
Either way, it doesn’t change the meaning. I just wanted to note this construction is different than most of the vocatives we see.