John 1:26

John 1:26 e[sthken {B}

The perfect tense, so frequently employed with theological overtones by the Fourth Evangelist, conveys a special force here (something like, “there is One who has taken his stand in your midst”), a force that was unappreciated by several Greek witnesses (B L ¦¹ Origen Cyril) as well as by a variety of Latin, Syriac, and Coptic witnesses (it^{a, b, c, e. ff2, l, q} syr^{c, s, p, h, pal} cop^{sa, bo}), all of which preferred the more syntactically appropriate present tense. Other readings (the imperfect e`sth,kei and the pluperfect ei`sth,kei), besides being inappropriate in the context, are insufficiently supported. (On the forms of sth,kw see Blass-Debrunner-Funk, § 73.)