John 5:44

5:44 How can you believe, if you accept praise ¹  from one another and don’t seek the praise ²  that comes from the only God? ³ 

John 7:19

7:19 Hasn’t Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps ⁴  the law! Why do you want ⁵  to kill me?”

John 8:37

8:37 I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. ⁶  But you want ⁷  to kill me, because my teaching ⁸  makes no progress among you. ⁹ 

John 8:40

8:40 But now you are trying ¹⁰  to kill me, a man who has told you ¹¹  the truth I heard from God. Abraham did not do this! ¹² 

[5:44]  ¹ tn Or “honor” (Grk “glory,” in the sense of respect or honor accorded to a person because of their status).

[5:44]  ² tn Or “honor” (Grk “glory,” in the sense of respect or honor accorded to a person because of their status).

[5:44]  ³ tc Several early and important witnesses (Ì^66,75 B W a b sa) lack θεοῦ (qeou, “God”) here, thus reading “the only one,” while most of the rest of the tradition, including some important mss, has the name ({א A D L Θ Ψ 33 Ï}). Internally, it could be argued that the name of God was not used here, in keeping with the NT practice of suppressing the name of God at times for rhetorical effect, drawing the reader inexorably to the conclusion that the one being spoken of is God himself. On the other hand, never is ὁ μόνος (Jo mono") used absolutely in the NT (i.e., without a noun or substantive with it), and always the subject of the adjunct is God (cf. Matt 24:36; John 17:3; 1 Tim 6:16). What then is to explain the shorter reading? In uncial script, with θεοῦ written as a nomen sacrum, envisioning accidental omission of the name by way of homoioteleuton requires little imagination, largely because of the succession of words ending in -ου: toumonouqMuou. It is thus preferable to retain the word in the text.

[7:19]  ⁴ tn Or “accomplishes”; Grk “does.”

[7:19]  ⁵ tn Grk “seek.”

[8:37]  ⁷ tn Grk “seed” (an idiom).

[8:37]  ⁸ tn Grk “you are seeking.”

[8:37]  ⁹ tn Grk “my word.”

[8:37]  ¹⁰ tn Or “finds no place in you.” The basic idea seems to be something (in this case Jesus’ teaching) making headway or progress where resistance is involved. See BDAG 1094 s.v. χωρέω 2.

[8:40]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “seeking.”

[8:40]  ¹¹ tn Grk “has spoken to you.”

[8:40]  ¹² tn The Greek word order is emphatic: “This Abraham did not do.” The emphasis is indicated in the translation by an exclamation point.