γέρων ὤν. He puts the most impossible case, possibly with reference to himself, ‘when he is an old man, like myself.’ New birth as a metaphor for spiritual regeneration cannot have been unknown to Nicodemus. He purposely misinterprets, in order to force a reductio ad absurdum: or, more probably, not knowing what to say, he asks what he knows to be a foolish question.

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Old Testament