416 THoMAS ToPS the reader attentive to the different possibilities of interpretation, be- cause it encourages “close attention to the words about himself that Jesus put on Pilate’s lips”, namely: su. le,geij o[ti basileu,j eivmi evgw,. eivj tou/to... (18,37) 69. We remark that Heath changed the punctuation of the Nestle Aland-edition, and as a result an evgw, eivmi-saying comes out of it: basileu,j eivmi evgw, 70. In this way, “the reference to ‘kingship’ resonates with the Johannine usage of evgw, eivmi” 71, and “the syntactic and verbal similarities between them encourage hearing them together, and listening to the interrelationships between them” 72. This is so because, according to Heath: By the time Jesus reaches the praetorium [...] the phrase evgw, eivmi has become familiar to readers of John’s Gospel as one that is richly im- bued with connotations of God’s self-declaration in Deutero-Isaiah and Deut. 32,39. When Jesus observes, su. le,geij o[ti basileu,j eivmi evgw,, it is plausible that the back to front evgw, eivmi may evoke its significance in the rest of the Gospel 73. The reversed order of eivmi evgw, does not impede the evocation of the meaning of evgw, eivmi. From this, Heath infers that 18,38a is a hermeneutical trigger with a range that is much broader than the direct context of 18,36-38, namely that it prompts the reader to question the relation between “truth” and the language of all the evgw, eivmi-sayings that preceded it. The question of whether this broadening of the scope of 18,38a is justified depends on the meaning assigned to the words that introduce basileu,j eivmi evgw,. According to Heath, we can derive from this expres- sion that Jesus does not “in words affirm or deny what Pilate says; he leaves it as a statement that Pilate says, or that he says Pilate says” 74. Heath observes correctly that 19,21 points out that it is unclear who it is 69 HeATH, “you Say”, 244. 70 For the argumentation Heath presents in support of this alternative punctu- ation, see HeATH, “you Say”, 232-246. In Nestle Aland 28 we find: su. le,geij o[ti basileu,j eivmiÅ evgw. eivj tou/to... Notwithstanding her text-critical, tradition-critical, redaction-critical, and literary arguments to defend it, one has to admit that Heath’s proposal of the punctuation of 18,37 is somewhat arbitrary, with its main support found only in the Byzantine text (Su. le,geij° o[ti basileu,j eivmi evgw,) Ev gw. eivj tou/to gege,nnhmai)))). Consequently, her interpretation is a possible one, yet not the most probable from a textual point of view. 71 HeATH, “you Say”, 240. 72 HeATH, “you Say”, 247. 73 HeATH, “you Say”, 248. 74 HeATH, “you Say”, 249.