John 1:1-2

George Blaisdell maqhth at hotmail.com
Thu Mar 25 01:56:55 EST 1999





>From: Jack Kilmon 

>As you know, 4G is a work that was developed                         
>in Asia Minor for over 300
>years.  The latest additions, glosses and                   
>interpolations seem to have
<taken place around the time of Codex D.                              
>An earlier form of the Gospel
>probably began with what is now 1:19.

Jack ~ 
  
I really do not know this, although I am aware of that approach through 
reading the Brown commentary.  

The high level of chiastic integration of the whole of 4G argues very 
strongly for its creation by a single author.  As an assemblage of 
add-ons over a prolonged period of time, it could not be so tightly and 
chiastically knit.  It has a chiastic unity and integration throughout 
that simply could not be there were it written by a composit of authors 
and redactors over a long period of time.  [Fr. Beck is my source on 
this understanding ~ "The Shape of Biblical Language"]

An antiphonal hymn is where the
>lector and the congregation would alternate stanzas, sort of like when
>a minister says "The Lord be with you" and the congregation answers,
>"and with your spirit."  The prologue to 4G was just such an antiphony
>in the early Church. The lector/presbyter would sing "In the beginning
>was the word." The congregation/assembly would respond ""And the Word
>was with God."  The leader would answer "And the word WAS God."  And so
>on and so forth.  Your treatment of the beautiful chiastic pattern of
>this "song" sung between leader and congregation brought the hymn
>to life.

Thank-you...  

Do you have the entire hymn and its antiphonal divisions?  Did any of 
its music get passed along?  Do the Orthodox Greeks maybe sing it?

I keep trying to 'hear' it...  At least I now understand what 
'antiphonal' means ~ Thanks.

George


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