te^n arche^n in John 8:25

Wieland Willker willker at chemie.uni-bremen.de
Thu Apr 6 05:41:11 EDT 2000


Robertson's Word-pictures:
 A difficult sentence. It is not clear whether it is an affirmation or a
question. The Latin and Syriac versions treat it as affirmative. Westcott
and Hort follow Meyer and take it as interrogative. The Greek fathers take
it as an exclamation. It seems clear that the adverbial Akkusativ THN ARCHN
cannot mean "from the beginning" like AP ARCH  (15:27) or EX ARCH  (16:4).
The LXX has THN ARCHN  for "at the beginning" or "at the first" (Ge 43:20).
There are examples in Greek, chiefly negative, where THN ARCHN  means "at
all," "essentially," "primarily." Vincent and Bernard so take it here,
"Primarily what I am telling you." Jesus avoids the term Messiah with its
political connotations. He stands by his high claims already made.

Best wishes
    Wieland
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