genitive in John 1:3
bertdehaan at gosympatico.ca
bertdehaan at gosympatico.ca
Sat Dec 14 10:41:20 EST 2002
>
> From: "Harry W. Jones" <hwjones2 at earthlink.net>
> Date: 2002/12/14 Sat AM 08:57:06 GMT-05:00
> To: Biblical Greek <b-greek at franklin.oit.unc.edu>
> Subject: [b-greek] Re: genitive in John 1:3
>
>
> Dear Mike,
>
> If I understand you correctly you are not asking why AUTOU is in
> the genitive case but why it's not translated as we are taught in
> basic Greek, as a possessive. But the genitive form can be used in a
> number
> of different senses or functions depending on the context.
> With the possessive sense being only one of them. In this context Christ
> is being presented as the agency by which all things came into existance.
> Therefore the genitive form for agency was use for this function rather
> than the accusative form for cause. And the connecting preposition DIA
> used between the verb EGENETO and the genitive direct object AUTOU to
> to farther clarify this relationship. So Mike that would be why AUTOU
> is translated as "him" in this passage.
>
>
> Harry Jones
Harry; If the genitive can indicate agency,does that mean that this sentence would make sense without the preposition?
Bert de Haan
>
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Mike Dewus" <dewus at bluemarble.net>
> > To: "Biblical Greek" <b-greek at franklin.oit.unc.edu>
> > Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 8:46 PM
> > Subject: [b-greek] genitive in John 1:3
> >
> >
> > > John 1:3 reads, PANTA DI AUTOU EGENETO...was wondering why
> > > the genitive AUTOU is used but the translation is him; same with KAI
> > > CWRIS AUTOU EGENETO later; thanks.
> > >
> > > Mike Dewus
> >
> > Mike, the pronoun is genitive because it is the object of the preposition DIA,
> > which takes the genitive when denoting instrumentality. In English, "through"
> > takes the objective "him" not the possessive form "his."
> >
> > Since the immediate antecedent of the pronoun is LOGOS, I have often wondered if
> > translating it with the impersonal pronoun in English would better capture the
> > force, as the author builds up to the person of Christ in the incarnation in
> > John 1:14ff.
> >
> > N.E. Barry Hofstetter
> > Adjunct Professor, CUTS
> > http://home.earthlink.net/~nebarry
> > Moderator:
> > Reformed Theology Discussion
> > rtdisc at yahoogroups.com
> > Biblical Exegesis Group
> > bibexegesis at yahoogroups.com
>
> ---
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