genitive autou in John 1:3

Barry Hofstetter nebarry at earthlink.net
Sat Dec 14 23:32:45 EST 2002



----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Dewus" <dewus at bluemarble.net>
To: "Biblical Greek" <b-greek at franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Saturday, December 14, 2002 2:39 PM
Subject: [b-greek] genitive autou in John 1:3


> BlankThank you for your help and guidance previously with this question; I
> am curious as to your opinion regarding the possibility that John did in
> fact intend the genitive-possessive form His...in PANTA DI AUTOU
> EGENETO...and again later in KAI CWRIS AUTOU EGENETO; such that he meant the
> Word verbatim through the use of the possessive pronoun, which would have
> been understood/comprehended amongst/by his (near) contemporaries, is that a
> possibility in ancient Greek, relative to this sentence structure and
> application involving AUTO? Translated, he would have said 'all through His
> [Word--understood] came into being, and without His [ Word-understood] came
> into being not even one...' Can this be taken beyond the realm of subjection
> by some evidence of their language? Its awkward  in English, but perhaps it
> is not so in the vernacular of John's day. For an English example, my use of
> awkward just now is probably understood so: that it's awkward [grammatically
> and/or colloquially], to some readers. Thanks. Kind regards,

Mike, absolutely not.  The construction of the genitive with the prepositions is
such a standard expression in Greek that it is impossible for it to mean what
you suggest above.  Rather, an entirely different construction would have to be
used to express the thought, something like DIA TOU LOGOU AUTOU (or perhaps TWi
LOGWi AUTOU to avoid any ambiguity).  That the antecedent of AUTOU is LOGOS is
clear from the flow of discourse; that it would somehow be understood with AUTOU
as a dependent genitive simply would not occur to the reader.

N.E. Barry Hofstetter
Professor of Theological and Biblical Studies
    The Center for Urban Theological Studies, Philadelphia, PA
http://home.earthlink.net/~nebarry




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