ZWH AIWNIOS

Iver Larsen iver_larsen at sil.org
Sun Oct 20 07:15:33 EDT 2002



> Iver,
>
> Should we not consider the article in this discussion? Look here:
>
> JOHN 17:3 hAUTH DE ESTIN hH AIWNIOS ZWH hINA GINWSKWSIN SE TON MONON
> ALHQINON QEON KAI hON APESTEILAS IHSOUN CRISTON.
> ACTS 13:46 PARRHSIASAMENOI TE hO PAULOS KAI hO BARNABAS EIPAN: hUMIN HN
> ANAGKAION PRWTON LALHQHNAI TON LOGON TOU QEOU: EPEIDH APWQEISQE AUTON KAI
> OUK AXIOUS KRINETE hEAUTOUS THS AIWNIOU ZWHS, IDOU STREFOMEQA EIS TA EQNH.
> 1TIM. 6:12 AGWNIZOU TON KALON AGWNA THS PISTEWS, EPILABOU THS
> AIWNIOU ZWHS,
> EIS hHN EKLHQHS KAI hWMOLOGHSAS THN KALHN hOMOLOGIAN ENWPION POLLWN
> MARTURWN.
>
> And then look at these:
>
> 1JOHN 1:2 KAI hH ZWH EFANERWQH, KAI hEWRAKAMEN KAI MARTUROUMEN KAI
> APAGGELLOMEN hUMIN THN ZWHN THN AIWNION hHTIS HN PROS TON PATERA KAI
> EFANERWQH hHMIN -
> 1JOHN 2:25 KAI hAUTH ESTIN hH EPAGGELIA hHN AUTOS EPHGGEILATO hHMIN, THN
> ZWHN THN AIWNION.

Clay, what is your hypothesis?
How would you explain the difference between hH AIWNIOS ZWH in John 17:3 and
THN ZWHN THN AIWNION  in 1 John 1:2 and 2:25?  All three have the article,
which is somewhat unusual for this phrase.

You are absolutely right that one should include the presence or absence of
the article in the discussion, and my little side comment did not do justice
to the complexities of the issue. Let me quote from my little article on
Greek word order published in Notes on Translation:
"Since the adjective in the arthrous NP in most of the books of the New
Testament normally occurs before the noun, there is less possibility of
exploiting word order for emphasis in an arthrous NP compared to an
anarthrous NP."

We would also need to look at author preferences. To take another quote from
my article, still dealing with the arthrous NP:
"Luke has a tendency to prefer the adjective before the noun. (This applies
to Acts as well.) The same applies to Paul, James and the author of Hebrews.
John, on the other hand, prefers the adjective after the noun."

If we take this into account, the only place which might be considered a
marked order would be John 17:3 which has the adjective before the noun in
an arthrous NP, against the normal pattern in John's writings. But as I
said, this may be stylistic variation, since the previous sentence ends with
ZWHN AIWNION.

Iver Larsen





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