[B-Greek] why the hWN would be expected, but not hO in John 1.3?

Richard Ghilardi qodeshlayhvh at juno.com
Wed Mar 19 21:07:41 EST 2003


Dear b-greekers,

I agree with Barrett (and Conrad) that hWN is to be expected here. In
fact, that is exactly what we have here! hWN is hO assimilated to the
case AND NUMBER of OUDE hEN. In other words what we have here is a DOUBLE
assimilation. First hA is assimilated to the case of the implied
demonstrative, EKEINWN, yielding hWN, and then hWN is again assimilated
to the case and number of OUDE hEN, yielding hO.

hA --> hWN --> hO

It therefore follows that the observation that we would expect to find
hWN (with which I agree) is no obstacle to taking hO GEGONEN with what
precedes since hWN is just what we have here (in assimilated form).

Yours in His grace,

Richard Ghilardi -- qodeshlayhvh at juno.com
New Haven, CT USA


[Lew]

> >    In his "The Gospel according to St. John", C. K. Barrett says 
> at p.
> >156 that "...and because after OUDE hEN, hWN ( rather than hO) 
> GEGONEN
> >would be expected."
> >
> >    I wonder why the hWN would be expected, but not hO?

[Conrad]

> Now I see that the only text you could be referring to is in the 
> prologue, 1:3:
> 
>         CWRIS AUTOU EGENETO OUDE hEN hO GEGONEN
> 
> What we have here with hO (i.e. hO\) is "not a single thing that 
> exists as
> created" or something like that.
> 
> On the other hand I suppose that Barrett means that we'd expect a 
> partitive
> genitive with OUDEN or OUDE hEN, a hWN (or hW=N) representing 
> EKEINWN hA:
> "not a single one of those things which exist as created." And this 
> is one
> of a number of reasons why the NA27/USB4 committee preferred on the 
> whole
> to understand hO GEGONEN as belonging to a new sentence: "That which 
> has
> created existence ..." Metzger has a lengthy note on this in his 
> _Textual
> Commentary on the Greek New Testament_. As I recall, Iver has 
> argued
> recently that the sense of hO GEGONEN EN AUTWi ZWH HN is difficult. 
> The
> truth is, I think, that there are difficulties of one sort or 
> another
> whether one prefers to construe hO GEGONEN essentially with what 
> precedes
> or with what follows. While it may be true to say that we'd "expect" 
> hWN
> instead of hO after OUDE hEN, I wouldn't want to assert dogmatically 
> that
> hO GEGONEN is intolerable. Problems arise in one text in the GNT 
> (and in
> other Greek texts also) that aren't resolved by knowing what we'd 
> expect
> (although that's not an altogether negligible factgor either); we 
> have to
> make sense of what the text offers us, insofar as we're able.


More information about the B-Greek mailing list