John 20:31 was Re: [B-Greek] Phil 2:11
Iver Larsen
iver_larsen at sil.org
Thu Oct 16 01:23:53 EDT 2003
> >
> >There is more to BDF § 273 than these brief quotes. After the
> statement you
> >quote, § 273 continues: "Nevertheless the article is inserted if the
> >predicate noun is presented as something well known or as that
> which alone
> >merits the designation." He then gives the kind of examples like
> the ones I
> >gave where hO CRISTOS is clearly a predicate noun with the article. The
> >general rule is that it has the article, even as a predicate, and you are
> >suggesting that John 20:31 should be an exception to the rule.
>
> Not at all. I'm suggesting that hO CRISTOS is subject, so the rule about
> whether it gets the article in the predicate is not implicated.
I thought one of your main reasons for suggesting that it has to be subject
was that it could not be the predicate, because it has the article. If this
is your chain of reasoning, it is faulty, since the first premise is wrong
according to BDF § 273. I am saying that this particular word is "definite"
in that only one person merits that designation, and that is why it always
has the article in John, whether predicate or not.
In a previous mail you said:
"It is not just the presence of the article on CRISTOS that
makes it the subject; it is that fact plus the absence of
the article on IHSOUS is what strongly indicates that Jesus
is the predicate noun and the Messiah is the subject."
Here you have an additional argument apart from the article on CRISTOS,
namely the lack of article on IHSOUS. Let me wait with that until below.
>
> I'd like to know what is your basis, preferably grammatical, for
> identifying
> the anarthrous IHSOUS as the subject instead of the articular hO CRISTOS.
> Then, explain why your basis does not apply to John 1:1c KAI QEOS HN hO
> LOGOS, in which hO LOGOS is identified as the subject and QEOS as the
> predicate noun.
Because I am a linguist, I have a holistic view of language. If one only
looks at grammar, the best one can say may be that it is ambiguous as to
what is subject and predicate. However, if one looks at other aspects, such
as context, semantics and pragmatics, it becomes reasonably clear that
IHSOUS is best considered the subject and hO CRISTOS the predicate.
John 1:1c is different, because IHSOUS is the name of one person and cannot
therefore pragmatically be predicate. QEOS is not a unique name, but a
descriptive word which here does function as predicate (meaning divine or of
Godly nature. It does not identify hO LOGOS with GOD - as a proper name - as
IHSOUS is identified with hO CRISTOS).
> As far as John's Gospel is concerned, the fact is that CRISTOS has
> the article
> >regardless of whether it is subject or predicate. The only two
> places where
> >CHRISTOS occurs without the article are where the text has
> MESSIAS, followed
> >by an explanation that this word means "anointed" (CRISTOS).
>
> Actually, CRISTOS is a predicate noun without the article in John 1:41,
> hO ESTIN MEQERMHNEUOMENON CRISTOS.
I said two places. 1:41 is one of them and 4:25 is the other. The text does
not say "who is Christ" but "which is interpreted/translated as "anointed"".
> >The second statement you quote (proper names are regularly
> anarthrous) is in
> >the exceptions part of the citation from Colwell. Just before
> your quote, he
> >says: "definite predicate nouns regularly take the article in
> sentences in
> >which the verb appears."
>
> However, hO CRISTOS is a not a predicate noun in the proposal,
> and the statement
> I quoted, which continues with "in the predicate," explains why
> IHSOUS is anarthrous
> in the proposal. I don't know what explains the anarthrous
> subject in your proposal.
IHSOUS is a proper name and there is no grammatical rule to my knowledge
that has succeeded in explaining why it sometimes has the article and
sometimes not. One would need to look for the explanation in discourse
linguistics and pragmatics. The fact that is in anarthrous cannot be used to
suggest that it therefore cannot be subject. The name occurs 198 times in
John alone. About 125 of these are arthrous and about 73 are anarthrous. Of
the anarthrous examples, the vast majority - about 70 - IHSOUS is the
subject of its sentence.
So, from a study of the Greek language of John's gospel there is no basis
for suggesting that IHSOUS cannot be subject because it is anarthrous, nor
is there any basis for suggesting that hO CRISTOS cannot be predicate
because it has the article.
In fact, the language and context of John's gospel in general suggests the
opposite. The anarthrous IHSOUS is far more often the subject than
predicate. Can you give examples of IHSOUS used as a predicate in John?
Similarly, hO CRISTOS always has the article, and since this word is a title
in Greek, while IHSOUS is not - it is much more naturally used as a
predicate than a proper name is used as a predicate.
Iver Larsen
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