[B-Greek] Word Order in John 1:1

Iver Larsen iver_larsen at sil.org
Sat Oct 25 14:00:02 EDT 2003


> You really don't think that the juxtaposition of the predicate compliment
> with the verb is what makes it qualitative?

No, Jason, I don't think so.

> Take Mounce (first edition) as an example (please ignore the theological
> overtones):
>
> "We know that "the Word" is the subject because it has the
> definite article,
> and we translate it accordingly: "and the Word was God." Two
> questions, both
> of theological import, should come to mind: (1) why was QEOS
> thrown forward?
> and (2) why does it lack the article? In brief, its *emphatic position
> stresses its essence or quality*

I have no quarrel with this. The emphatic position "stresses* its
qualitative character, but it is not what *makes* it qualitative. We have
discussed the translation of this at length on the b-translation list, and I
don't think the standard literal English translation is the most accurate. I
would prefer to say "the Word was like God"  or "the Word was God-like" or
"the Word was divine" in order to clarify that we are not dealing with
identity, but a likeness in quality and attributes. The problem is that God
spelled with a capital is more definite and has a unique reference that the
Greek QEOS does not have.

> That is to say, *the word order* tells us that Jesus
> Christ has all the divine attributes that the Father has

Here, I am afraid I disagree. I believe the traditional teaching of Greek
has not been able to handle the significance of word order properly.

Iver Larsen




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