[B-Greek] 1 John 2:13

Steven Lo Vullo slovullo at mac.com
Wed Aug 25 18:58:45 EDT 2004


On Aug 25, 2004, at 1:02 PM, Eddie Mishoe wrote:

> It is not without precedence to have the definite
> article function as a personal pronoun in Greek. It
> may not be overly common with John, but I'm not sure
> it can be ruled out without further consideration. To
> say it is "wrong" would be a non-grammatical
> appraisal. I do feel option 2 fits best, since option
> 3 introduces verbal static.

GRAFW hUMIN, PATERES, hOTI EGNWKATE TON AP' ARCHS.

I think Harold is quite right. Though there are two plausible ways of 
explaining the use of the article here, they both come out in the same 
place. Some would understand the article as a substantivizer of the 
prepositional phrase. In rough English this amounts to "the 
from-the-beginning-one." Others would understand an elliptical 
substantive in agreement with the article. Either way the result is the 
same.

As Wallace (p. 211) points out, the article is not a true pronoun in 
Koine Greek. Though it may function *semantically* as a pronoun, this 
is an English way of looking at it. The closest to an actual pronominal 
use is with the MEN ... DE construction or with DE alone. And this is 
only with the nominative.

Also, in this particular situation, if the author had intended a 
pronominal direct object here it would no doubt have been AUTON or 
perhaps TOUTON/EKEINON with a relative clause containing the 
prepositional phrase AP' ARCHS, or an equivalent elliptical 
construction, as is common.
============

Steven Lo Vullo
Madison, WI




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