[B-Greek] 1 Jn.5:18 AUTON vs. hEAUTON
Tony Costa
tmcos at rogers.com
Sat May 1 15:09:47 EDT 2004
Dear Friends, I was wondering about 1 Jn.5:18, the phrase, hO GENNHQEIS EK TOU QEOU THREI AUTON. The hO GENNHQEIS is admitted as a reference to Christ, although this is used of Christian believers as well in Johanine writings. Jn.1:12-13 was held by some early Christian writers as a reference to Christ being "born of God".
This seems to be the only place in the NT where Christ is designated as such. I was wondering what would have led to the variant reading of using the reflexive pronoun hEAUTON in other MSS (one of which is Codex Siniaticus!) instead of AUTON (but Codex Vaticanus has AUTON) in 1 Jn.5:18. Was it due to theological considerations regarding the idea of being born of God as an designation of Christian believers and not one descriptive of Christ? I was just wondering what would have led to the variant readings here between AUTON and hEAUTON in this passage. Many thanks.
Tony Costa
Toronto, Canada
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