[B-Greek] Jn 1:1 HN (was) cf. ESTIN

Jeffrey B. Gibson jgibson000 at comcast.net
Tue May 4 12:00:20 EDT 2004



Arie Dirkzwager wrote:

> HN and ESTIN are the imperfect and the present of the same verb.
> Already Aristotle saw that the verb EIMI can be used in connection with
> several kinds of information:
> about substance (OUSIA, e.g. man, animal),
> quantity (POSON e.g. length),
> quality (POION, e.g. white, intelligent),
> relation (PROS TI, e.g. half, bigger),
> place (POU, e.g. in the Lyceum),
> time (POTE, e.g. yesterday),
> position (KEISQAI, e.g. is sitting),
> situation (ECEIN, e.g. is wearing shoes),
> activity (POIEIN, e.g. is cutting),
> being the object of something (PASCEIN, e.g. is being cut).
>
> I would add that EIMI without further information means to exist (a fact
> that Aristotle knew very well too). But it remains the same verb.
>
> So looking from the possibilities of the Greek language you have many
> possibilities if you read the verb EIMI. Finding the right possibility is
> therefore a matter of interpretation.

While important to know, it cannot be assumed, given that Aristotle is writing 3
centuries before John, and in Attic rather than Koine,  that his possibilities
are the ones that would have been known or current when the author of John
wrote, can we?  Wouldn't it be more sound methodologically to look at the ways
ESTIN/HN was used at a point in time closer to the end of the first century CE
rather than the middle or end of the 4th BCE?

Jeffrey
--

Jeffrey B. Gibson, D.Phil. (Oxon.)

1500 W. Pratt Blvd. #1
Chicago, IL 60626

jgibson000 at comcast.net





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