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

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue May 4 12:10:34 EDT 2004


At 11:00 AM -0500 5/4/04, Jeffrey B. Gibson wrote:
>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?

Some would say that Aristotle writes in Ionic Koine; at any rate, I doubt
that his "Categories" are obsolete in the first c. C.E., or that the usage
of Parmenides even earlier has faded into archaic obscurity. My quick
perusal of BDAG makes me think these categories are still fundamentally
valid. I readily grant that the synchronic perspective has its value, but I
rather suspect that the range of usage of the verb EIMI is one of the more
persistent features of the Greek language in antiquity. And while there's a
great deal of scholarly speculation regarding the provenance of the
Johannine prologue from Hebraic or Greek thinking--or both--, it could
hardly be said that there's a solid consensus regarding the question.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/



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