[B-Greek] Jn 1:1 HN (was) cf. ESTIN
Jeffrey B. Gibson
jgibson000 at comcast.net
Tue May 4 12:36:07 EDT 2004
"Carl W. Conrad" wrote:
> 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.
Quite so. And that's what I posed what I wrote as a question. In any case, what I
should have said was "it cannot be automatically assumed".
Jeffrey
--
Jeffrey B. Gibson, D.Phil. (Oxon.)
1500 W. Pratt Blvd. #1
Chicago, IL 60626
jgibson000 at comcast.net
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