[B-Greek] IWANNHN 1:1

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sat Mar 5 06:39:18 EST 2005


At 2:04 AM -0500 3/5/05, MAKARIOIOIPRAEIS at aol.com wrote:
>I think its interesting to consider the possible choices of word order and
>anarthrous/articular nouns John could have used in introducing the Word
>and God
>in John 1.
>
>hO LOGOS EN hO QEOS:  The hO LOGOS (the Word) and hO QEOS (God) are
>equivalent and interchangeable, each posseses the article so they are each
>distinct and
>independent but they are, by this construction identified as identically the
>same.

I'm assuming that by the above is meant "hO LOGOS HN hO QEOS"--it should be
noted that this is extremely unlikely to be used by a Greek writer, since
the article is used precisely to indicate the subject in a copulative
clause.

>QEOS EN hO LOGOS:  (as in John 1:1). This differs from the preceding
>statement in that it stresses the predicate QEOS as qualitative. The
>articular noun hO
>LOGOS is the subject of the sentence is, the predicate is QEOS, it precedes
>the verb EN and does not posses the article following the construction
>known as
>"Colwell's rule".

i.e. QEOS HN hO LOGOS; and I don't think Colwell's rule has anything to do
with this but concerns rather the linkage of two nouns governed by a single
article.

>hO LOGOS QEOS EN  This order would put the emphasis on the Word rather than
>on the nature he possessed.

i.e. hO LOGOS QEOS HN; in fact, the word-order difference between this and
the preceding form (QEOS HN hO LOGOS) makes no semantic difference
whatsoever.

>hO LOGOS hEN QEOS This would stress that the word was a divine being of some
>kind.

i.e. hO LOGOS QEOS HN: this too is semantically equivalent to both the
preceding word-orders (QEOS HN hO LOGOS and hO LOGOS QEOS HN).

>hO LOGOS hEN QEIOUS(adj) Similar in meaning to the previous but using the
>adjective instead to emphasize "divine" or "god-like".

I suppose what was meant is hO LOGOS HN QEIOS; this would indeed mean "the
Logos was divine, as 	QEIOS is the adjective derived from the noun QEOS.

While word-order does have a few rules, it is to a considerable extent free
in Greek; generally the sequence of words within variable positions is an
indicator of emphasis rather than of semantic difference. What is indeed
particularly significant, however, is the position of the article relative
to the head noun in a phrase.

>
>>My second question concerns Johns ussage of the definite article in the
>>above-quoted verse.  John uses the definite article with every instance
>>of LOGOS and QEOS but the last instance of QEOS.  This makes the famous
>>translation 'and the word was God' quite obvious in English.  However,
>>he uses the definite article with the other instance of QEOS, and it is
>>typically deleted in translation.  I'm rambling...  My question is this:
>>is there a certain meaning meant when John uses the definite article
>>with the first instance of QEON, and a different meaning when he uses
>>QEON without it the second time, even a subtle one?
>>Jason Broander
>>3rd Year Undergrad, University of Chicago
>
>---
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-- 

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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