[B-Greek] IWANNHN 1:1

MAKARIOIOIPRAEIS at aol.com MAKARIOIOIPRAEIS at aol.com
Sun Mar 6 01:10:29 EST 2005


(Dr. Conrad)
>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.

(Richard)
Here's that quote from Roberson Word pictures on John 1:1
"And the Word was God (kai theos en ho logos). By exact and careful language 
John denied Sabellianism by not saying (ho theos en ho logos). That would mean 
that all of God was expressed in ho logos and the terms would be 
interchangeable, each having the article. The subject is made plain by the article (ho 
logos) and the predicate without it (theos)"

Sometimes the article is present in both subject and predicate
Matt 13:38 hO DE AGROS ESTIN hO KOSMOS
1 John 3:4 ..hH hAMATIA ESTIN hH ANOMIA
Luke 8:11 hO SPOROS ESTIN hO [LOGOS TOU QEOU]
1 John 5:6 TO PNEUMA ESTI TO MARTUROUN

...making the two in a sense identical, but John did not want to present 
"modalism" when introducing the Word and God in John 1:1. 

(Dr. Conrad)
>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.

(Richard) 
I'm a little confused here by "but concerns rather the linkage of two nouns 
governed by a single article" that sounds like a description for the "TSKS" 
construction ... I thought Colwell's rule is to explain why a Predicate does not 
posses the article when  it precedes a copulative verb. 

"A definite predicate nominative has the article when it follows the verb; it 
does not have the article when it precedes the verb"
E. C. Colwell, A Definite Rule for the Use of the Article in the Greek New 
Testament

The point was that since QEOS here is anarthrous it does not necessarily give 
it an indefinite meaning, seeing that it is so in John 1:1 has to do with its 
word order in relation to the verb. 



PS please forgive all the previous spelling mistakes, that was from copying 
and pasting the examples, I don't remember the source but its out there 
somewhere. 
: )

Richard Windisch



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