[B-Greek] John 1:18 translation Q
Jason Kerrigan
jasonandshon at yahoo.com
Thu Aug 10 13:58:41 EDT 2006
Hello all,
I have never posted on this list before, but I have a question that yall may be able to answer: Instead of the traditional translation of John 1:18 which presents Christ as the only begotten God, could the passage also be accurately translated as follows?:
"No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten, God, the one being in the bosom of the Father THAT ONE (God) has declared."
That is to say that no man has seen God, but the only begotten, being in the bosom of the Father, has declared God.
Can't the pronoun ekeinos refer back to the God? Isn't the sentence missing a piece without understanding theos as the subject of the Only Begotten's declaration?
I believe this translation is accurate for a few reasons:
1) It better suits the thought presented in the passage
2) without understanding the noun theos as the subject being declared by the Son then there is no stated subject in the text (hence the word "him" is added in Italics in our English versions)
3) the appelation, "the only begotten," can stand on its own (c.f. John 1:14) It does not need to say, "Only begotten SON"
4) theos being in the nominative case does not mean that God cannot be the "subject" of Christ's declaration (see Acts 15:14 where theos is the subject of Peter's message)
5) Tatian's Diatessaron (140 AD) supports this understanding since it reads as, "No man hath seen God at any time; the only Son, God, which is in the bosom of his Father, he hath told of him." (at least according to the translation I have access to. Can anyone confirm this segment from Tatian's Diatessaron as representing a literal translation?)
Also, one of the oldest MSS. containing this passage (P75) has the nominative article "ho" before monogenes AND before "being in the bosom of the Father."
Though it is not uncommon for a nominative direct article to be used twice in one Greek sentence, it is uncommon for a second nominative direct article to be applied before the Greek word, "own" (being), unless there is a reason why it is needed. Why is this? Because the word, "own" (being), automatically refers the reader back to the subject who is, "being," something. This makes the direct article completely unnecessary unless further clarification is needed.
John 12:17 in the Greek says:
"The(ho) crowd, the(ho) being(own) with him when he called Lazarus out of the grave, and raised him from the dead, bare record."
Here the second direct article is added to specify which crowd was testifying. There were more crowds of people present than just that crowd who saw Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead and so a second direct article was used to show which crowd John was referring to. The first direct article appears before the word, "crowd," but the second one appears before the word, "being," because it is specifying to us that the crowd being spoken of was the crowd that was with Jesus when he raised Lazarus.
Thus direct articles are used before the Greek word, "own," when a clarification is needed as to which first subject the second direct article is referring to. Yet how can this apply to John 1:18? Why would we need clarification as to which, "ONLY begotten," is being referred to? And so much less would we need clarification if it said, "the only begotten God"? Why would we need a second direct article to show us which ONLY begotten is in the Fathers bosom? We would not. And so I believe that the second direct article was provided before the word, "own," because the focus of the text previously switched off of the only begotten when it introduced theos, and then the sentence switched back to the referent of the first direct article.
Thanks,
Jason
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