[B-Greek] John 1:1c

alethinon61 at milwpc.com alethinon61 at milwpc.com
Wed Jul 5 08:11:23 EDT 2006


>>As for QEOS, I would say that in all its occurrences in the LXX and
>the NT it is fully referential. So if anyone would argue that this
is not
>the case in John 1:1c, because here QEOS is just a quality, that
would be
>>exceptional. For claims of something exceptional evidence is needed.
>The evidence should include examples of fully referential nouns that
>completely loose their substantival nature and become adjectives,
and >examples showing that this can be the case with the noun QEOS.

Thank you, Rolf, you have highlighted the reason for my question, not
specifically about QEOS at 1:1c, but about nouns in general in the
GNT.  It is argued by some that fronting can be used for emphasis,
which I accept, but it is also said that this emphasis somehow either
eliminates or exists in place of a noun's definiteness or
indefiniteness.  I find it impossible to conceptualize how that
works, and I'm wondering how we know -- or whether we can know --
that this is a valid proposal.  I'm asking the forum what grammatical
or linguistic principles were employed to validate this idea, esp.
since nouns found in sentences that have been offered to demonstrate
the idea don't necessarily have to be taken "adjectivally" (for lack
of a better word).  So far theology seems to be the primary principle
that has been offered in reference to John 1:1, so I'd like to set
this verse aside and consider some that are not theologically loaded.
I'm out of town, though, and I don't have my GNT with me, so I'll
have to wait to provide one.

As I said in another post, in English we can emphasize the predicate
of a sentence by rearranging the sentence from the active to the
passive voice.  Mechanically, this seems similar to fronting in
Greek.  Yet this rearrangement from the active to the passive voice
never causes a count noun to loose its substantival nature, as you
called it.  It seems to me that count nouns like, king, queen,
sinner, deceiver, Jew, etc., all have an inherent object-entity
connotation that is a natural part of their meaning.  To illustrate
what I mean,

King = a male ruler of a monarch
Queen = a female ruler of a monarch
Sinner = one who sins or sinful person
Deceiver = one who deceives or deceiptful person
Jew = one who is Jewish, either by faith or by heritage, or both

If I remember correctly, one grammarian, Slaten I think, used soldier
as an example of a word that can signify bravery in certain contexts.
I accept that the word can certainly be used to signify that the
person is brave.  However, because it is a substantive and not an
adjective it doesn't mean "brave" but "brave person" or "one who is
brave".  For example,

"Bob is such a soldier, he played the entire football game with a
broken arm."

In this example I'm using "soldier" to highlight the fact that Bob
was courageous to play an entire football game with a serious injury.
But because soldier is a count noun it doesn't strictly mean
"courageous", but it means "courageous one" or "courageous person". 
I find it impossible to conceptualize how "soldier" can be taken
"adjectivally" in the above sentence, just as I find it impossible to
conceptualize how "sinner", "deceiver", "Jew", or even QEOS can
become adjectival just because these terms are placed before the verb.

Any non-theological information that can be offered to help me
understand what linguistic principles were used to establish that
nouns that occur before the verb become "adjectival" would be
appreciated.

Sincerely,
Sean Kasabuske  




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