[B-Greek] PNEUMA HO THEOS and similar expressions

Jonathan Robie jwrobie at mindspring.com
Tue Jun 26 10:29:00 EDT 2007


OK, let me try to dredge my memory, and let the experts correct me or 
fill in.

I think there's two things going on here. When a subject and predicate, 
both nouns, are joined by a form of ESTIN like this, the subject 
normally has the article, the predicate does not.

In Greek, as in English, both the subject and the predicate are 
nominative, so the cases do not distinguish subject from predicate. 
Instead, the article is used to identify the subject: the noun with the 
article is the subject, the noun without the article is the predicate.

I think that's the primary significance of the presence or absence of 
the article in these constructions, but it's also true that the 
predicate noun, in Greek or in English, often comes across as 
qualitative - in your examples, God is not "a love" or "the love", God 
is love. God is not "a light" or "the light", God is light. I remember 
seeing similar examples where a particular person is not "a king" or 
"the king", but simply king.

Hope this helps ....

Jonathan

kramer kramer wrote:
> Several translations render PNEUMA HO THEOS in John 4:24 as "God is a spirit" whilst others translate it without the article 'a'.  I was under the impression that two other Johannine phrases, HO THEOS AGAPE EIMI (God is love) and HOS THEOS PHOS EIMI (God is light), are functionally identical, but is this the case?  A friend of mien recently suggested to me the following:
>    
>   ho theos agape eimi 
> THE God love is 
> =God is love 
>
> God is love is an expression showing love as God's dominant quality. 
>
> ho theos phOs eimi 
> THE God light is 
> =God is light 
>
>
> pneuma ho theos 
> spirit THE God 
>
>   Since spirit come before "the God" it is not saying God has a dominant quality of "spirit" but that he "is a spirit". When God "is" some quality the quality comes after "ho theos". 
>    
>   Is my friend correct about this?  Any help would be appreciated.
>    
>   K. Kramer (layman).
>   



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