[B-Greek] Basic Dictionary Work in John 1

Barry nebarry at verizon.net
Mon Apr 28 23:59:58 EDT 2008


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jonathan Bailey" <baileyjn at hotmail.com>
To: "Mark Lightman" <lightmanmark at yahoo.com>; <brian_d_fink at hotmail.com>; 
<b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, April 28, 2008 1:17 AM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Basic Dictionary Work in John 1


>>Well seeing as I don't have Bibleworks here I can't really do the word 
>>study, but I'd say that the verse you gave doesn't discount any unusual 
>>meaning to the preposition. Actually, we see that Ananias died three hours 
>>before Sapphira was and they were buried at separate times. This just 
>>strikes me as possibly allowing for the directional nuances of pros to 
>>shine through. He was buried and then when she died they took her body 
>>to(ward) his location to be buried. Again, I have no access to Bibleworks, 
>>BAGD, or commentaries, so I really can't check anything out or ponder 
>>anything on my own right now. Also, Wallace says pros is commonly used as 
>>'with' when paired with a stative verb, but I have no idea how often this 
>>occurs, and have no idea whether pros is actually preferred in these cases 
>>or not over other prepositions. I know the verbal category can override 
>>the force of the preposition, but you'd think some kind of vestigial 
>>connotation of basic meaning would stick in the mind of the Greek doing 
>>the writing, at least enough to cause him to choose a particular 
>>preposition over another, except in the cases of very tightly 
>>grammaticalized idiomatic statements. I do not think John 1:2 would fall 
>>into this category. We can only hope that the author of John 1:2 was 
>>serious about what he was saying and was choosing his words carefully and 
>>decided that pros was the best preposition to use here.

I hate to possibly be reinforcing my position as an idiot by speculating 
about these things really without any of the necessary tools at my disposal 
to do so. However, the banana is just a banana answer is one of conservatism 
that might cause us to overlook something. So while it is quite likely that 
nothing is out there that has managed to convince the majority of scholars 
that this preposition can shed light on some Trinitarian or Christological 
issue (if there were something, I would assume it would be common 
knowledge), for my own edification I was hoping to get some specific 
information about usage of this preposition in general and in John 1:2. And 
though I am flirting with the parameters of discussion on this list by 
asking about linguistic factors in exegesis, I would even be interested in 
minority views about the usage of the preposition here or offlist responses 
about exegesis that people have done based on the language in the phrase. 
But it seems we might just have to lighten up on our reading until we get 
all the books and programs we need in place. Sad, though, as the opening 
verses of John are pretty juicy words for exegesis.<<

Just a couple of quick comments:

1) Looking for unusual meanings is a mistaken methodology from the get-go. 
I think behind your questions is the desire to get some really neat 
theological amunition.  Don't do that -- just try to understand the text, 
and the exegesis and theology will come.

2) In my opinion, the statistical analysis approach to determining meaning 
is really much less helpful than many people think.  It usually runs 
something like this.  "Gaphoomph means gabarble 9 times out of 10. 
Therefore, at Hesitations 9:14, it really must mean gabarble."  I am afraind 
that it's not statistics that determine meaning, but usage in context.  You 
are much better off getting a sense of the semantic range of the word, and 
then seeing what part of that range best fits the context.

N.E. Barry Hofstetter
Professor, WRTS
http://www.wittenbergreformed.org
Mentor, TNARS http://www.tnars.net/
Classics Instructor, TAA
http://www.theamericanacademy.net

and me:

http://mysite.verizon.net/nebarry
http://my.opera.com/barryhofstetter/blog






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