[B-Greek] omision of the definite article
Steve Runge
srunge at logos.com
Wed Feb 20 08:42:41 EST 2008
Here is a brief answer to your question, excerpted from Stephen Levinsohn's "Discourse Features of New Testament Greek" (2000:148).
"Throughout the Greek New Testament, nouns whose referents are "known, particular" (BDF §252) are at times preceded by the article (they are said to be "articular or arthrous"-Porter 1992:104) and at times appear without it (they are said to be "anarthrous"). Wallace (1996:209) notes:
'The function of the article is not primarily to make something definite that would otherwise be indefinite... There are at least 10 ways in which a noun in Greek can be definite without the article. For example, proper names are definite even without the article (PaÂlov [PAULOS]means "Paul," not "a Paul"). Yet, proper names sometimes take the article. Hence, when the article is used with them it must be for some other purpose.'
This chapter is concerned with one such purpose. It claims that, if the referent of an anarthrous noun phrase is known and particular (or, to be more exact, if the author assumes that the reader will be able to assign it unique referential identity-see sec. 9.1), this gives it prominence. It is marked as prominent because it is of particular importance.
I take QEOS to be the topic of 18a, with OUDEIS fronted for emphasis: 'NO ONE has seen God at any time.' This part of the verse functions as a foil for the second part of the verse, where the topic switches to the MONOGENHS QEOS from QEOS. To clarify that this latter participant is distinct from QEOS, there is additional thematic information provided in the hO WN EIS TON KOLPON TOU PATROS. This means that we have a statement about the Father in 18a, and a statement about the Son in 18b.
So why drop the article when the reference is to an established participant? Based on Levinsohn's principle above, it is to attract some extra measure of attention to QEOS, which functions as a foil for the more important MONOGENHS QEOS which follows. In other words, 18a functions as a foil for 18b, and the topic of 18a is connected to the that of 18b both semantically and syntactically. The gist of what is being communicated might be paraphrased something like:
"While nobody has ever seen God, the only begotten God, the one who is in the bosom of the Father, has been made known by John. And this is the testimony of John when..."
The first statement in 18a is that no one has ever seen the Father, period. Against this backdrop, the writer states that the only begotten God, the one who is in the Father's bosom, has indeed been made known. I understand the agent making him known in this verse to be John, not the Father. Note that this whole section concerns John's testimony about Jesus, that he himself is not the Christ but that Jesus is. Verse 19 continues this theme, moving back to the testimony of John using the forward-pointing hAUTH to attract extra attention to what he has to say.
You are probably asking why I say John made him known, rather than the Father. It is important to determine who EKEINOS refers to in 18b. I expect some will understand it to refer to QEOS, but this does not account for why the writer would use the far demonstrative in this setting. John the Baptist is the only person referred to so far in this chapter using EKEINOS, back in 1:8 where the writer clarifies that 'that one' was not the light, since the thematic focus is on 'this one'=Jesus in v. 7.
The writer of John chooses to be cryptic at times for reasons I do not fully understand, using the demonstratives as personal pronouns to make contrastive statements. The Baptist is the only one in the chapter that has been referred to using EKEINOS, so it would seem best to view him as the referent, and not the Father. Furthermore, this whole section is a build up to John's testimony in v. 19 ff., highlighting that he is making known the One that the Father has sent to represent Himself. This section is not about the Father, but about the Son and John. John is the only one who has testified and born witness in this chapter, not the Father (cf. vv. 7, 8, 15, 19). I do not see why the writer would use EKEINOS for the Father in this context.
Steve
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From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org on behalf of vasilis tsialas
Sent: Wed 2/20/2008 1:48 AM
To: B-Greek Lists
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] omision of the definite article
Generally speaking, it is true that in the Greek language the article is used to denote identity
and the omission of the article to denote quality, such as, "this is the dog" and "this is a dog."
But there some exceptions. Hebrews did not use articles for proper names, because a proper name shows the identity by itself.
This hebraism is maintained sometimes in the GNT. It is also noted in connection with the word THEOS, that the article sometimes
is not used where THEOS is used as a complement (?.?. ?????? ????, ????? ???? ?.??.) or constructed with
some prepositions (??? ???, ???? ??? ?.??.), even though in such cases THEOS seems to refer to identity and not
to quality.
As regards John 1:18, I have the feeling that the use of the article would be more natural for Greek, and I speculate that
this was the reason to be "corrected" by later GNT copyists with the addition of the article.Finally, I speculate, as it already mentioned, that the use of ?????????,
which denotes a uniqueness strong enough to be equated with identity,
caused the writer to feel that there was no need for the article.
As for myself, I would be very interested to know if there are articles on the specific topic, and because I acknowledge
my limitations in my knowledge, I encourage anyone who sees mistakes in my thoughts to correct me.
I would really appreciate that.
P.S.: The Textual Commentary on the New Testament, by B. Metzger, (p. 169-170) says:
The anarthrous use of qeo,j (cf. 1.1) appears to be more primitive.
There is no reason why the article should have been deleted, and when ui`o,j supplanted qeo,j it would certainly have been added.
The shortest reading, o` monogenh,j, while attractive because of internal considerations, is too poorly attested for acceptance as the text.
Some modern commentators4 take monogenh,j as a noun and punctuate so as to have three distinct designations of him who
makes God known (monogenh,j( qeo,j( o` w'n eivj to.n ko,lpon tou/ patro.j .). [It is doubtful that the author would have written monogenh.j qeo,j,
which may be a primitive, transcriptional error in the Alexandrian tradition (u=c=/;=c=).
At least a D decision would be preferable. A.W.]
Tsialas Vasileios,
Athens, Greece
> Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 16:19:55 -0800> From: lightmanmark at yahoo.com> To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org> Subject: [B-Greek] omision of the definite article> > On Feb 19th Matt wrote:> > "Can someone explain to me, or point me in the right direcion,> to a good > explanation of the significance of the omission > of the definite article > before theos in the NT [and especially in respect to John 1:18]?"> > Dana and Mountly in A Manual Grammar of the Greek NT argue> that often the article is used before theos when God's IDENTITY > is in view whereas the article is omitted when God's NATURE is > in view. They say you can see this is John 1:1 and Romans 8:1ff.> > I have not really systematically checked this out, but it seems to me> this is SOMETIMES true, though trying to distinguish when a writer > refers to God as person versus God as essence seems pretty subjective,> > > > > > ---------------------------------> Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now.> ---> B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek> B-Greek mailing list> B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
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