[B-Greek] Can QEOS be used in apposition to MONOGENHS in John1:18-revised

Rolf Furuli furuli at online.no
Thu Nov 5 08:32:18 EST 2009


Dear Iver,

There are several fine observations in your post. 
Particularly important is it to compare John 1:1 
and 1:18. I do not think Ogden's triangle, with 
"sign," "meaning," and "reference" at the corners 
has any relevance to this discussion. so you do 
not miss anything here. First we need textual 
criticism: Is QEOS the best rendering? Then we 
need to rely on lexicon, grammar and syntax.

I would like to bring two quotes, which in my 
opinion illuminate the real issue.

F. Büchel  (TDNT 4, p. 740, n 14 says that: " 
(MONOGENHS QEOS)  can only mean 'only-begotten 
god'; to render 'an only-begotten, one who is 
God', is an exegetical invention. It can hardly 
be the credit of John, who is distinguished by 
monumental simplicity of expression."

J. de Waard and E. Nida "From One Language to 
Another", p.  33 when discussing bias in 
translation says: "Apparently, it takes a special 
brand of intellectual honesty to let the Bible 
say things which seemingly contradict one's own 
theology."

The real problem is that theology is so heavily 
involved both in the translation of John 1:1 and 
1:18. If that was not the case, the situation 
would be very simple:

  In 1:1 there is one individual who is "God" (hO 
QEOS) and another who is "with" hO QEOS, who is 
QEOS  "a god" (alternatively "divine"). It is 
simple logic that one individual who is together 
with another individual is not identical with 
this other individual-such logic is required by 
translators.

In 1:18 we again meet God, who is also called 
"the father." Then there is another individual 
who is "in the bosom position with the father," 
and this other individual is called MONOGENHS 
QEOS. Again this other individual (who is the 
same one who is "with" God in 1:1) cannot be 
identical with the father. I would say that in a 
non-theological context every translator would 
take MONOGENHS as an adjective qualifying the 
following substantive. Ehrmann certainly has a 
point when he says that when an adjective 
precedes a substantive in the same gender, number 
and case, the adjective qualifies the 
substantive. In 1:18, the fact that MONOGENHS 
QEOS has a particular relationship with the 
Father is an additional argument in favor of 
Ehrmann's conclusion.

If we do not introduce an element of mysticism, 
which translators never should do, and we take 
the words in the normal lexical sense and 
according to normal rules of grammar and syntax, 
1:18 tells us that there is one who is God and 
there is another who is god with qualification, 
namely, "a/the unique god."  The same distinction 
is found in 1:1 between God and another who is 
god in a generic sense, perhaps including a 
qualitative flavor, namely, "a god".

I would like to stress that my words above are 
strictly linguistic and not theological. As 
translation theory requires, I reject any 
mystical element, and take the constructions of 
1:1 and 1:18 in the simple and normal linguistic 
way that is so typical for John.  Further do I 
reject any arguments that are based on 
consequence, which go like this: "But if we 
translate in this way the consequence is 
polytheism, or henotheism or..." Such arguments 
are theological. They and are outside of the 
realm of understanding the Greek text and 
translate it, and they are irrelevant in this 
discussion. Our theology should be based on the 
text and not the text on our theology. In some 
instances "a special brand of intellectual 
honesty" is highly required.

A few words about Wallace: He is a fine 
grammarian, but sometimes his conclusions are 
biased, because they are more theological than 
linguistic. Particularly in contexts with 
important theological implications, we should be 
cautions when we read his grammar.


Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo



>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Blue Meeksbay" <bluemeeksbay at yahoo.com>
>To: "Mark Lightman" <lightmanmark at yahoo.com>
>Cc: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
>Sent: 4. november 2009 23:18
>Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Can QEOS be used in apposition to MONOGENHS in
>John1:18-revised
>
>
>
>Your way of looking at this text has made me 
>think of it from a new perspective.
>We talked about Hebrew chiasms recently. Related to this is the common Hebrew
>"inclusio" or in a more popular term, the sandwich structure. This means that
>the beginning and end of a section has striking 
>parallelisms in both words used
>and topic. When we are dealing with John 1:18 this is clearly the end of a
>section beginning with 1:1. The writer of John's 
>Gospel was apparently a Jew who
>was still stooped in his mother tongue thought 
>patterns while writing in Greek,
>similar to some of us who use English as a second language.
>
>Can we gain anything from comparing the first and last verse of the section?
>
>1a ?ÉÀ ?ɦÉ'? ?ÉÀ ? ÉŠ?É¡ÉÕV,                 EN ARCH HN hO LOGOS
>1b ɻɸ? ? ÉŠ?É¡ÉÕV ?ÉÀ ¼É¦?V É-?ÉÀ ɐɈ?ÉÀ,   KAI hO LOGOS HN PROS TON QEON
>1c ɻɸ? ɐɈ?V ?ÉÀ ? ÉŠ?É¡ÉÕV.                 KAI QEOS HN hO LOGOS
>
>18a ɐɈ?ÉÀ ÉÕ?ɬɈ?V ??É¦ÉøÉ»ÉˆÉÀ ¼?¼ÉÕÉ-ÉˆØ 
>QEON OUDEIS hEWRAKEN PWPOTE
>18b É ÉÕÉÀÉÕɡɈÉÀ?V ɐɈ?V ...?ɻɈ?ÉÀÉÕV 
>?ÉÃɉɡ?É-ÉøÉ-ÉÕ  MONOGENHS QEOS... EKEINOS 
>EXHGHSATO
>18b' ? ?ÉÀ Ɉ?V É-?ÉÀ É»?ÉŠ¼ÉÕÉÀ É-ÉÕ? 
>¼ÉøÉ-ɦ?V         hO WN EIS TON KOLPON TOU PATROS
>
>Partly from the usage in John 1:14, 3:16,18, I take MONOGENHS throughout to
>refer to Jesus just as LOGOS in v. 1 refers to 
>Jesus. There is similarity of 1b
>and 18b'. Being together with and close to God 
>the Father is equivalent to being
>in the bosom of the Father.
>LOGOS has a certain affinity to EXHGHSATO. In the "beginning" God and
>LOGOS/MONOGENHS were present before humanity existed, and even later no human
>has actually seen God the Father (18a). But the 
>Father sent LOGOS/hUIOS AUTOU in
>order that LOGOS should reveal or explain (EXHGEOMAI) the Father.
>
>The natural way of reading (?) É ÉÕÉÀÉÕɡɈÉÀ?V 
>ɐɈ?V (hO) MONOGENHS QEOS is as you have
>said the "unique/only-begotten God". The problem 
>I have had with this reading is
>that we then have to take QEON in 18a as 
>referring to God the Father and QEOS in
>18b as referring to God the Son/MONOGENHS.
>However, I have exactly the same problem in 
>verse 1.  TON QEON at the end of 1b
>refers to God the Father, but QEOS in 1c refers to God the Son. This seems an
>abrupt shift to me in my Western thinking 
>pattern, but it may not have been such
>an abrupt shift to the writer (or readers) of 
>John's gospel. After all, QEOS is
>a very broad word in Greek with many possible 
>references. Why not read it as if
>John is calling Jesus MONOGENHS QEOS in v. 18?
>
>Maybe that is what some of the English versions 
>meant to communicate in a rather
>awkward and explanatory way? For instance, NLT 
>says: But the unique One, who is
>himself God.
>
>With this understanding, (hO) MONOGENHS QEOS has the same referent as (hO)
>MONOGENHS hUIOS and the two possible texts give essentially the same meaning,
>since both expressions refer to Jesus and QEOS 
>here does not refer to the Father
>God. Is my problem that I did not adequately distinguish between sense and
>reference?
>
>Iver Larsen
>
>---
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