Re: Jn.1:1b word order

From: Jonathan Robie (jonathan@texcel.no)
Date: Sat Feb 07 1998 - 22:29:44 EST


At 10:02 PM 2/7/98 -0500, Jim West wrote:
>At 09:21 PM 2/7/98 -0500, you wrote:
>>John 1:1b.
>>Why is it KAI QEOS HN O LOGOS and not KAI O LOGOS HN QEOS?
>
>For the same reason that it is proper for us to say "God is Love" but not to
>say "Love is God"! For, though God can appropriately be described as loving
>it is equally inappropriate to say that the abstract "love" is a deity.
>
>>Does it mean the same?
>
>Clearly not.

I'm rather surprised by your answer. As I understood it, in
subject-predicate constructions the subject is marked by the article, and
the predicate has the article only if the subject and predicate are
interchangeable, i.e. if either can be construed as the subject. Both of
William's constructions have the article in front of LOGOS, which is the
subject in each case.

So neither says "God was the Word", they both say "The Word was God". Or am
I missing something here?

Jonathan
___________________________________________________________________________

Jonathan Robie jwrobie@mindspring.com

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