Re: John 1:1

From: Jonathan Robie (jonathan@texcel.no)
Date: Sat Jun 20 1998 - 07:25:16 EDT


At 01:15 PM 6/19/98 -0500, kmesserschmidt@canberra.com wrote:

>Second question, one I couldn't remember with the first post:
>EN ARCHE - does the word arche denote the absolute beginning
>of something, or is there something here that could render it as some
>kind of beginning that happened after the inital creation of
>space/time? i.e. the word was with God in the beginning of
>everything, or the beginning of everything ELSE? Referring directly
>to ideas of the "creation" of Jesus somewhere in that verse.
 
The Greek certainly can mean the absolute beginning, and the same phrase
starts Genesis 1:1 in the Septuagint: EN ARCH EPOIHSEN hO QEOS TON OURANON
KAI THN GHN. Grammatically, it *could* mean "in a beginning", and the same
people who argue for "in the beginning was a word" sometimes argue for "in
a beginning" as an interpretation of this verse.

I don't think the grammar prevents either interpretation, but I also don't
think it supports either interpretation. Again, please browse the archives
on John 1:1 to see how much has been written on this!

Jonathan
___________________________________________________________________________

Jonathan Robie jwrobie@mindspring.com

Little Greek Home Page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/koine
Little Greek 101: http://sunsite.unc.edu/koine/greek/lessons
B-Greek Home Page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek
B-Greek Archives: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek/archives

---
b-greek home page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek
To post a message to the list, mailto:b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu
To subscribe, mailto:subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu
To unsubscribe, mailto:unsubscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu?subject=[cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu]


This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:39:49 EDT