John 1.8 - distinguishing subjects and complements, and borrowing verbs from earlier sentences.
Posted: March 6th, 2023, 9:32 am
I finished 1 John! No doubt missing a lot of subtleties, but still, I think I can allow myself a brief bask in a warm glow of accomplishment.
Now on with the gospel... I am finding a very specific challenge with the first eighteen verses in that the NRSV translation is sufficiently etched on my brain that it's especially difficult to ignore, but I'm trying to put it to one side and just concentrate on what I think the Greek says.
7 οὗτος ἦλθεν εἰς μαρτυρίαν, ἵνα μαρτυρήσῃ περὶ τοῦ φωτός, ἵνα πάντες πιστεύσωσιν δι’ αὐτοῦ.
8 οὐκ ἦν ἐκεῖνος τὸ φῶς, ἀλλ’ ἵνα μαρτυρήσῃ περὶ τοῦ φωτός.
I'm having two difficulties with verse 8, which I would naïvely translate as "The light was not this man, but in order that he might testify concerning the light"
Problem the first - based on both all the existing translations with which I'm familiar, and the unlikelihood of the light testifying concerning itself*, I think I've got the subject and complement backwards, but I also had the understanding that you could distinguish between them by the subject having the article and the complement lacking it. So what's the difference between οὐκ ἦν ἐκεῖνος τὸ φῶς and καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ Λόγος such that the former can be 'this man was not the light', but the latter can't be 'and (a) God was the Word'?
Problem the second - the second clause clearly needs to be an indirect object of some verb in order to make sense, but which verb? Is it the ἦν from earlier in the sentence, which I think could work in the sense of "he existed in order to...", but would make translations such as the ESV and NRSV (came to) and the KJV (was sent to) feel as though they'd changed the meaning somewhat (although the "his function was to" in Nicholas King's translation feels closer). Or can it actually be using the ἦλθεν from the previous verse? (Or even, for the KJV translators, the ἀπεσταλμένος from two verses ago?) Is this allowed, or do sentences have to be self-contained? Or am I approaching this in the wrong way by looking for a verb explicitly in the text - can ἵνα + subjunctive do more of the heavy lifting here in terms of implying what it's the purpose of?
Thanks
Sebastian
*no reference to Jn 8.13-19 intended
Now on with the gospel... I am finding a very specific challenge with the first eighteen verses in that the NRSV translation is sufficiently etched on my brain that it's especially difficult to ignore, but I'm trying to put it to one side and just concentrate on what I think the Greek says.
7 οὗτος ἦλθεν εἰς μαρτυρίαν, ἵνα μαρτυρήσῃ περὶ τοῦ φωτός, ἵνα πάντες πιστεύσωσιν δι’ αὐτοῦ.
8 οὐκ ἦν ἐκεῖνος τὸ φῶς, ἀλλ’ ἵνα μαρτυρήσῃ περὶ τοῦ φωτός.
I'm having two difficulties with verse 8, which I would naïvely translate as "The light was not this man, but in order that he might testify concerning the light"
Problem the first - based on both all the existing translations with which I'm familiar, and the unlikelihood of the light testifying concerning itself*, I think I've got the subject and complement backwards, but I also had the understanding that you could distinguish between them by the subject having the article and the complement lacking it. So what's the difference between οὐκ ἦν ἐκεῖνος τὸ φῶς and καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ Λόγος such that the former can be 'this man was not the light', but the latter can't be 'and (a) God was the Word'?
Problem the second - the second clause clearly needs to be an indirect object of some verb in order to make sense, but which verb? Is it the ἦν from earlier in the sentence, which I think could work in the sense of "he existed in order to...", but would make translations such as the ESV and NRSV (came to) and the KJV (was sent to) feel as though they'd changed the meaning somewhat (although the "his function was to" in Nicholas King's translation feels closer). Or can it actually be using the ἦλθεν from the previous verse? (Or even, for the KJV translators, the ἀπεσταλμένος from two verses ago?) Is this allowed, or do sentences have to be self-contained? Or am I approaching this in the wrong way by looking for a verb explicitly in the text - can ἵνα + subjunctive do more of the heavy lifting here in terms of implying what it's the purpose of?
Thanks
Sebastian
*no reference to Jn 8.13-19 intended