[B-Greek] MONOU QEOU in John 5:44

Iver Larsen iver_larsen at sil.org
Wed Mar 23 02:14:38 EDT 2011


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Daniel Buck" <bucksburg at yahoo.com>
To: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: 22. marts 2011 23:21
Subject: [B-Greek] MONOU QEOU in John 5:44


> KAI THN DOXAN THN PARA TOU MONOU QEOU OU ZHTEITE --John 5:44
> " . . . and seek not the honour that comes from God alone?"
>
> "A Grammar of New Testament Greek," by James Hope Moulton, Vol.  III-Syntax, 
> by
> Nigel Turner, pg. 225-226: "There is therefore not  surprisingly some 
> confusion
> of monos with the adv. monon . . . In Jn 5:44 monou is best  TAKEN 
> ADVERBIALLY;
> not from him who alone is God, but only from God  (Jewish monotheism was
> unimpeachable; Jesus was referring to their love  of human praise), in spite 
> of
> the word order. Lk 5:21 adv. monos."
>
> Bible translators generally appear not to agree that MONOU should be taken
> adverbially here; can anyone comment on why?
>
> Daniel Buck

I would have to disagree with Turner here. Because of the position of the word 
it can hardly be anything than "the only God". MONOS is not often placed after 
the article and before the head noun. In John 17:3 we have TON MONON ALHQINON 
QEON. "The only God" seems to be a shortened form with almost the same meaning 
as "the only true God".

In Tim 1:17 we have TWi DE BASILEI TWN AIWNWN, AFQARTWi, AORATWi, MONWI QEWi

In 1 Tim 6:15-16 we have hO MAKARIOS KAI MONOS DUNASTOS, hO BASILEUS TWN 
BASILEUONTWN KAI KURIOS TWN KURIEUONTWN, hO MONOS ECWN AQANASIAN

In Jude 4 we have TON MONON DESPOTHN KAI KURION, IHSOUN CRISTON

The point in 5:44 is not to contrast God with any other God, but simply to refer 
to the one (true) God as opposed to humans, the one God that they should know 
all about but seem to have forgotten.

P66, P75 and B lack QEOU, but that is probably an accidental omission, a common 
enough mistake in the papyrus mss. However, one possible reason for dropping 
Q(EO)U could be that "the only one" is still understood as referring to "the 
only God".

Iver Larsen





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