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05-24-2019, 09:41 AM
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Re: Help With The Greek
Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael The Disciple
We have discussed this before but how about one more round? Is what I'm seeing a major breakthrough for Oneness doctrine or nothing?
John 1:1
In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.
In the Greek Interlinears the last 4 words are Theos en ho logos.
One speaking Greek would pronounce what as the last word of this sentence?
Bible Hub Interlinear:
https://biblehub.com/interlinear/john/1-1.htm
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In John 1.1, a basic feature of Greek grammar shows exactly what the subject is and what the predicate nominative is. When two nouns in the nominative case (subjective case in English) appear in a sentence joined by a copulative verb, if only one of the nouns has the article "the" (ho), that is the subject. If both have an article, word order would reveal the subject. If neither have an article, context would have to be used to determine the subject. In John 1.1, logos has the article; theos does not. So, the subject is "the Word" (ho logos); the predicate nominative is "God" (theos). In English, this is translated as "The Word was God."
Why, though, would theos come before ho logos in the sentence? Since Greek, unlike English, is an inflected language (the endings of words change to indicate meaning), an author can vary the word order for emphasis or just variation in a way that languages like English cannot. English has lost most of its inflections and so depends on word order for meaning. We cannot, for example, write or say both "The man ate the bear " and "The bear ate the man" and basically mean the same thing. Word order shows what the subject is and what the object is, and so in my examples, the meaning is fundamentally different.
Greek word order is much more flexible, so if John wanted to emphasize something, say, that the Logos is God, he could, and did, put theos first. This doesn't make theos the subject. It's still the predicate nominative because it does not have the article, so in English we, again, translate it as the "Word was God," but to convey the emphasis, we might vary the intonation of the sentence and put the the emphasis on "God"--"And the Word was God."
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05-24-2019, 12:09 PM
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Re: Help With The Greek
Quote:
Originally Posted by Costeon
In John 1.1, a basic feature of Greek grammar shows exactly what the subject is and what the predicate nominative is. When two nouns in the nominative case (subjective case in English) appear in a sentence joined by a copulative verb, if only one of the nouns has the article "the" (ho), that is the subject. If both have an article, word order would reveal the subject. If neither have an article, context would have to be used to determine the subject. In John 1.1, logos has the article; theos does not. So, the subject is "the Word" (ho logos); the predicate nominative is "God" (theos). In English, this is translated as "The Word was God."
Why, though, would theos come before ho logos in the sentence? Since Greek, unlike English, is an inflected language (the endings of words change to indicate meaning), an author can vary the word order for emphasis or just variation in a way that languages like English cannot. English has lost most of its inflections and so depends on word order for meaning. We cannot, for example, write or say both "The man ate the bear " and "The bear ate the man" and basically mean the same thing. Word order shows what the subject is and what the object is, and so in my examples, the meaning is fundamentally different.
Greek word order is much more flexible, so if John wanted to emphasize something, say, that the Logos is God, he could, and did, put theos first. This doesn't make theos the subject. It's still the predicate nominative because it does not have the article, so in English we, again, translate it as the "Word was God," but to convey the emphasis, we might vary the intonation of the sentence and put the the emphasis on "God"--"And the Word was God."
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Thanks for your input. I have been out of school for 49 years and dont remember much about the rules of language so please bear with me.
All the Interlinears I have seen end the sentence with "God was the word". Is this leading the average guy astray?
Also if the Greek was the original and the Aramaic and the Latin were copies of it why do both of them end the sentence the same way as in the Interlinears?
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05-24-2019, 01:55 PM
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Location: Wisconsin Dells
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Re: Help With The Greek
It all begins with learning the language. Until then, stick to the English text.
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05-24-2019, 02:04 PM
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Re: Help With The Greek
Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael The Disciple
Thanks for your input. I have been out of school for 49 years and dont remember much about the rules of language so please bear with me.
All the Interlinears I have seen end the sentence with "God was the word". Is this leading the average guy astray?
Also if the Greek was the original and the Aramaic and the Latin were copies of it why do both of them end the sentence the same way as in the Interlinears?
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The interlinear that you linked to is just putting the English words directly under the Greek words they correspond to. It is giving no guidance on how to understand the word order or to render it in English. See the attached image of John 1.1 in The NKJV Greek-English Interlinear New Testament. Note the superscript numbers in "4God 3was 1the 2Word." The 1, 2, 3, and 4 are showing the order to read the words in English, that is, "the Word was God."
I can't speak at all to the Aramaic. As far as the Latin goes, all that can be said is that Jerome, the translator, is just giving the most literal word for word rendering of the Greek into Latin. Unfortunately, Latin does not have an article at all, so there is no Latin equivalent for the Greek "ho." Context alone in Latin determines if something is definite or indefinite. Jerome obviously knew Greek and could see that logos alone had the article ho, but since Latin lacks an article, he could not include one before "Verbum." In short, what is ambiguous in Latin is unambiguous in Greek.
I've also attached an image of a section from an Intro to Greek book that explains the grammatical rule about the article I have mentioned in this post.
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05-24-2019, 02:15 PM
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Re: Help With The Greek
I remember when I was studying Greek that I was so excited at first that I was going to be able to get back to the original text and be able to really see what it meant and thus be equipped to defeat my doctrinal opponents. Then one day it occurred to me that all the doctrinal controversies in the early church were carried out in Greek by Greeks. Greeks argued with Greeks over the meaning of the Greek. So I realized I probably wouldn't end up with some deep insight into the Greek, struggling to learn it as an adult, that Greeks hadn't already seen and argued over. As far as I know, in the debates over the nature of Christ, I don't think they were putting a lot of weight on the word order of John 1.1.
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05-24-2019, 02:22 PM
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Re: Help With The Greek
Learn Greek for a love of the language, not to win a debate.
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05-24-2019, 02:27 PM
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Re: Help With The Greek
I understand what Trinitarians now say about the lack of the article before theos--that John was showing that the Word was God but not the Father and that only if there was an article before theos as well as logos would John be absolutely identifying the Word with the Father. My take on it would be that all that really can be said about the word order of John 1.1 is that John uses "ho logos" as the subject throughout the verse, and in order to emphasize the divinity of the Word while maintaining ho logos as the subject, he put theos without the article first. In my opinion, the identity of the Word cannot be simply established on John 1.1, but on the entirety of what John writes in his Gospel.
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05-24-2019, 02:28 PM
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Re: Help With The Greek
Quote:
Originally Posted by Scott Pitta
Learn Greek for a love of the language, not to win a debate.
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Yes indeed.
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05-24-2019, 02:32 PM
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Re: Help With The Greek
Quote:
Originally Posted by Scott Pitta
Learn Greek for a love of the language, not to win a debate.
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Hopefully I kept studying the language for the love of the Word. :-)
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05-24-2019, 02:35 PM
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Re: Help With The Greek
Quote:
Originally Posted by Scott Pitta
Learn Greek for a love of the language, not to win a debate.
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What did you mean in post 2 when you said "the last spoken word of the sentence would be logos?"
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