[B-Greek] John 1:18 where the argument stands
Dave Smith (REL110, 211,212)
rel21x at charter.net
Mon Aug 14 14:37:18 EDT 2006
Jason,
The conclusions offered rest on four rather precarious assumptions: 1) that
direct discourse would justify your understanding of the text and 2) that
John 1:18 and 1 John 4:12 are parallel grammatical constructions, 3) that a
text can be subdivided anywhere along the line at will and that 4)
anthithetical parallelism is present. Semitic parallelism should not be
considered, unless it is in use in the near context, as is the case
throughout Luke 1-2, in some of the parables of Jesus, in the early
Christian Hymns found in the Pauline corpus, etc. At least, 1 John 4:12,
which was suggested, has no such parallelism. Even if John 1:17 is
parallelism, it is synthetic and the structure is not similar to 1:18,
lacking the supposed direct discourse. If there is Semitic/antithetical
parallelism in 1:18, stating contrast, it would not contrast just the words
MONOGENESHS, but everything that follows. Again, we should realize that 1
John 4:12 has a conditional aspect, a hypotaxis, using a subjunctive. I am
skeptical of the implied difficulty that you propose here. This is more
likely one of the many common parenthetical comments that is characteristic
of this evangelist who, for one observation, is fond of synonymy.
Just for illustration, let's take the textual variant hYIOS which appears in
A and Origen, not to mention many others. Origen actually has one reading
such as MONOGENHS hUIOS QEOU (see UBS textual footnotes), which would make
it impossible for QEOS to be separated from the foregoing phrase.
Nevertheless, your translation would then be: "God no man hath seen at any
time except the only begotten. *Son* (Direct Discourse object) the one being
in the bosom of the Father (the Son - subject) that one (object pronoun)
declared." Now, of all other NT usages of MONOGENHS (Luke 7:12, 8:42, 9:38),
when the word is in juxtaposition with either QUGATHR or hUIOS and functions
as a modifying adjective, whether it comes before or after, the adjective
and the noun can not be separated. In one instance it is a predicate
adjective, but it references to a preceeding hUIOS. For your construction to
be remotely probable, the text would have to read QEOS MONOGENHS and they
could not be in juxtaposition. From the examples we have, the only way to
read MONOGENHS QEOS/hUIOS is unique or only-begotten God/son.
Where hypotaxis does not exist, if we ignore juxtaposition, noun-modifier
chains, the individual style of the author, or imply Semitic parataxis at
random, it leaves us in a grammatical, and possibly lexical, no-man's land.
But, if your understanding of this passage is correct, I suggest
experimentation with renderings of QEOS in one or both instances, such as:
No man has ever seen a god, except a unique [entity]; a [or another] god in
the bosom of the Father, that [other god/? does it ref. to OUDEIS or QEOS #1
or #2 or hO WS or PATROS] declared [the unseen god or something/someone].
One could derive a thoroughly Gnostic interpretation including the demiurge,
if MONOGENHS is separated grammatically from QEOS, although this is contrary
to all other NT examples.
Dave Smith
Hudson, NC
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jason Kerrigan" <jasonandshon at yahoo.com>
To: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 13, 2006 23:17
Subject: [B-Greek] John 1:18 where the argument stands
> I wanted to give a quick overview of some of the points
> made thus far regarding John 1:18
>
> In the traditional translation/interpretation of John 1:18 we
> are left without a stated object of EXHGHSATO. Elizabeth
> Kline asserted that the EXHGHSATO is odd if absolute,
> and instead probably has an understood/unstated object
> instead.
>
> If John 1:16-18 contains Direct Descourse words of the Baptist
> (as Origen believed) then theos in John 1:18b can be the
> object of the Son's declaration. Harold Holmyard commented
> on the appelations "only-begotten" and "Father" in John 1:18
> and said that this better fits the normal terminology of the
> Evangelist rather than the Baptist. I said that the Father's
> declaration at the subsequent baptism of Christ could account
> for the Father/Son terminology. Harold also said that it would
> be odd for John to have spoken of the Son having declared God
> (past tense) at the time of the Baptist's introduction of Christ.
> I conceded the point, but I am second guessing it now based
> on John's reference to Christ's pre-existence: "he was before me"
> and also based upon the fact that the Son declaring God has
> been true of Christ since the beginning... and with a view of
> Christ's pre-existence, and because of the subject matter of John
> 1:18 I think it may actually be the correct interpretation.
>
> I said that perhaps theos declared the one being in the bosom of
> the Father (i.e. the Son) at the baptism (John 1:33-34) but I did not
> receive any comments on this proposed translation. I think the
> interpretation of Christ declaring God fits better.
>
> We also discussed 1John 4:12 and compared it to John 1:18, showing
> how the NIV translates both passages with an implied/unstated
> contrast. In light of this contrast we discussed the possibilty of
> John 1:18 being translated as, "God no man hath seen at any time
> except the only begotten. God, the one being in the bosom of the
> Father, that one declared." I presented two Ante Nicene quotations in
> which John 1:18 was quoted as, "except the only begotten." Iver Larsen
> attested to the possiblity of an implied contrast, saying:
> Yes, it would be legitimate to make the implied contrast explicit by
> adding a "but". NIV, NLT and NCV are some of the English versions
> that do exactly that. It is common in Hebrew thought pattern to first
> state a general principle and after that list one or more exceptions.
> And it is clear from this whole chapter that Jesus, the one-and-only Son
> was with God and had obviously seen God in contrast to every human
> being. That is why Jesus was able to explain/show/make God known to
> humans.
>
> Thus far I do not see anything that rules out translating John 1:18
> as:
>
> "God no man hath seen at any time except the only begotten. God
> (Direct Descourse object) the one being in the bosom of the Father (the
> Son - subject) that one (object pronoun) declared."
>
> Respect and grattitude,
> Jason (the foot eating) Kerrigan
>
>
>
>
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