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Re TON in 1 John 2:13

> At 7:21 AM -0500 4/30/97, Michael Williams wrote:
> >The article TON appears in an isolated position in 1 John 2:13 and 2:14,
> >both times in the phrase HOTI EGNWKATE TON AP' ARCHS.  In 2:14, it appears
> >that the antecedent to TON is PATERA.  But I have not found the antecedent
> >for TON in 2:13 that easy to identify.  
> 
> There's no need to look for an antecedent; the usage in TON AP' ARCHS is
> the very common and traditional one whereby an article with any adverbial
> expression forms a substantive: hOI TOTE and hOI EN EKEINHi THi POLEI thus
> mean, respectively, "the men/people of that time" and "the men/people in
> that city." In the same manner here, hO AP' ARCHS means something like "the
> aboriginal one." One could suppose it to refer either to God or to the
> LOGOS, Christ, particularly since it is a Johannine theme to associate the
> LOGOS with "the beginning," both in the prologue of the gospel and in the
> proem of the First Letter.
> 
> Carl W. Conrad


I have been working on machine translation of Koine Greek and one
of the things I am looking at is anaphoric references. Does anyone
know off-hand if the reference is generally the most recent reference
which matches number and gender ?  This set of verses looks like a good
test case when I have code to test. I hope I am correct in that this
example is an anaphoric reference, or I will really be embarrassed :)

As for the ARXH theme in John refering to the LOGOS, I find the
comparison of this theme between John 1, Col 1 and Rev 3 to be
most interesting. It looks like the authors of the NT books have
consciously incorporated the Wisdom tradition.

The following have the elements of ARXH and KTISTOS or
PRWTO and TOKOS.

Pr 8:22 KURIOJ EKTISEN ME ARXHN ODWN AUTOU EIJ ERGA AUTOU.
Pr 8:23 PRO TOU AIWNOJ EQEMELIWSEN ME EN ARXH.
Re 3:14 H ARXH THS KTISEWS TOU QEOU
Col 1:15 PRWTOTOKOS PASHS KTISEWS

Then the thought turns to mankind
Pr 8:31  UIOIJ ANQRWPWN
Joh 1:4  TWN ANQRWPWN
Col 1:16 QRONOI EITE KURIOTHTES EITE ARXAI

I read an article by C.F Burney recently with more on this, I will
dig it up if anyone is interested.

Regarding Wisdom, I looked into the senses of SOFIA and it
appears that the the definition's in LSJ are not so much the
accumulation of knowledge, which appears to be the common English
usage, but that of a 'practical application', in fact the craftmen
were called 'cunning' or wise [SOFIA] in their craft.

This got me thinking about how SOFIA in Proverbs is not so much
a person with intellect, understanding and discernment as the
demonstration of God's SOFIA as the KTISTOS of 'ARXHN ODWN'.

This gives new meaning to me as to the sense of the term
'H ARXH THS KTISEWS' in Revelation as an identification with 
SOFIA in Proverbs 8.

Larry Kruper
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