I would agree with Will here--but I'd also say that I can't quite
understand why people want to find several centuries' worth of trinitarian
doctrine fully enunciated in intelligible form in John's prologue. I've
been meaning for some time, however, to note in connection with Cindy's
study of PROS + EIMI constructions, that we probably ought (especially in
view of the fact that our central focus in this interminable thread has
been part-of-a-whole-verse within the Johannine prologue) to consider in
the same light as those PROS + EIMI constructions the powerful image
conveyed by John 1:18--and I'm thinking particularly of the phrase hO WN
EIS TON KOLPON TOU PATROS:
QEON OUDEIS hEWRAKEN PWPOTE; MONOGENHS QEOS hO WN EIS TON KOLPON TOU
PATROS EKEINOS EXHGHSATO.
To be sure, the verse has been mentioned previously in connection with the
usage of MONOGENHS QEOS here, but there's been no discussion of hO WN EIS
TON KOLPON TOU PATROS, and I would think that it just MIGHT have some
bearing on how we understand PROS TON QEON in John 1:1. Personally, I
think EIS TON KOLPON is even more striking thatn PROS + acc. with EIMI: we
might understand PROS TON QEON to mean "in the presence of" or "face to
face with," but the sense of EIS TON KOLPON TOU PATROS WN is the more
striking (I think), and not really adequately conveyed in English by "in
the bosom of the father."
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/