>Two things strike me as a little suspicious about the otherwise
>"excellent sense":
Please pardon my enthusiastic overstatement here. It would have
been better to have simply said "good sense."
>
>1) The idea of an instrumental dative (EN AUTWi) with a person
>rather than a thing -- although it's conceivable that things
>are, as you say, coming into being _through_ him more as
>an instrument than as an agent.
It would be interesting to see if John uses EN AUTWi elsewhere
instrumentally. Hmm. I did notice, however, the Col 1:16
EN AUTWi parallel, mentioned by Andrew K. It is certainly to be
taken at least instrumentally there.
>
>2) The use of hHN rather than ESTIN, in conjunction with the
>perfective GEGONEN. The perfective (so I am told) indicates
>an effect that continues to the present. If it were to go
>with hHN, wouldn't we expect a pluperfect instead?
I don't think a pluperfect would do it, but a present tense ESTIN
might be expected (what has come into being through Him is
life).
In fact, this is what Aleph, D and a number of variant manuscripts
do have (so UBS text, 3rd edition).
Sorry for the delay. Was gone the last 5 days.
Paul Dixon