From: Jonathan Robie (jonathan@texcel.no)
Date: Tue Jan 06 1998 - 09:06:14 EST
At 12:07 PM 1/6/98 -0500, Al Kidd wrote:
> I include something more that may help you
>to see where I am coming from, for if we have
>a definite predicate--say, a title-phrase equivalent
>to the definite, personal name YHWH--, then
>should it not have been articulated?
No. Predicate nouns rarely have the article; this is often the thing that
distinguishes them from the subject nouns. The only time that they do have
the article is when the subject and predicate are interchangeable.
By the way, I'm intentionally avoiding a discussion of the basis for
trinitarian beliefs, and trying to stay focussed on grammatical arguments.
>So again I ask If QEOS in John 1:1c were a title-phrase
>equivalent to the personal name YHWH (Jehovah/Yahweh),
>which is true enough for QEOS in John 1:1b, then should not
>John have perhaps made it to appear in 1:1c with the article
>(thus >>HO QEOS<<) as well, this if for no other reason than
>that the "name" (HO QEOS) might then have appeared so that it
>should signal anaphoric reference to its earlier use in 1:1b?
Earlier, I suggested that QEOS is definite even without the article,
referring to God; I recently posted a message that shows that Greek names
are not non-cancellably definite without the article. This caught me by
surprise. I suspect that the same holds for QEOS - but I still see it as
unmarked for definiteness, not as [-definite].
I think that the tests I tried yesterday do say something about "definite".
I don't have a good enough definition of "qualitative" to do any tests.
>If, however, John is targeting a readership that accepts
>that there are divine beings (spirit persons, gods) other
>than Jehovah--but who are in service to their Creator
>(Jehovah)--, then the absence of the article must
>_naturally_ suggest that the Logos really does own the
>nature of divinity.
My biggest problem with this is the "If" at the beginning, and the argument
that follows is based more on a presumed cosmology than on a grammatical
argument. If John wanted to say this, he could have spelled it out for us
rather than leaving us to conclude it from the absence of the article in a
construction that usually involves the absence of the article regardless of
whether the noun involved is definite.
>And we should see John's choice of
>syntax as that which lays emphasis on that nature (divinity)
>for the Logos-Son, the one who, according to 1:18, is an
>only-begotten god (a certain spirit person, namely, the one
>who is uniquely derived from God the Father, and accordingly
>is much more glorious than all the other spirit sons of God).
Although there is nothing in the grammar that rules this out, there is also
nothing in the grammar that suggests an indefinite interpretation ("an
only-begotten god"), and I would suggest that only-begotten is in itself a
definite concept. It is not meaningful to think of this as "one of many
only-begotten gods".
Jonathan
___________________________________________________________________________
Jonathan Robie jwrobie@mindspring.com
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