10 ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ἦν, καὶ ὁ κόσμος δι’ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ ὁ κόσμος αὐτὸν οὐκ ἔγνω.
Agreed?.. I've actually heard some people say "Jesus in verse 17."

10 ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ἦν, καὶ ὁ κόσμος δι’ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ ὁ κόσμος αὐτὸν οὐκ ἔγνω.
I think it's safe to say that the antecedent of αὐτόν in verse 10 is τὸ φῶς in verse 9 ...
Markos wrote:I think it's safe to say that the antecedent of αὐτόν in verse 10 is τὸ φῶς in verse 9 ...
I don't disagree, but the masculine pronoun indicates that the light is personalized in Jesus.
The writer is using constructio ad sensum -- by referring to the neuter noun τὸ φῶς (verse 9) with a masculine pronoun αὐτόν (verse 10) . But in verse 5 he uses a neuter pronoun to refer to the same noun,.. no constructio ad sensum. Why ? Because in verse 10 the impersonal had become a person.
uberdwayne wrote:I think here that John is so convinced that the light is Jesus, that it spills out with the masculine pronoun "αυτον". It almost makes no difference at all weather το φως or ο Ιησους is the antecedent. If o Ιησους is the antecedent, then it may be so from his own mind and not from the following verses, because after all, it is the evangelist who is convinced and is convincing us that ο Ιησους φως εστιν.
mwh wrote:Yes I agree. At some point after v.9 there seems to be slippage from the neuter to the masculine, i.e. from τὸ φῶς retaining its neuter gender to its being personified as (unnamed) Jesus. But it's not quite that simple, because αὐτόν is sometimes used as an alternative form of αὐτό, i.e. as neuter, esp. in koine and esp. before a word beginning with a vowel (the nu breaks the hiatus, cf. the "movable" nu in e.g. ηλθε(ν)). So throughout this passage, after the unequivocal neuters of 9, all the αυτον’s etc. could be taken as either neuter or masculine. There's an equivocality that's impossible to capture in English, which has to choose between "it" and "him." A rare phenomenon: the English inflection of personal pronouns (he/she/it) here surpasses that of Greek! But in light (no pun intended) of αυτο in 5 it does seem most natural to read αυτον etc. as masculine. The manuscripts are remarkably consistent.
mwh wrote:Certainly that's a tenable and perfectly respectable view, and I'm inclined to agree with it, but it misses the point I was making - that auton can be neuter, and accordingly there's built-in ambiguity as to gender. That makes it difficult or impossible to fix the precise point at which the reconceptualization occurs.
(Your insistence on "a human being" incidentally begs the tormented theological question of the humanity/divinity of Jesus, but that's a side issue, and I'm certainly not going there.)
MWH wrote:that auton can be neuter, and accordingly there's built-in ambiguity as to gender.
mwh wrote:Thanks to each of you for your friendly responses.
I'm not sure I'm capable of elaborating beyond my original post, coupled with my last. I did my best to explain there, and if there's anything in particular you don't understand I'll be happy to elucidate. But when I said auton could be neuter yes I did mean that it's a well attested variant form of auto. The standard dictionaries are not very good on this, though LSJ does say at the outset of the autos entry:
αὐτός (Cret. ἀϝτός GDI4976, al.), αὐτή, αὐτό (also
αὐτόν Leg.Gort. 3.4, al.), reflexive Pron., self:—in
oblique cases used for the personal Pron., him, her, it:
—with Art., ὁ αὐτός, ἡ αὐτή, τὸ αὐτό (also ταὐτόν), etc.
(I've underlined the relevant bits. That "al." covers a multitude.)
The only NT lexicon I have to hand is the Shorter Gingrich-Danker, which simply gives the neuter as the regular auto. You'd have to look at the bigger NT or koine ones for documentation, or papyrological grammars (Mayser or Gignac). It may be that auton neuter is not recognized as occurring in the NT - hey, it may be that auton neuter actually does not occur in the NT, but I thought it worth raising the possibility, since it's firmly attested before vowels in koine, perhaps merely as an orthographical variant. It doesn't actually make much difference to the passage in John, to my mind, since it's pretty clear that there's a shift from the neuter (fws) to the masculine somewhere along the way.
mwh wrote:Thanks to each of you for your friendly responses.
I'm not sure I'm capable of elaborating beyond my original post, coupled with my last. I did my best to explain there, and if there's anything in particular you don't understand I'll be happy to elucidate. But when I said auton could be neuter yes I did mean that it's a well attested variant form of auto. The standard dictionaries are not very good on this, though LSJ does say at the outset of the autos entry:
αὐτός (Cret. ἀϝτός GDI4976, al.), αὐτή, αὐτό (also
αὐτόν Leg.Gort. 3.4, al.), reflexive Pron., self:—in
oblique cases used for the personal Pron., him, her, it:
—with Art., ὁ αὐτός, ἡ αὐτή, τὸ αὐτό (also ταὐτόν), etc.
(I've underlined the relevant bits. That "al." covers a multitude.)
The only NT lexicon I have to hand is the Shorter Gingrich-Danker, which simply gives the neuter as the regular auto. You'd have to look at the bigger NT or koine ones for documentation, or papyrological grammars (Mayser or Gignac). It may be that auton neuter is not recognized as occurring in the NT - hey, it may be that auton neuter actually does not occur in the NT, but I thought it worth raising the possibility, since it's firmly attested before vowels in koine, perhaps merely as an orthographical variant. It doesn't actually make much difference to the passage in John, to my mind, since it's pretty clear that there's a shift from the neuter (fws) to the masculine somewhere along the way.
Isaac Newton wrote:mwh wrote:Thanks to each of you for your friendly responses.
I'm not sure I'm capable of elaborating beyond my original post, coupled with my last. I did my best to explain there, and if there's anything in particular you don't understand I'll be happy to elucidate. But when I said auton could be neuter yes I did mean that it's a well attested variant form of auto. The standard dictionaries are not very good on this, though LSJ does say at the outset of the autos entry:
αὐτός (Cret. ἀϝτός GDI4976, al.), αὐτή, αὐτό (also
αὐτόν Leg.Gort. 3.4, al.), reflexive Pron., self:—in
oblique cases used for the personal Pron., him, her, it:
—with Art., ὁ αὐτός, ἡ αὐτή, τὸ αὐτό (also ταὐτόν), etc.
(I've underlined the relevant bits. That "al." covers a multitude.)
The only NT lexicon I have to hand is the Shorter Gingrich-Danker, which simply gives the neuter as the regular auto. You'd have to look at the bigger NT or koine ones for documentation, or papyrological grammars (Mayser or Gignac). It may be that auton neuter is not recognized as occurring in the NT - hey, it may be that auton neuter actually does not occur in the NT, but I thought it worth raising the possibility, since it's firmly attested before vowels in koine, perhaps merely as an orthographical variant. It doesn't actually make much difference to the passage in John, to my mind, since it's pretty clear that there's a shift from the neuter (fws) to the masculine somewhere along the way.
That (bold above) would render it a non-starter , at least biblically...
Isaac Newton: Which noun is the antecedent of αὐτὸν in verse 10 ? Is it λόγος in John 1:1c ? Y/N ?
Jaihare: I said “no,” and I meant “no.” So, let me say it again: “No.” Again? “No!” Can I be more expressive? NOOOO. Again? NOOO! Now shut up already, you ----! [note: I've taken the liberty to remove your last word in this sentence and replaced it with four dashes ---- ]
Isaac Newton: Does αὐτὸν in verse 10 have an antecedent ?
Jaihare: Every pronoun has an antecedent. It is the real-world representation of the character that he’s introducing. It is neither λόγος nor φῶς. Have you not read a single word that I’ve so eloquently written? Get it through your skull already!
Isaac Newton: Just identify the antecedent (with verse and chapter) of αὐτὸν in verse 10 .
Jaihare:Jesus Christ (John 1:17).
Isaac Newton wrote:Thanks Jaihare for your post.
Do you still stand by your [forgive me, strange] assertion that the antecedent of αὐτὸν in verse 10 is not τὸ φῶς but Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ in verse 17 ?
As a reminder, here is our discussion from 7 months ago at Carm:Isaac Newton: Which noun is the antecedent of αὐτὸν in verse 10 ? Is it λόγος in John 1:1c ? Y/N ?
Jaihare: I said “no,” and I meant “no.” So, let me say it again: “No.” Again? “No!” Can I be more expressive? NOOOO. Again? NOOO! Now shut up already, you ----! [note: I've taken the liberty to remove your last word in this sentence and replaced it with four dashes ---- ]
Isaac Newton: Does αὐτὸν in verse 10 have an antecedent ?
Jaihare: Every pronoun has an antecedent. It is the real-world representation of the character that he’s introducing. It is neither λόγος nor φῶς. Have you not read a single word that I’ve so eloquently written? Get it through your skull already!
Isaac Newton: Just identify the antecedent (with verse and chapter) of αὐτὸν in verse 10 .
Jaihare:Jesus Christ (John 1:17).
In the peace of Christ,
jaihare wrote:Isaac Newton wrote:If I have told you on CARM that you are on ignore, what makes you bring the conversation here?
Isaac Newton wrote:jaihare wrote:Isaac Newton wrote:If I have told you on CARM that you are on ignore, what makes you bring the conversation here?
Respectfully, then why are you not ignoring me ? You should not even be able to see this post.
Remember, you have [apparently] put me on ignore, I haven't and I won't. I have no reason to "ignore" you. So I'm not doing anything wrong, however you're breaking your word (once again) by not ignoring me .
jaihare wrote:I have you on ignore on CARM, and I'd appreciate you not addressing me here.
Τὸ Φῶς there is a word picture that is used to describe Jesus. It is said that God is love, God is light, God is goodness, God is life, etc. Jesus stated in John’s gospel that “I am the resurrection and the life” (11:25), and in the prologue to this gospel we see that “life was in [the Logos]” (ἐν [τῷ Λόγῳ] ζωὴ ἦν). The light being described in verse 9 is anthropomorphized. It is not simply “light” in the sense of what radiates from the sun or from the filament of a bulb. It is the source of light, and this light source was a being. How do I know? Because it says of John that “he himself was not that light.” There would be no sense in making that statement if we were not to associate this light with a person. John came to give testimony concerning the light (Jesus).
So, why is τὸ Φῶς not the antecedent of αὐτόν in John 1:9? Because the antecedent to the masculine pronoun is the person for whom both ὁ Λόγος and τὸ Φῶς were merely metaphors. The masculine pronoun refers to JESUS, as it was he who “came unto his own” and “his own did not accept him” and “he was in the world” and “the world did not know him.” This was Jesus, as all of the continuation demonstrates. Verse 9 is where we switch clearly from speaking in metaphor to bringing the Word and the Light into the world, as it states that “the true Light… was coming into the world” and “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”
It’s clear why αὐτόν (masculine) does not take φῶς (neuter) as its antecedent. It’s like saying that “God is a hen” (feminine – used as a metaphor) and then using masculine pronouns to describe God, the person behind the metaphor. In this case, the author is speaking of Jesus coming into the world, and even though a metaphor may appear in the neuter, the idea behind the metaphor is not neuter – but masculine.
I will say, though, that I’ve provided you at every step very clear posts with good explanations of my thinking and my purposes. I’ve never received a reply from you that was half as serious, and yet you would wish to cast aside my “antics.” It is you, my unevolved opponent, who has nothing but antics in his arsenal and cannot provide any fresh or enlightening thoughts for the rest of the forum to draw benefit from.
Every pronoun has an antecedent. It is the real-world representation of the character that he’s introducing. It is neither λόγος nor φῶς. Have you not read a single word that I’ve so eloquently written? Get it through your skull already!
mwh wrote:This has become a most unsavory personal exchange, and has no place on these boards.
What's more, we've been here before, in Isaac Newton's earlier posts. See e.g. "Inspecting 1 John 1:1" (last post Dec.1), where I belatedly learnt the lesson never to respond to these posts.
Please desist.
mwh wrote:Enough already. No more of this on these boards, PLEASE.
C. S. Bartholomew wrote:mwh wrote:Enough already. No more of this on these boards, PLEASE.
Agree with Michael:
Three reasons I like this place more than the other place:
One: the freedom to talk about all aspects of greek texts, from Textual criticism to exegesis.
Two: there is a relaxed friendly atmosphere here.
Three: the moderation is low key tolerant of minor personality issues
For all of these reasons we need to keep it clean or we will end up with loosing all this goodness.
mwh wrote:Enough already. No more of this on these boards, PLEASE.
jaihare wrote:I have you on ignore on CARM, and I'd appreciate you not addressing me here.
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