John W.,
John W. wrote:As someone who is neither a scholar, nor interested in theology, may I be permitted to comment?
To recap, the text (as per Westcott and Hort) is as follows:
Ο ΗΝ ΑΠ᾽ ΑΡΧΗΣ, ὃ ἀκηκόαμεν, ὃ ἑωράκαμεν τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς ἡμῶν, ὃ ἐθεασάμεθα καὶ αἱ χεῖρες ἡμῶν ἐψηλάφησαν, περὶ τοῦ λόγου τῆς ζωῆς,— καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἐφανερώθη, καὶ ἑωράκαμεν καὶ μαρτυροῦμεν καὶ ἀπαγγέλλομενὑμῖν τὴν ζωὴν τὴν αἰώνιον ἥτις ἦν πρὸς τὸν πατέρα καὶἐφανερώθη ἡμῖν,— ὃ ἑωράκαμεν καὶ ἀκηκόαμεν ἀπαγγέλλομεν καὶ ὑμῖν, ἵνα καὶ ὑμεῖς κοινωνίαν ἔχητε μεθ᾽ ἡμῶν ...
I have ignored verse breaks as being much later and potentially unhelpful (as in some other ancient texts).
Experience has taught me that whether or not we have an theological ax to grind becomes rather apparent by the content of our posts, sometimes over time, and not by a summary proclamation.
To me the likeliest explanation seem to be that the various earlier instances of ὃ are finally brought together as the (resumptive) ὃ in ὃ ἑωράκαμεν καὶ ἀκηκόαμεν ἀπαγγέλλομεν καὶ ὑμῖν. I'm not sure whether (as has been said) this should be regarded as 'ungrammatical'; even if it is, that doesn't necessarily invalidate this interpretation. Thucydides (who certainly pushes, if not exceeds, the bounds of grammar) sometimes does something similar, in that, after the start of a sentence, he has incorporated so many subordinate clauses (explaining circumstance and context), that, when he is ready to resume the main thrust of the sentence, he adds an additional pronoun before the main verb.
An ungrammatical translation is for me a non-starter.
The 'God's Word' translation simply breaks the whole thing up into short, staccato sentences by inserting an extra main verb;
What is that extra "main" verb which has been added ?
it reads like a rather (too) free paraphrase. From what has been quoted of the Wallace translation, it looks as if that is not really inserting an extra verb in the same way, but is merely repeating 'This is what we proclaim to you' at the start to clarify the structure, which is less common in English than in Greek.
Actually, by his own admission Wallace says that he "supplies" a sentence
not in the original Greek text for "clarification." -- "1tn The phrase 'This is what we proclaim to you' is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to clarify the English." I find that quite alarming. ἀπαγγέλλομεν only occurs once in 1 John 1:1-4 but Wallace literally invents another one . This is very serious tampering and distortion of the text. Wallace has a tendency to do that when it comes to the "Christologically significant" texts, for example, in 1 John 1:1c he adds the verb "fully" into the original text out of thin air. -- "and the Word was
fully God." This is unjustifiable.
Anyway, that is just my own view at this stage. Opinions will - as with many other ancient texts - no doubt continue to differ.
Best wishes,
John
What do you think of the translation offered by Carl W. Conrad (Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus) ) :
"What was in existence from the outset, what we have heard, what we have
seen with our own eyes, what we gazed upon and our hands have felt-to-touch
-- (I'm talking) of the WORD which is LIFE"
Which echoes mine quite well:
"I'm writing about the Word , that is, the Life which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our own eyes, which we gazed upon and which our hands touched."
Οὐαὶ οἱ λέγοντες τὸ πονηρὸν καλὸν καὶ τὸ καλὸν πονηρόν, οἱ τιθέντες τὸ σκότος φῶς καὶ τὸ φῶς σκότος, οἱ τιθέντες τὸ πικρὸν γλυκὺ καὶ τὸ γλυκὺ πικρόν