What exactly do you find objectionable about my understanding and grammatical analysis of 1 John 1:1 ?
Absolutely. 
If nothing else jaihare, I’ve shown you that the neuter ὅ can (and does) refer to a masc. or fem. antecedent, taken in the general sense of thing. So you have learnt something from this thread so far.
With regard to: ‘Move the prepositional phrase to the front of the sentence and τοῦ Λόγου / τῆς ζωῆς comes immediately before the first prepositional phrase (Ὃ ἦν ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς)’
Yes, if you moved it then there would no longer be a positional problem, obviously!
(γράφω) περὶ τοῦ λόγου τῆς ζωῆς, ὃ ἦν ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς κ.τ.λ.
could be debated on its own terms.
But we can’t move it, since it’s already been written, so let’s take your second option: ‘leave it as is, and it comes immediately after the last (ὃ ἐθεασάμεθα καὶ αἱ χεῖρες ἡμῶν ἐψηλάφησαν)’.
No, it doesn’t come ‘immediately’ after. It comes after (γράφω) περὶ. So I am asking if you have any examples of an adjectival relative clause coming so far before its antecedent. It’s a genuine question,
Andrew
You’re mistaken to suggest that we can’t move it. Word order in Greek is much more flexible, and is often redundant .
On top of that, the idea of distance in this case is an illusion which you’re creating since the relative ὃ is repeated 4 times. In fact this is one of those Greek sentences , even if we left the word order as is, it would still make sense in English..Consider :
“The thing which was from the beginning, which we heard (or have heard), which we saw with our own eyes , which we beheld and our hands touched, [I’m writing ] concerning the Word , the Life.”
A little bit choppy, but by no means ungrammatical even in English, as is.
Excellent, you have added an antecedent, ‘the thing’, for the relative clauses. And it is placed directly before them, which I think is the normal position.
Now you have effectively a long substantive clause - the substantive ‘the thing’, modified by four adjectival relative clauses. All you need is a main verb to connect it with, and you will be there.
In your sentence, ‘I’m writing’ doesn’t connect properly with ‘the thing’, and this is not in fact a grammatical sentence as it stands, so far as I can see. You would need to say:
‘The thing.. is the word of Life, and this is what I am writing about.’ or something like that.
Andrew
Chapman,that’s an English translation, you can’t use it to argue against the Greek grammar. The word “thing” was added merely to smooth out the English, for the English readership, it has no actual standing in the original Greek. If it bothers you, discard it.
On another note, what precisely do the four relative pronouns Ὃ mean in 1 John 1:1 according to your understanding ? It’s interesting that after eight pages no one has been able to answer this question. Perhaps you can be the first to do so other than me ?
Way to go, Newton!
It’s a great procedure: give the answer; ask the question; reject all answers as non-answers.
Hey, mwh. What does “what” mean in this sentence:
I love what you’ve done with the place!
If you don’t answer that it means “the Word” and is in appositional relationship to “the Christ,” then you don’t know what “what” means! So, what exactly does “what” mean in that sentence? Perhaps you can be the first to tell me what “what” means.
jaihare,
I’m afraid you’re confusing meaning with reference. Isaac doesn’t do that, he’s told us.
Hi Jaihare,
I don’t think your example is analogous.
Is “what” in your sentence a relative pronoun ? Are you suggesting that the grammatical role and function of “what” in both these sentences is identical ?
(A)“I love what you’ve done with the place!”
And
(B) “We announce to you what was from the beginning..”
Also, could you please give us an example of how you’re taking the relative pronoun with an example from the bible, instead of an example in English ?
Just a reminder. The following is Jaihare’s reading, which has been widely adopted by his on-line friends here:
“This is what we proclaim to you: (words in bold have been invented out of thin air) what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and our hands have touched (concerning the word of life-”
Crunch time –
There are 247 occurrences of the relative pronoun ὅ in the GNT. I would like Jaihare and friends to use one of these 247 examples (instead of just an English example as jaihare earlier used) as a parallel sentence to show us their understanding of the relative pronoun at 1 John 1:1 (a), – Ὃ ἦν ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς. Would they consider Matthew 10:27 to be similar to what they’re doing with ὃ at 1 John 1:1a ?
ὃ > λέγω ὑμῖν ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ, εἴπατε ἐν τῷ φωτί· καὶ ὃ εἰς τὸ οὖς ἀκούετε, κηρύξατε ἐπὶ τῶν δωμάτων.
But even here ὃ can be identified, as “the words”, “the teachings” etc. So it seems to me that every occurrence of ὃ has a specific meaning, if not an explicit antecedent, except apparently at 1 John 1:1, …
I think it’s time to declare this reading to be what it actually is – a scam.
Has it really taken you all this time to figure out that every single person who has contributed to this thread, with the exception of yourself, is a scam artist?
No, not at all, the scammed perhaps.
But back on point, could you please show us a verse from the GNT which parallels your understanding of Ὃ at 1 John 1:1a ?..
You have provided a good example yourself of this very common use of the relative pronoun.
Changing the word order around, in the same way as you want to do, we would have:
εἴπατε ἐν τῷ φωτί, ὃ λέγω ὑμῖν ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ
and
κηρύξατε ἐπὶ τῶν δωμάτων, ὃ εἰς τὸ οὖς ἀκούετε
And to be consistent, I think you would have φωτί and δωμάτων as the antecedents: Speak in the light, which I say to you in the darkness; and proclaim on the housetops, which your hear in the ear.
Is this your understanding of Matthew 10.27?
I think you have Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics. On page 340 (in my edition) there is a section called Embedded Demonstratives, which is helpful. Or just look up ὅς in a lexicon. If you have BAGD, say, Section 2 begins: ‘A demonstrative pronoun is frequently concealed within the relative pronoun’ and then there are many examples of different types.
Or Thayer, II.6, writes: ‘The relative pronoun very often so includes the demonstrative οὗτος or ἐκεινος that for the sake of perspicuity a demonstrative pronoun must be in thought supplied, either in the clause preceding the relative clause or in that which follows it.’
Andrew
Please answer the following two questions :
(a) Does ὃ in 1 John 1:1 have an antecedent ?
(b) Who or what exactly does ὃ identify at 1 John 1:1 ?
I find it fascinating how he just ignores everything you say and says “answer the questions!” In other words, what you’ve just spent time discussing has no importance to this conversation. He does this to me all the time. Just answer the question, Andrew! LOL
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! Just look where I want you to look. Think what I want you to think. Answer what I want you to answer. Do what I want you to do. Else, you aren’t playing right. You’re being scammed and fooled, and you’re both scamming and fooling others!
It seems to me that had you answers to those two simple questions, you would have expeditiously furnished them long ago. On another note, what Chapman spent “time discussing” with that Matthew example which I furnished is irrelevant to my own understanding of the text. Nor was his line of inquiry particularly sensible, since he was trying there to develop a strawman caricature of my own position with it. So no response required. I think you should re-read my post and find out why I furnished Matt. 10:27.
The only “argument” I’ve seen so far by the members of this on-line coven is that their reading is true because all of them are unified in believing in it, and my reading is false because all of them are unanimously opposed to it. Unfortunately however, this is an argumentum ad populum.
In argumentation theory, an argumentum ad populum ( “appeal to the people”) is a fallacious argument that concludes a proposition is true because many or most people believe it. The basic idea of the argument is: “If many believe so, it is so.”
This is dangerous, especially since Christ had the following to say about mob appeal – Εἰσέλθατε διὰ τῆς στενῆς πύλης· ὅτι πλατεῖα ἡ πύλη καὶ εὐρύχωρος ἡ ὁδὸς ἡ ἀπάγουσα εἰς τὴν ἀπώλειαν, καὶ πολλοί εἰσιν οἱ εἰσερχόμενοι δι’ αὐτῆς·
Isaac,
It’s not “daring” to ask these questions, just rather foolish to continue doing so. In the very first reply to your very post on this thread I told you that the ὃ has no antecedent. In return you told me that the antecedent is λόγος (a proposition which no-one who knows Greek will accede to).
Nothing has changed since then (except for your telling me that I’ve been scammed by the Prince of Darkness).