It’s not that I necessarily disagree with Isaac’s theology (I mean, I do, but that’s besides the point,) nor that I necessarily disagree with the analysis of his Greek (I don’t, as far as it goes,) but I cannot see any connection between the two.
Hi mwh,
But what grammatical “explanation” has been offered for the rather [strange] argument that the relative clauses in 1 John 1:1 are the objects of a verb distantly removed, and which verb itself governs it’s own relative clause in verse 3 ?
Also you said that “many” of you have offered explanations of “how the Greek works.” Could you please point to these “many,” because I don’t see “many;” nor do I see any rational explanation of how “the Greek” apparently “works” (concerning the translation you’re championing).
I like to see the facts, and good grammar. I’m not intimidated by appeals to numbers or to authority when it comes to the sacred scripture. I say this with the best of intentions.
With thanks to Markos, Jason and Isaac for their responses, I think it is time for me to bow out of this discussion, which seems to be entering theological waters upon which I’m ill equipped to sail. I fear, however, that Isaac’s ‘perfectly sensible, straightforward translation’ is feasible only at the price of excessive violence to the Greek, the actual run of which suggests to me (and evidently to others) something rather more complex, and stylistically engaging, than a series of separate, short statements.
With that, and with good wishes to all, I’ll return to the equally challenging (but perhaps less fraught) text of Thucydides.
John
But I have not seen sensible grammatical arguments to undermine that translation , although I’ve seen much appeal to authority against it.
IMHO those who take the relative clauses in verse 1 to be the objects of ἀπαγγέλλομεν in verse 3 are guilty of “excessive violence” to the text. There seems to be a certain level of psychological projection doing the rounds in this thread, I think, though I sincerely hope not.
The problem with this is that it adds the verb "we are announcing " into the original text of 1 John 1:1.
Well I for my part have no difficulty seeing a connection between Isaac’s theology and his analysis of the Greek. But that aside, the fundamental disconnect here, as my post suggested, is between Isaac’s entrenched position and the position of those explaining the grammar. Or so I see it.
I too like facts and good grammar. I tried to offer both in our series of exchanges at the outset of this thread in November of last year, but you were not receptive. I don’t really expect you to be receptive now either, but let me make a good-faith effort to get at the heart of the problem with your reading, which has become clearer from your posts over the course of this thread. Here goes:
You have got hung up on the notion that those initial relative clauses can somehow be independent, and don’t need a verb to govern them. But they do: any relative clause does. (Your failure to recognize that is what makes your reading ungrammatical.) The verb in question is necessarily απαγγελλομεν, there’s just no getting round it. (Even translations which break the sentence up into a more digestible segments recognize this, they’re just trying to respect the order in which the bits of it come.) You resist this on grounds of the distance separating the relative clauses from the verb, without biblical parallel. The distance is undeniable, but also readily explicable, for the sentence is interrupted—put on hold, as it were—by the parenthesis triggered by τῆς ζωῆς, at the end of which the resumption of the initial sentence is signalled by the partial repeat of the opening clauses, removing all uncertainty as to the structure of the sentence overall.
That’s it.
Again, could you please tell us exactly how many posters here are “explaining the grammar” to me , who exactly they are, and maybe summarize their teachings ? Vague statements do not contribute at all to the discussion, nor help anyone positively IMHO with anything.
I’m sorry Isaac I just don’t have time for all this. Do please study my last post, which is a sincere attempt to get at the heart of the matter, and I think is an adequate analysis of the whole thing.
Hi mvh,
That’s not my position though, in fact it is quite a distortion of it. Would you please take another look at my translation. Do you really not discern that the relative clauses are not “independent,” not see what “governs” them ?
“”> I am 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."
The verb in question is necessarily απαγγελλομεν, there’s just no getting round it. > (Even translations which break the sentence up into a more digestible segments recognize this, they’re just trying to respect the order in which the bits of it come.) You resist this on grounds of the distance separating the relative clauses from the verb, without biblical parallel. The distance is undeniable, but also readily explicable, for the sentence is interrupted—put on hold, as it were—by the parenthesis triggered by τῆς ζωῆς, at the end of which the resumption of the initial sentence is signalled by the partial repeat of the opening clauses, removing all uncertainty as to the structure of the sentence overall.That’s it
Unfortunately, this is an argument by “because I say so” . With all due respect, once again, you did not address the fatal flaw inherent in this understanding, which I’ve already pointed out numerous times . I hope to see some substance in the next post concerning that.
Hi mvh,
It’s not good form to make confident sounding claims, and then not invest the time to support them.
Do please study my last post, which is a sincere attempt to get at the heart of the matter, and I think is an adequate analysis of the whole thing.
I’ve “studied” your post. It may be sincere , it certainly is passionate and willful, but unfortunately I didn’t learn much from it.
No comment needed.
Then why comment ? I sense a certain level of disingenuousness, and a great deal of fear .
And I fail to be surprised that everyone but you in this thread, all who have labored to get beyond your ineptitude with the language in order to explain what’s going on in the simplest of terms so that anyone without the most rudimentary of skills in Greek would understand the difficulty (and essential structure) of this passage, comes out as disingenuous and fearful.
Wait a minute, the subject of that embedded clause (everyone but you in this thread) is separated at great lengths from its predicate (comes out as disingenuous and fearful). This is a stretch of the syntactic restraints of English. I’m fearful that you will fail to understand that everything from “all who” to “this passage” is parenthetical and that the subject and predicate of the sentence which I’m trying to get across to you is actually before and after that parenthetical. Will my intention be lost because of your lack of trust in me as a user of English when I tell you that this type of sentence is acceptable?
Yes, 1 John opens with a relative clause. Every relative clause is a dependent or embedded clause and must hang on a finite verb form. In this case, the finite verb to which every single one of these relative clauses (introduced by ὅ) is connected is ἀπαγγέλλομεν. We can move this verb to the beginning of the sentence and clarify the intention perfectly and without destroying the essential syntactic relationship between the subordinate/dependent/embedded clauses and the independent/main clause, which we find in verse 3. It is the insertion of the parenthetical that drove the author to repeat part of the relative clause string before finally overtly revealing the main verb.
This is perfectly sound grammatical and syntactic analysis of the passage. You disagree because of your assumptions and theological commitments (though they really couldn’t matter one way or another with this text, and I have a hard time understanding why you are committed to something so clearly misguided), but we have all done far more to explain this than is reasonably necessary. If you don’t understand how we are handling the issue of the grammar, that doesn’t mean that we are not handling the issue. It just means that it’s over your head, which is understandable.
If I didn’t couldn’t swim, I wouldn’t get in the pool and deride those who successfully use the breast stroke, even if they were merely novices and not professional swimmers. Yet, this is what you do.
Hi jaihare,
Thanks for your post. I hope all is well with you, and from time to time I do pray for you , and shall continue to do so by God’s will .
Unfortunately, you spent most of your post and time bickering instead of grabbing the proverbial bull by the horns, as it were and proving your case.
In this regard then, can you perhaps show us an example from the GNT of your grammar ? That is, of a verb which governs a relative clause, and then governs more relative clauses separated from it ? It is quite a remarkable thing that you’re suggesting here, IMHO.
In the peace of Christ, which comes from the Father,
Two points to close my contributions to this thread.
(1) I misspoke when I said that every relative clause needs a verb to govern it. Relative clauses can directly depend on all sorts of things. That doesn’t alter the fact (or “willful assertion”) that these particular relative clauses are governed directly by the verb.
(2) I posted when and as I did in hopes of nipping in the bud a piously disguised flame-war between Isaac Newton and jaihare that I saw threatening to develop (it has happened before), as well as in hopes of terminating a thread that seemed trapped in a potentially endless loop and was of no profit to anyone. Despite everything I still nurture some hope on that front.
I’m glad you have realized this.
That doesn’t alter the fact (or “willful assertion”) that these particular relative clauses are governed directly by the verb.
(2) I posted when and as I did in hopes of nipping in the bud a piously disguised flame-war between Isaac Newton and jaihare that I saw threatening to develop (it has happened before), as well as in hopes of terminating a thread that seemed trapped in a potentially endless loop and was of no profit to anyone. Despite everything I still nurture some hope on that front
See, this is an assertion by will, but nothing more.
I think earlier Jaihare hit upon an important note when he asked the following question:
The question is, though, what ἀρχή the author has in mind. Does he mean ἡ τοῦ κτίσεως ἀρχὴ the beginning of creation, as Matthew 19.4 has ὁ κτίσας ἀπ᾿ ἀρχῆς he who created from the beginning [of the world] and 2 Peter 3.4 has ἀπ᾿ ἀρχῆς κτίσεως since the beginning of creation? Or, does he mean ἡ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου ἀρχή the beginning of the gospel message, as John 15.27 has Jesus saying that the disciples were with him ἀπ᾿ ἀρχῆς from the beginning.
Indeed, what ἀρχή does the author have in mind ? Actually the author tells us, in 1 John 2:13,
γράφω ὑμῖν, πατέρες, > ὅτι ἐγνώκατε τὸν > ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς> · γράφω ὑμῖν, νεανίσκοι, ὅτι νενικήκατε τὸν πονηρόν.
This is an anaphoric reference to ὁ λόγος , to Ὃ ἦν ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς. ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς is the unmistakable clue tying together 1 John 1:1 and 1 John 2:13 . Notice that in 1 John 2:13 where the author is speaking of λόγος already become flesh he uses the masculine form to refer to him, but when he’s thinking of λόγος prior to becoming flesh, he uses the neuter ὁ to refer to ὁ λόγος, betraying the fact (by ad sensum construction) that he did not consider λόγος to be a “person” at this time.
So those, like Wallace in Net bible who think that the “beginning” so alluded to at 1 John 1:1 is “the Gospel message” and so forth , are contextually and grammatically mistaken IMHO. The allusion rather is to the beginning pictured at John 1:1, such that the relative pronoun refers to pre-flesh logos.
I don’t agree with trinitarian Gill on most issues not surprisingly, but I think he’s on the right track when he takes the relative pronoun at 1 John 1 to be a reference to pre-flesh logos, and not to “the Gospel.” Though how he plans to conform the neuter form of the pronoun in verse 1, of 1 John with a literally existing Divine personal logos is quite beyond me:
Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
That which was from the beginning,… By which is meant not the Gospel, as if the apostle’s design was to assert the antiquity of tha> t, and clear it from the charge of novelty; for though that is called the word, and the word of life, and is the Spirit which gives life, and is the means of quickening dead sinners, and brings the report of eternal life and salvation by Christ, yet the seeing of it with bodily eyes, and handling it with corporeal hands, do not agree with that; > but Jesus Christ is here intended, who in his divine nature was, really existed as a divine person, > as the everlasting Jehovah, the eternal I AM, which is, and was, and is to come, and existed “from the beginning”; not from the beginning of the preaching of the Gospel by John only, for he was before the Gospel was preached, being the first preacher of it himself, and before John was; yea, before the prophets, before Abraham, and before Adam, and before all creatures, from the beginning of time, and of the creation of the world, being the Maker of all things, even from everlasting; for otherwise he could not have been set up in an office capacity so early, or God’s elect be chosen in him before the foundation of the world, and they have grace and blessings given them in him before the world began, or an everlasting covenant be made with him; see John 1:1
One would just as aptly say that stating that finite verbs must agree with their subjects in person and number (with the exception of neuter plurals in Greek, of course) is remarkable and requires justification. Just because you say that it’s “quite a remarkable thing” doesn’t mean that it is.
Relative clauses do not stand on their own – and I never used the word “govern” with regard to this relationship (I only use the word “govern” with regard to how many arguments a verb can take or with regard to the case that a specific preposition calls for). Relative clauses can replace regular nouns in most constructions. They can be subjects: “whoever lives in this house (= this person) has a lot of money.” They can be direct objects objects: “I hope you remember what I said to you (= my words to you).” They can be indirect objects: “I gave money to whomever I came across (= everyone).” In every case, the relative clause is embedded within an independent clause.
In this case, “we announce even to you what we have seen (= our own experience), etc.” The relative clauses are dependent on the main verb ἀπαγγέλλομεν. This is obvious and true. Your refusal to open up your mind and consider this doesn’t negate its simplicity or its obviousness.
I really was going to stay away from this traincrash of a thread, but its grisly fascination has once again drawn me like a moth to a flame - and I’ll probably end up experiencing the same fate as the unfortunate creature …
Isaac seems to be labouring under the impression that John wrote ‘verses’; in fact, as Shenoute pointed out, he did no such thing - as with Classical texts, the division into verses dates from many centuries later. I wonder whether this misapprehension - viz. that John wrote verses, and specifically that he wrote verse 1 as a standalone piece of text - hasn’t contributed to Isaac’s (it seems to me and others) erroneous analysis of this passage.
Isaac wishes to print a full stop at the end of verse 1, as follows:
Ὃ ἦν ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς, ὃ ἀκηκόαμεν, ὃ ἑωράκαμεν τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς ἡμῶν, ὃ ἐθεασάμεθα, καὶ αἱ χεῖρες ἡμῶν ἐψηλάφησαν περὶ τοῦ λόγου τῆς ζωῆς.
As per the version quoted by Andrew above (but not translating the concluding words, to avoid getting drawn into the sub-debate about them), this would have to mean something like:
‘What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning τοῦ λόγου τῆς ζωῆς.’
In view of Isaac’s apparent fondness for grammatical correctness, can he tell us how this constitutes a complete sentence? He makes it so in his own translation by adding a main verb (‘I’m writing about …’), which is a curious strategy for someone who so strenuously objects to Wallace’s simply repeating at the start a verb which does at least (unlike Isaac’s) appear later in the sentence. Conrad (whom Isaac cites) also interpolates a main verb, in his case ‘I’m talking’; again, one would expect Isaac - as the sworn enemy of verbs which are not in the Greek text - to object to this. The ‘God’s Word Translation’, which Isaac also cites with approval, circumvents the problem in another way, by ignoring the relative pronouns (‘The Word of Life existed …’ etc.). In accepting such stratagems only when it suits him, Isaac seems to apply double standards.
Finally, since Isaac is so keen on requiring others to adduce Biblical parallels, presumably he himself can offer us one of a ‘sentence’ consisting solely of a series of relative clauses - unless here too he is setting the bar differently for himself and others.
Best wishes,
John