@ JtheB

Sisyphus · Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 3:17 pm Post subject: @ JtheB

John, can you or Helena cast any light on this for me please?

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

En arxh hn o logov, kai o logov hn prov ton qeon, kai qeov hn o logov.

Two things if I may. What is the purpose of the 'o' preceding the word 'logos'?

Secondly, 'the word was God' in the Greek, 'geov hn o logov' is that literally 'God was the word' so then if that is right, should the line more correctly read, 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the word'?

Forgive me if I'm being thick..... Icon_1087

The reason I ask is that the NWT of the JW's reads for John 1:1 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a God' and I'm trying to see where they get the letter 'a' from in the Greek.
_________________
".... love thy neighbour as thyself." is the hardest thing I have ever done....

angel · Joined: 28 Jun 2006 Posts: 4751 Location: essex

I Love these Studies Sisyphus.

Sorry Go John.

Sisyphus · Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 8:44 pm Post subject:

jtheb · Joined: 21 Jun 2006 Posts: 1451 Location: second childhood

Sisyphus wrote:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
En arxh hn o logov, kai o logov hn prov ton qeon, kai qeov hn o logov.

1 What is the purpose of the 'o' preceding the word 'logos'?

2 'the word was God' in the Greek, 'geov hn o logov' is that literally 'God was the word' so then if that is right, should the line more correctly read, 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the word'?

3 The reason I ask is that the NWT of the JW's reads for John 1:1 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a God' and I'm trying to see where they get the letter 'a' from in the Greek.

Sis, we'll do our best to answer!

1 If you look closely at the 'o' you'll see that it has a little mark over it like the beginning of inverted commas.
It stands for h, so the word is 'ho', which means 'the'.
So in this verse you have 'ho logos' (or, if you prefer, 'o logov') 3 times, and it simply means 'the Word' or 'the Logos'.
(All Greek words beginning with a vowel are printed with a little mark, like the beginning or the end of inverted commas, to show whether or not they start with an h.)

2 In English, we can have various types of sentences. One of the most common is subject + verb + object, but if the verb is the verb'to be', it doesn't have an object, it has what is called a complement.
So when we write a sentence in the form of:
subject + verb 'to be' + complement
we can say eg
'the woman over there is the Queen' or
'the boy in green is the goalkeeper' or
'Jtheb is the husband of Helena',
but if we were ancient Greeks we would miss out 'the' in front of 'Queen'/'goalkeeper'/'husband' because the Greeks missed out 'the' when a word was the complement of the verb 'to be'
They would have said
'the woman over there is Queen'
'the boy in green is goalkeeper'
'the Jtheb is husband of Helena'
(They put 'the' in front of people's names!)

So if John had wanted to say 'God was the Word' he would have said either: 'ho Theos én logos' ('o qeov hn logov') or 'logos én ho Theos' (logov hn o qeov).
BUT he didn't. He wanted to say 'the Word was God' and he wanted to emphasise 'God' so he did what Greeks sometimes did if they wanted to emphasise a word - he put it at the beginning! and said:
'Theos én ho logos' (qeov hn o logov).
There was no risk of confusion (until the JWs came along!) because the fact that there is a 'the' in front of 'Word' but not in front of 'God' shows that 'the Word' is the subject and 'God' is the complement.

3 The Greeks didn't normally use a word for 'a' - they occasionally said 'one' but more often they missed it out - so JWs try to say that 'Theos én ho logos' (qeov hn o logov) means 'the Word was a God', in order to fit it in with their theology, but they totally ignore the grammatical points which we've tried to explain above.

PS We find it's easier to read & understand the Greek when we transliterate it as the English equivalent of the Greek letters, though unfortunately on a keyboard you can't easily distinguish between short and long e and short and long o (I've used é for long e):
En arché én ho logos, kai ho logos én pros ton Theon, kai Theos én ho logos
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Sisyphus · Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 9:58 pm Post subject:

That was excellent John, thank you very much. May I ask one more that I should have mentioned in the 1st post and forgot?

Still with the same line:

En arxh hn o logov, kai o logov hn prov ton qeon, kai qeov hn o logov.

Why the two different words for God, qeon and qeov ?
_________________
".... love thy neighbour as thyself." is the hardest thing I have ever done....

angel · Joined: 28 Jun 2006 Posts: 4751 Location: essex

Sisyphus · Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 10:28 pm Post subject:

keepingthefaith · Guest

Yes Angel, what would you like for us to talk about Icon_hugginsmileys_753

angel · Joined: 28 Jun 2006 Posts: 4751 Location: essex

Yes I would Love to talk about "angels", I thought there was a thread but I lost it. Icon_sad

Who were the Nelphilm. angels or " a mentality" [mentality of Man?]

Sisyphus · Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 11:51 pm Post subject:

Talitha Tetelestai · Guest

I always thought the Nephilim (means fallen) were the offspring of the fallen angels which came to earth who mated with the women of earth producing offspring with *super* powers and supernatural knowledge.

Also, Genesis 6: 4 indicates there was a further eruption of them post flood.

jtheb · Joined: 21 Jun 2006 Posts: 1451 Location: second childhood

Theov and Theou are different cases of Theo

Helena is the "expert" but posts in my name.

John

Greek puts nouns into several different cases.
the 4 most important are:
the Nominative (the case they use when the noun is the subject of the clause or sentence)
the Accusative (the case they use when the noun is the direct object or when it comes after certain prepositions such as 'pros'/prov)
the Genitive (the case they use when the noun is the possessor of something or occasionally when it comes after certain prepositions)
the Dative (the case they use when something is done to or for or by the noun or when it comes after certain prepositions such as 'en')

So
Nominative: ho Theos (o qeov) as in 'God is love' or 'God loves the world'
Accusative: ton Theon (tov qeon) as in "We love God"
Genitive: tou Theou (toi qeou) as in "the love of God" or "God's love"
Dative: twi Thewi (this is written in Greek as tau-omega-iota subscript!! and this is my feeble attempt to transliterate that!) as in "give thanks to God"
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The effectiveness of a posting is inversely proportional to its length.
C.S.Craig

keepingthefaith · Guest

From the Schofield commentery
http://www.searchgodsword.org/com/srn/view.cgi?book=ge&chapter=006

sons of God

Some hold that these "sons of God" were the "angels which kept not their first estate" Jude 1:6. It is asserted that the title is in the O.T. exclusively used of angels. But this is an error Isaiah 43:6. Angels are spoken of in a sexless way. No female angels are mentioned in Scripture, and we are expressly told that marriage is unknown among angels. Matthew 22:30.

The uniform Hebrew and Christian interpretation has been that verse Genesis 6:2 marks the breaking down of the separation between the godly line of Seth and the godless line of Cain, and so the failure of the testimony to Jehovah committed to the line of Seth Genesis 4:26. For apostasy there is no remedy but judgment ; Isaiah 1:2-7,24,25; Hebrews 6:4-8; 10:26-31. Noah, "a preacher of righteousness," is given 120 years, but he won no convert, and the judgment predicted by his great- grandfather fell ; Jude 1:14,15; Genesis 7:11.

keepingthefaith · Guest

and a look at mathew hendry's commentary
http://www.searchgodsword.org/com/mhc-con/view.cgi?book=ge&chapter=006
I always thought that Nephilim could come in human form and this is why they had the Giants at that time?

Talitha Tetelestai · Guest

I think, but am not sure that the nephilim are not the fallen angels themselves, but their offspring (nephillim comes from *naphal* to fall), and yes that the fallen angels procreated and gave rise to nephillim who were giants, and men of renown.

I thought this was why the Lord spared Noah and his family, but brought the flood upon the earth, because only Noah was unpolluted in his bloodline, only his family had not mated with these fallen angels.

Could all be very wrong though.