Friday, May 26, 2017

John 1:3 and Christ as Creator - From Louw-Nida

Something I discovered in 2001.

While reading Louw-Nida's Greek-English Lexicon tonight, I came across
something I had never read in this tool before.

On page 793 (volume I) under semantic domain 89.120, this source makes this
observation about XWRIS in John 1:3:

"It would be wrong to restructure Jn 1:3 to read 'he made everything in all
creation,' for in the Scriptures God is spoken of as the Creator, but the
creation was done 'through the Word.' If one must restructure Jn 1:3, it may
be possible to say 'he was involved in everything that was created' or 'he
took part in creating everything.'

I thought this comment was interesting. It buttresses what others have already pointed about the use of the passive voice in Col 1:15-17 vis-à-vis the Firstborn of all creation.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's a keeper, Edgar:-) Too bad we didn't have that one handy when Luis Reyes was trying to argue against our view on your Greektheology forum years ago.

~Kas

Matt13weedhacker said...

χωρὶς αὐτοῦ "apart from him-self"

"All things came into existence through his intermediate agency, (and apart from him-self), not one thing came into existence..."

Do you think translating αὐτοῦ as "him-self" instead of "him" (Lit., "of-him") is stretching it?

Edgar Foster said...

If it were him-self,I would expect to see a Greek reflexive pronoun instead of αὐτοῦ.

Edgar Foster said...

Autos can be used emphatically or intensively, but the syntax would be different.

Georg Kaplin said...

Excellent! I make the same argument from BDAG but it takes a bit of finessing. This hits the nail on the head. I will certainly make use of this.

Thank you!

Edgar Foster said...

You're welcome, Georg. I will have to check out the BDAG information that you mention. Best regards!

Georg Kaplin said...

I am dabbling in YouTube and wish I had the LN quote for one of those videos.

On a different subject I discovered something in BDF a couple days ago on 2 Peter 1:1. It is at the end of this video: https://youtu.be/H6u9ycAovFE

When I say "discover" I cannot believe I am the first, but I don't see it mentioned in Wallace. I do see that Murray Harris mentions the section, but only in the context of the textual variants. But to me, what follows is more interesting. The references are in BDF-275 and 268. Have you seen these before?

Edgar Foster said...

I had not seen these before, but I will read them Thanks much.