Chrys C. Caragounis - Jan Van der Watt, «A Grammatical Analysis of John 1,1», Vol. 21 (2008) 91-138
This article is a pilot study on the feasibility of investigating the grammar, both in terms of words and sentences, of the Gospel according to John in a systematic manner. The reason is that in general the commentaries and even specialized articles have different foci, inter alia, focusing on the historical nature or the theological and literary aspects that the Gospel is so well-known for. In surveys of commentaries on the Gospel it becomes apparent that real grammatical studies are far and few between, and that there is a tendency among commentators to copy grammatical material from one another. More often than not, grammatical issues are simply ignored and the unsuspecting and trusting reader will not even realize that there is a dangerous dungeon of grammatical problems lurking beneath the surface of the text. Apart from that, the significance of grammatical decisions are often underestimated in studies of John’s Gospel.
126 Jan van der Watt & Chrys Caragounis
the same word that ends the previous phrase is used to begin the next,
resulting in a natural flow from one idea to the other (see Diagram 1)149.
This type of construction invites a “flow of ideasâ€, which is very apparent
in verses 4-5, since different concepts are linked in a subordinate way. (He
is life and as life he is the light and because he is light darkness cannot
overpower him). In this way the argument is developed. Comparing this
structural feature with the similar “flow†in verse 1, it would support a
subordinate syntactical construction.
Another argument that would support a subordinate syntactical cons-
truction is that only if you read 1,1b and 1,1c in close connection do you
realize the difference between the semantic qualities of θεός in 1b and 1c
(1b = God the Father; 1c = something like truly divine – see argument above).
This brings us to another point. If the “staircase parallelism†is cons-
ciously constructed it implies that the word order was predetermined.
That means that there is another important reason for θεός to be used
in 1c at the position preceding the verb. The question may then be posed
whether the author would have changed the word order if he did not use
a “staircase parallelism� In the arguments about the position of θεός in
1c, this structural issue is generally not considered.
Structurally it might also be asked whether verse 1 is chiastic. It seems
to be the case, especially in 1b and 1c:
A καὶ ὠλόγος ἦν
B Ï€Ïὸς τὸν θεόν,
καὶ θεὸς
B1
A1 ἦν ὠλόγος
Although this possibility looks inviting, there are some problems with
it. Abbott150 argues that 1,1 does not contain true chiasmus or, at least,
not such strict chiasmus as may appear at first sight151. For θεός in 1b
the Odes of Solomon and Semitic poetry. S.E. Porter, Verbal Aspect in the Greek of the
New Testament, with Reference to Tense and Mood, New York: Peter Lang 1989, 99-102
describes this structural phenomenon as a main story indicator. A main story indicator is
closely related to topic/discourse, theme/rheme concepts, in which a story line maintains its
flow by adding to what has already been given. In Greek this movement may be indicated
not only by connectives, but by alteration in word order. After the introductory á¼Î½ á¼€Ïχῄ of
Jn.1,1 the sentences tend to alternate predicate-subject, subject-predicate, with each subject
or predicate maintaining continuity while the second element introduces something new.
Carson, John, (see n. 105), 112; Schnelle, Johannes, (see n. 40), 33.
Bultmann, Johannes, (see n. 13), 2 refers to “eine kettenartige Verschlingung der
149
Sätzeâ€.
Abbott, Grammar, (see n. 55), ad loc.
150
Bultmann, Johannes, (see n. 13), 2 also see the effort of Lund (1931, AThR 13, 41-46)
151
to interpret the Prologue in terms of chiasms as unconvincing.