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Modern Greek verses Koine Greek John 1:1

Posted: February 25th, 2013, 9:49 pm
by John Brainard
In a recent discussion at CARM I was told that QEOS HTAN hO LOGOS (Modern Greek) John 1:1 is identical to Kai Theos en o logos (koine)

Is this an accurate statement?

John

Re: Modern Greek verses Koine Greek John 1:1

Posted: February 26th, 2013, 8:27 am
by Alan Patterson
Hi John,

HTAN seems grammatically out of place. en is correct grammatically.
I was told that QEOS HTAN hO LOGOS (Modern Greek) John 1:1 is identical to Kai Theos en o logos (koine)

QEOS HTAN hO LOGOS would be translated:
The word (they) were God.
HTAN is 3rd Person Plural, if my modern Greek is correct (and I am very poor on modern Greek).

Kai Theos en o logos
And the word was [a] god/God.
This is grammatically correct since en is 3rd Person Singular.

I have a feeling this answer may not be overly satisfying for what you are looking for. Are you sure that is the modern Greek sentence? If so, a modern Greek B-Greeker will have to step in and clarify this.

To sum, en and HTAN are not equivalent.

Re: Modern Greek verses Koine Greek John 1:1

Posted: February 26th, 2013, 9:55 am
by John Brainard
Alan Patterson wrote:Hi John,

HTAN seems grammatically out of place. en is correct grammatically.
I was told that QEOS HTAN hO LOGOS (Modern Greek) John 1:1 is identical to Kai Theos en o logos (koine)

QEOS HTAN hO LOGOS would be translated:
The word (they) were God.
HTAN is 3rd Person Plural, if my modern Greek is correct (and I am very poor on modern Greek).

Kai Theos en o logos
And the word was [a] god/God.
This is grammatically correct since en is 3rd Person Singular.

I have a feeling this answer may not be overly satisfying for what you are looking for. Are you sure that is the modern Greek sentence? If so, a modern Greek B-Greeker will have to step in and clarify this.

To sum, en and HTAN are not equivalent.
I have very little understanding of Modern Greek. This is why I posted it here. The Modern Text is a cut and paste from the New World Translation.

Thank you for you input

John

Re: Modern Greek verses Koine Greek John 1:1

Posted: February 27th, 2013, 6:09 am
by David Lim
John Brainard wrote:I have very little understanding of Modern Greek. This is why I posted it here. The Modern Text is a cut and paste from the New World Translation.
I thought the NWT is in English? Anyway you can read a modern Greek translation at The Unbound Bible. Here is John 1

Re: Modern Greek verses Koine Greek John 1:1

Posted: February 27th, 2013, 7:29 am
by Barry Hofstetter
David Lim wrote:
John Brainard wrote:I have very little understanding of Modern Greek. This is why I posted it here. The Modern Text is a cut and paste from the New World Translation.
I thought the NWT is in English? Anyway you can read a modern Greek translation at The Unbound Bible. Here is John 1
And this has ητο, 3rd person singular, as do both print modern Greek Bibles that I have, one Katharevousa, the other Demotike. Whatever the source, it does not appear to be accurate.

Re: Modern Greek verses Koine Greek John 1:1

Posted: February 27th, 2013, 6:50 pm
by Shirley Rollinson
A point to remember is that the New World Translation is produced by the Jehovah's Witnesses (there may be an agenda there)
Also the Nominative definite article with a copula in Greek normally indicates the subject.
So ὁ λογος should be translated as the subject, and θεος as predicate nominative
"The word was God"

Re: Modern Greek verses Koine Greek John 1:1

Posted: February 27th, 2013, 11:10 pm
by John Brainard
I want to thank all of you for your answers. I know this is out of the ordinary and I do not have any modern Greek Grammars.

John

Re: Modern Greek verses Koine Greek John 1:1

Posted: February 28th, 2013, 2:09 pm
by George F Somsel
There is a modern Greek bible at Christian Classics Etherial Library (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/bible/gkmod.John.1.html)

1Εν αρχη ητο ο Λογος, και ο Λογος ητο παρα τω Θεω, και Θεος ητο ο Λογος.

Re: Modern Greek verses Koine Greek John 1:1

Posted: February 28th, 2013, 4:10 pm
by Scott Lawson
I note that ήταν serves in Demotic for both the 3rd person singular and for 3rd person plural imperfect.

Re: Modern Greek verses Koine Greek John 1:1

Posted: February 28th, 2013, 4:47 pm
by Scott Lawson
David Lim wrote:
John Brainard wrote:I have very little understanding of Modern Greek. This is why I posted it here. The Modern Text is a cut and paste from the New World Translation.
I thought the NWT is in English? Anyway you can read a modern Greek translation at The Unbound Bible. Here is John 1
David,

The NWT is currently printed in 123 languages with more to follow. This is an unconfirmed number which I took note of at a discourse a couple of weeks ago. Wikipedia reports 116 as the official number.

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+man ... #itp=open0