John 1:16

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James Bell
Posts: 14
Joined: January 26th, 2012, 12:54 pm

John 1:16

Post by James Bell »

Hetairoi, boethete mou
John 1:16 last part says, hemeis pantes elabomen kai charin anti charitos.
Is Grace instead of a gift, an acceptable translation?
Why do many translations say Grace upon Grace, or Grace for Grace?
Can you please tell me if I wrote brothers, help me, correctly? Thanks
James bell
Barry Hofstetter
Posts: 2159
Joined: May 6th, 2011, 1:48 pm

Re: John 1:16

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

ἐταῖροι means something more like "comrades, associates." It's a bit more formal and distant. For "brothers" the NT consistently uses ἀδελφοί. βοηθέω also takes the dative, so I would have written μοι. Since you are asking for help with one item, I think you should use the aorist imperative, so βοήθησατε. So your sentence would look more like:

Ἀδελφοὶ, βοήθησατέ μοι…BTW, since βοηθέω is an epsilon contract verb, it should be βοηθεῖτε for the present plural imperative.

As for your other question, I'll let someone else address it, but to begin you might want to look at ἀντί in BDAG or the LSJ if you have access to those resources.
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
Ph.D. Student U of FL
Instructor of Latin
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
καὶ σὺ τὸ σὸν ποιήσεις κἀγὼ τὸ ἐμόν. ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε.
George F Somsel
Posts: 172
Joined: May 9th, 2011, 10:11 am

Re: John 1:16

Post by George F Somsel »

ὅτι ἐκ τοῦ πληρώματος αὐτοῦ ἡμεῖς πάντες ἐλάβομεν καὶ χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος·


I really don't like the use of theologically loaded terms such as "grace" which mean little practically to most people today. If I were to translate this, I would render it something like
For we have all received from his abundance favor piled upon favor
This takes it out of the controversy regarding God's "grace."
george
gfsomsel



… search for truth, hear truth,
learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth,
defend the truth till death.



- Jan Hus
David Lim
Posts: 901
Joined: June 6th, 2011, 6:55 am

Re: John 1:16

Post by David Lim »

James Bell wrote:Hetairoi, boethete mou
John 1:16 last part says, hemeis pantes elabomen kai charin anti charitos.
Is Grace instead of a gift, an acceptable translation?
Why do many translations say Grace upon Grace, or Grace for Grace?
Can you please tell me if I wrote brothers, help me, correctly? Thanks
James bell
Firstly, "χαριν" and "χαριτος" are exactly the same word, simply in two different cases. So I am not too sure what you are getting at by using "grace instead of a gift".

Secondly, the translations that render the phrase as "grace for grace" take it to mean "grace in place of grace", and incidentally I agree with them, not having found any substantial evidence for "αντι" ever used to mean "in addition to". If anyone has clear evidence, I would like to see it, of course. If the phrase does mean "grace in place of grace", I take it to refer to two acts of grace or two kinds of grace.
δαυιδ λιμ
James Bell
Posts: 14
Joined: January 26th, 2012, 12:54 pm

Re: John 1:16

Post by James Bell »

Thank you for your responses and help.. I understand better this passage now...I also understand better hetairos..
Iver Larsen
Posts: 127
Joined: May 7th, 2011, 3:52 am

Re: John 1:16

Post by Iver Larsen »

James,

In case you do not have acess to BDAG the relevant portion says:

χάριν ἀ. χάριτος grace after or upon grace (i.e. God’s favor comes in ever new streams; cp. Philo, Poster. Cain. 145 διὰ τὰς πρώτας χάριτας … ἑτέρας ἀντʼ ἐκείνων καὶ τρίτας ἀντὶ τ. δευτέρων καὶ ἀεὶ νέας ἀντὶ παλαιοτέρων … ἐπιδίδωσι. Theognis 344 ἀντʼ ἀνιῶν ἀνίας) J 1:16

I would agree with David in thinking that the basic meaning of "instead of" or "in place of" should be retained here. Words like "for", "after" or "upon" are rather ambiguous. It appears to refer to a new or fuller kind of grace instead of the old kind of grace. Even the quote from Philo ends with "new things instead of old things". Notice also the word "fullness" in v. 16 and how v. 17 explains v. 16 further (ὅτι) and contrasts the law which was given through Moses and the grace which came with Jesus Christ.
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: John 1:16

Post by Stephen Hughes »

I realise this thread is a little old, but rather than add to the unindexed, unsearchable, roughly categorised whole that this the biggest of sub-forums has become, because it is in regard to the same phrase, I will put my query here here with this earlier one.
Καὶ ἐκ τοῦ πληρώματος αὐτοῦ ἡμεῖς πάντες ἐλάβομεν, καὶ χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος.
What is the function of καί here? How is it worked into the syntax?

BDAG calls it "explicative" in section (1)(c). In the other examples there, an object is picked up by what follows the καί, but in John 1:16 there is no object to be picked up.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
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