Re: 1 John 1:1-Genitive of Connection?

From: Steven Craig Miller (scmiller@www.plantnet.com)
Date: Mon Dec 20 1999 - 16:36:24 EST


<x-flowed>To: Carl W. Conrad,

SCM: << Brown [1982] gives three grammatical interpretations (which I
present below with slight modifications) of (PERI TOU LOGOU) THS ZWHS.
(a) It could be an appositive genitive meaning: "about the word which is
life."
(b) It could be a qualifying genitive meaning: "about the life-giving word."
(c) It could be a objective genitive meaning: "concerning the word about
life."
But Brown's translation merely gives: "about the word of life." >>

CWC: << And rightly so! What's useful about the term "connective" or
"pertinentive" genitive and the recognition that it is only a structural,
not a semantic case is that one comes (hopefully) to realize that most of
the sub-categories of the grammars such as the above are strategies for
conveying the Greek construction into a target language and have nothing to
do with the "meaning" conveyed by the Greek; these categories show how we
in English (or others in other languages) make semantic distinctions that
the Greek, so far as we know, wasn't ever thinking about. >>

Although what you say here is often true, I'm not for sure that it
completely applies in this instance. As for the three interpretation given
above, I'm unsure what 'a' is supposed to mean, unless perhaps it is saying
the same thing as 'b.' But it seems to me that 'b' and 'c' are saying two
different things. 'B' seems to refer to a "word" which can give life. And
'c' seems to refer to a "message" about life. Yes?

-Steven Craig Miller
Alton, Illinois (USA)
scmiller@www.plantnet.com
Disclaimer: "I'm just a simple house-husband (with no post-grad degree),
what do I know?"

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