A Friend asked me What is the difference between ho theos, ton theon, tou theou? Nominative? In 1 John 4:8 we have an example of “ho theos” ὁ μὴ ἀγαπῶν οὐκ ἔγνω τὸν Θεόν, ὅτι ὁ Θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν. In Greek as well as English we have the nominative case (example): “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” ὁ Θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν.[God is love.] The expression “God is love” has “God” as its subject, the nominative identifies the subject (who happens to be “God” – ho theos = the God) the verb “is” (estin) expresses what the subject *does, is…* and that is “love” [agape = noun (abstract)], so we have, “God is love”, the nominative is used with pronouns such as, I, you, he, she, it, they, you. Accusative? John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” “Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ Λόγος, καὶ ὁ Λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν Θεόν, καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ Λόγος.” “…καὶ ὁ Λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν Θεόν…” […and the Word was toward the God…] The expression “ton theon = τὸν Θεόν” is in the accusative, because “God” has an experience or is affected… by an Act or Action of some event, happening… (See Acts 28:6) and that is, “the Word was “pros” i.e. with/toward [the] God i.e. the Word has come up close to or “with” [the] God (see, Dan 7:13) In the second clause, there are two subjects, “the Word” [ho logos] and “[the] God” [ton theon] the former is in the nominative “ho logos”, the latter in the accusative “ton theon”. the preposition pros simply shows the relationship of one thing to another thing and in the case of John 1:1 the Word (one thing) is *with God (another thing). Acts 28:6 is mentioned above and the scene is, Paul is bitten by a snake, his hand does not swell up and he does not die, the people change their minds and say he is a god. Acts 28:2 NIV “The islanders showed us unusual kindness. They built a fire and welcomed us all because it was raining and cold. Paul gathered a pile of brushwood and, as he put it on the fire, a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand. When the islanders saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said to each other, This man must be a murderer; for though he escaped from the sea, the goddess Justice has not allowed him to live. But Paul shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no ill effects. The people expected him to swell up or suddenly fall dead; but after waiting a long time and seeing nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god.” Here is a classic case of Subject Verb Object? The Subject is the “snake/viper” the Verb is “fastened” and the Object is Paul. Paul is the one affected by the Act or Action expressed by the verb “fastened”, he receives a ‘fastening’ bite by the viper, which is the Subject (and in the Nominative) Remember, that the nominative (viper=subject) points to or denotes what the verb (fastened) does, is…and the Object (Paul) receives the result, or experiences… (expressed-Act or Action) expressed by the verb, so the subject does, the object is the done to and the verb expresses what the subject does and what…the object receives and the expressive verb ties the two together. The accusative is use with pronouns such as, him, his, me, her, them... The last one “tou theou” is in the Genitive case and can have several meanings, as the context will tell us which correct genitive to use i.e. is it the Genitive of “Authorship, Subjective, Objective, Ownership, Partitive…” and so on. The expression “tou theou”, has the literal translation “of God” or transliterated “of the God”, but a literal translation does not mean a literal meaning; I gave several examples elsewhere to show this, here is one example: 1 John 4:7 “…Everyone who loves has been born from God and knows God.” ESV “…everyone who loves has been fathered by God and knows God” NET Bible “…Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” NIV Here we see three Trinitarian translations render into English “tou theou” rather differently i.e. “from, by, of”, this shows that “tou theou” although having a literal translation of “of God” which several Trinitarian translations opt for, nevertheless, others translate differently (=contradictions, non-agreement, non-consistent) Trinitarian bibles translate the Genitive as the Objective “of God”, whilst others in the Subjective “from God” and “by God” (and they complain about “by God” in Rev 3:14 in the NWT?) So we see, that, there is a little more work required to work out which is the correct Genitive!
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 08:31:37 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015