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Greek Lessons
- Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek: Imperfective vs. Perfective
- Chiasmus, Inclusio, and Anaphora in New Testament Greek
- Numbered and Named: Genitive Constructions and Enumerated Tribes in Revelation 7:7
- Semantic Range of Greek Verbs in the New Testament: A Case Study on ἀγαπάω and φιλέω
- Released to Serve Anew: Aorist Passives, Participles, and the Tension of Transformation in Romans 7:6
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Category
Tag Archives: John 1:18
Into the Bosom of Meaning: Theological Disclosure and Greek Syntax in John 1:18
Θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακεν πώποτε· ὁ μονογενὴς υἱὸς ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρὸς ἐκεῖνος ἐξηγήσατο (John 1:18)
Opening the Verse: The Drama of Divine Revelation
John 1:18 is a climactic theological declaration in the prologue of the Fourth Gospel. It moves from the universal (“Θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακεν πώποτε”) to the particular (“ὁ μονογενὴς υἱὸς”), describing an unparalleled event: the exegeting of God by the only Son. At the heart of this verse lies a rich convergence of Greek syntactic structure, verbal nuance, and christological depth.
This article will focus on four key grammatical and syntactic features:
The emphatic placement and function of οὐδεὶς with Θεὸν The present participle construction ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον The force and aspect of the aorist verb ἐξηγήσατο The theological implications of the articular subject phrase ὁ μονογενὴς υἱὸς “No One Has Seen God at Any Time” – Negation and EmphasisThe phrase Θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακεν πώποτε opens the verse with a subjectless construction.… Learn Koine Greek