Greek I; Lesson 2

John 1:3

πάντα δι᾽ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν ὃ γέγονεν

πάντα

παντα means “all” or “every” and is usually translated with a noun as “all things”. Pay careful attention to the ending since this is how you tell what case it is. You can see all the forms here.  Once you know what case it is, you will know what its function is in the sentence. From this, you can see that this adjective can be:

• accusative singular masculine
• nominative plural neuter
• accusative plural neuter

But you know that παντα is the subject of the verb εγενετο. With this information, which of the above must it be (principle 1)?A subject will always be in the nominative case.

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δι’ αὐτοῦ

A prepositional phrase. δια means “through” and αυτου means “him”. We know that a prepositional phrase can function either:

• adverbially, or
• adjectivally

This phrase is adverbial which means it must be modifying some verb. This phrase is modifying the verb εγενετο.

• The preposition is δια. The reason the “α” fell off is because the next word begins with a vowel. The apostrophe marks the elision.
• αυτου is from αυτος. It means “him” since it is the OP of δια.
  • The αυ is pronounced as the ou in “house”.
  • The ου is pronounced like the ou in “group”. Both are dipthongs.
  • Notice the ου ending. Compare this to the article paradigm (which you should memorize immediately and perfectly). If you know the article paradigm, you will quickly see that this ending marks this pronoun as genitive singular.

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ἐγένετο

Each Greek verb, is built by adding different morphemes to the verb’s stem. The present tense is built with the following building blocks (or morphemes):

verb stem + verb ending

Aorist verbs, however, are more complicated. Some aorists (called “first aorists“) have four parts:

augment + verb stem + tense formative + verb ending.

Other aorists (called “second aorists“) have three parts:

augment + verb stem (with a spelling change!) + verb ending.

This has the potential to be very confusing. Try to slow down and understand this. Ask for help if you need.
In this case, εγενετο follows the second aorist pattern. Notice the differences in this table:

 

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Translation so far…

 

 

 

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John 1:4

ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν, καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων:

ἐν αὐτῷ
A prepositional phrase translated as “in him”. Be able to find the preposition and its OP. From your knowledge of the article, you can easily parse this. Another huge clue is the iota subscript which almost always means dative, singular.

• What is the mark under the omega?iota subscript
• What is the mark above the omega?circumflex
• Is this phrase adverbial or adjectival?It is adverbial answering the where? question.

ζωὴ ἦν
ζωη is the subject of the verb ην.

• What case must it be (principle 1)?

ην is from ειμι.

• What tense is it?It is third, singular; imperfect tense.

 

 

 

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καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς

και is a FANBOYS.
Look at the article before ζωη.

• What case is it?nominative
• In light of this, what case must ζωη be?It must be the same case as its article.
• In light of its case, what is the function of ζωη in this sentence?It is the subject of the verb ην.

Isn’t principle 7 great?!
Note that both φως and ζωὴ are nominative case and articular. There is no way to know which is the subject. See RWP on this verse.

τῶν ἀνθρώπων

• What case is των? What case is ανθρωπωνBoth των and ανθρωπων are in the genitive case. (principle 7).
• Translate genitive nouns into English using the key word “of” (BBG 7.4).
• What number is ανθρωπων?It is plural. Should it be translated “man” or “men”?men

καὶ	ἡ	ζωὴ	ἦν	τὸ	φῶς	τῶν	ἀνθρώπων:
and	the	Life	was	the	Light		of men.

 

 

 

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