John 1:3
πάντα δι’ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο
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.
δι’ αὐτοῦ
A prepositional phrase. δια means “through” and αυτου means “him”. We know that a prepositional phrase can function either:
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.
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:
| present tense | aorist tense |
| stem is γιν- | |
| Takes primary endings (no augment) | Takes secondary endings (yes augment) |
| Translate into the English present tense | Translate into the English past tense |
| γινομαι – I become | εγενομην – I became |
| γινει – you become | εγενου – you became |
| γινεται – he/she/it becomes | εγενετο – he/she/it became |
| γινόμεθα – we become | εγενομεθα – we became |
| γινεσθε – you become | εγενεσθε – you became |
| γινονται – they become | εγενοντο – they became |
Looking at εγενετο, we see four parts:
| Augment | Stem | Connecting Vowel | Verb Ending |
| ε | γεν | ε | το |
πάντα δι᾽ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο…
All [things] through Him became…
καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν. ὃ γέγονεν
χωρὶς αὐτοῦ
- χωρις means “without”. It is a preposition. Its OP is αυτου.
- Every prepositional phrase is either adverbial or adjectival. This phrase is adverbial answering the “how?” question.
- Memorize the adjectival and adverbial questions!
ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν
- ουδε means “not”.
- Be sure to note the difference . The former is the numeral one and is pronounced “hen”.
- Numbers are adjectives answering “how many?”. Just as you did before, you will often have to supply the noun it is modifying. Here you will translate “one thing”.
ὃ γέγονεν
- ὃ is a relative pronoun which is a DMW. Hence, we know a dependent clause is coming. We know that every clause has its own subject/verb. In this case, ὃ is the subject and γέγονεν is the verb.
- γεγονεν is a form of γινομαι (just like εγενετο). You can clearly see the reduplication which marks this verb as perfect tense.
| Present | Aorist | Perfect |
|
stem is γιν- |
|
|
| Takes primary endings (no augment) | Takes secondary endings (yes augment) | Takes primary endings (no augment) |
| Translate into the English present tense | Translate into the English simple past tense | Translate into the English perfect tense |
| γινομαι – I become | εγενομην- I became | γεγονα- I have become |
| γινει – you become | εγενου- you became | γεγονας- you have become |
| γινεται – he/she/it becomes | εγενετο – he/she/it became | γεγονε(ν) – he/she/it has become |
| γινόμεθα – we become | εγενομεθα we became | γεγοναμεν we have become |
| γινεσθε – you become | εγενεσθε you became | γεγονατε you have become |
| γινονται – they become | εγενοντο they became | γεγονασι they have become |
…καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν ὃ γέγονεν.
…and without Him, became not one [thing] which has become.
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.
ζωὴ ἦν
ζωη is the subject of the verb ην.
- What case must it be (principle 1)?
ην is from ειμι.
ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν…
In Him, life was…
καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς
και is a FANBOYS.
Look at the article before ζωη.
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
- (principle 7).
- Translate genitive nouns into English using the key word “of” (BBG 7.4).
καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων:
and the Life was the Light of men.
