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John 8:25


84

Greek τὴν ἀρχὴν ὅ τι καὶ λαλῶ ὑμῖν

"Τὴν ἀρχὴν" (Tēn archēn): "The beginning" or "The Origin." There is no "from" preposition here and it is in the accusative. It escaped notice, being a hidden mystery, that the Genesis 1 beginning "In the Head" was a "someone".

ὅ τι has been fumbled around by some as something meant to be one word "ὅτι" meaning "that". The problem with this is that you end up with two conjunctions which makes no sense. It is a relative pronoun and an indefinite pronoun.

That Jesus should say something like "What I also speak to you" or "what I have been speaking" in answer to a simple question is quite the pointless answer, and even makes him sound incapable of explaining.

  • "ὅ" (ho): The relative pronoun "what/who".
  • "τι" (ti): The indefinite pronoun "someone, something."
  • "καὶ" (kai): The conjunction "also/and/even"
  • "λαλῶ" (lalō): "to utter, talk"
  • "ὑμῖν" (hymin): The second person plural pronoun "you all/yourselves" in the dative case.

A literal reading of this therefore would be something like, "The Origin [feminine] who, someone also I am uttering to yourselves."