94 Jan van der Watt & Chrys Caragounis will not take the form of a detailed Auseinandersetzung with the over- view of the solutions offered in scholarship, but will consider each clause anew in the light of a holistic Greek usage in order to bring insights arising from the state of development within the Greek language to bear on our text. In this way the grammatical understanding that has shaped Johannine exegesis to date, as well as a new approach to the matter at hand, will be considered in tandem. The latter approach has never been utilized before in this debate, namely, seeking meaning not in arbitrarily compartmentalized periods of the Greek language hermetically sealed from one another –a procedure that has led to considerable distortions in semantics– but in a living language that was undergoing developments and changes in morphology and syntax. Although much of what has been said before in scholarly discussion thus far is still valid, this discussion will draw attention to what needs to be understood differently. This means that no comments will be made on areas of agreement but only on areas of disagreement. In case some may think that the diachronic approach runs the risk of using anachronistic evidence, it should be pointed out that (a) the unity of the Greek language from its known beginnings to the present day has been settled long ago and that no informed scholar doubts it5, (b) the language underwent a 900-year transition from Alexander (335 B.C.) to Justinian (A.D. 565)6, during which it changed from ancient to modern, and (c) since the New Testament was written in the middle of that period, it is obvious that the New Testament exhibits both elements that belong to the ancient phase of the language and elements that are at home in the modern phase of the language7. That is why literature written during the entire history of the language up to Neohellenic times both in Kathare- vousa and Demotic is potentially relevant and must be investigated. See the research of the great philologist, A. Koraës, in his ῎Aτακτα, 5 Vols. (Paris 5 1828-1835); D. Mavrofrydes, ∆οκίμιον ῾Ιστορίας τῆς ῾Ελληνικῆς Γλώσσης (᾿Εν Σμύρνῃ 1871); G. N. Hatzidakis, Einleitung in die Neugriechische Grammatik, (Bibliothek Indoger- manischer Grammatiken, Band 5, Leipzig 1892); idem, Γλωσσολογικαὶ ῎Ερευναι, 2 Vols. (Athens 1934); idem, Μεσσαιωνικὰ καὶ Νέα ῾Ελληνικά, 2 Vols. (Athens 1905-07); A. N. Jannaris, An Historical Greek Grammar (London: Macmillan 1897), and others. For the importance of these scholars as well as for their relevance for New Testament exegesis, see Caragounis, Development, (see n. 4), 95-98. On this see Hatzidakis, “Περὶ τῶν χρόνων καθ᾿ οὗς ἀνεπτύχθη ἡ νεωτέρα ῾Ελληνική” 6 in Μεσσαιωνικὰ καὶ Νέα ῾Ελληνικά, Vol. I, 406-81 and Caragounis, Development, (see n. 4), 88 f., 96-119 and 566. This has been illustrated with innumerable examples from inter alia the NT by Cara- 7 gounis, Development, (see n. 4), passim.