107 A Grammatical Analysis of John 1,1 In the LXX πρός occurs 3,851 times. I have examined all these ins- tances. Πρός is used mainly in the sense of “to”. The verbs most often occurring are various forms of verbs for “speaking to” or “saying to”. Thereafter come various verbs meaning “to go to” or “to come to”, and finally, a variety of other verbs of motion. There is no example of εἶναι with πρός as in John 1,1, nor with any other verb of rest with analogous meaning as the construction of Jn 1,1 demands75. We are thus left only with the New Testament evidence. This, does however, provides a sufficiently broad basis for reaching reliable con- clusions. Of the 20 NT texts of apparent relevance, Mt 3,10 (= Lk 3,9): ἡ ἀξίνη πρὸς τὴν ῥίζαν τῶν δένδρων κεῖται... Mk 1,33: καὶ ἦν ὅλη ἡ πόλις ἐπισυνηγμένη πρὸς τὴν θύραν... Μk 4,1: καὶ πᾶς ὁ ὄχλος πρὸς τὴν θάλασσαν ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἦσαν... Gal 2,5: ἵνα ἡ ἀλήθεια τοῦ εὐαγγελίου διαμείνῃ πρὸς ὑμᾶς... and (?) Philm 13: ὃν ἐγὼ ἐβουλόμην πρὸς ἐμαυτὸν κατέχειν are no parallels to Jn 1,1b, since the conditions of two persons and a relational verb constructed with the preposition πρός plus accusa- tive are not met. Of the other fifteen texts, Jn 18,16: ὁ δὲ Πέτρος εἱστήκει πρὸς τῇ θύρᾳ ἔξω and Rm 5,1: ∆ικαιωθέντες οὖν ἐκ πίστεως εἰρήνην ἔχομεν πρὸς τὸν θεὸν are also irrelevant, since the first text uses the dative with a thing (object), and the second text does not have a relational verb. The remaining 12 texts are grammatically parallel to Jn 1,1b. Mt 13,56 (= Mk 6,3): καὶ αἱ ἀδελφαὶ αὐτοῦ οὐχὶ πᾶσαι πρὸς ἡμᾶς εἰσιν... Mk 9,19: ἕως πότε πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἔσομαι... Lk 9,41: ἕως πότε ἔσομαι πρὸς ὑμᾶς; 2 Cor 11,9: καὶ παρὼν πρὸς ὑμᾶς; Gal 1,18: καὶ ἐπέμεινα πρὸς αὐτὸν ἡμέρας δεκαπέντε; Gal 4,18: μὴ μόνον ἐν τῷ παρεῖναί με πρὸς ὑμᾶς; Gal 4,20: ἤθελον δὲ παρεῖναι πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἄρτι; 2 Th 2,5: ἔτι ὢν πρὸς ὑμᾶς; 2 Th 3,10: ὅτε ἦμεν πρὸς ὑμᾶς and 1 Jn 1,2: [τὴν ζωὴν τὴν αἰώνιον] ἥτις ἦν πρὸς τὸν πατέρα (provided life is understood of the Λόγος). The above examination of the evidence so far has shown that the Johannine construction of Someone (nom.) being πρός Someone (acc.) is typical of the New Testament. It does not occur in the LXX, nor in the earlier literature (i.e. judging by the relatively limited number of instances [out of 400,000] I examined). In addition to 1 Jn 1,2 (which is similar to Jn 1,1b), all the other instances are similarly clear exam- ples of someone being, living, staying with someone, just as Jn 1,1b. For example, Mt 13,56 (= Mk 6,3) means: “Are not all his sisters with us?”, i.e. “living among us?”; Mk 14,49 “every day I was with you”; Lk 9,41: “how long shall I be with you?”; 2 Th 3,10: “when we were with you”, i.e. “staying among you”. In no one of these instances would we be tempted The only two aprioristically formal equivalents are Lev 25,6: καὶ τῷ παροίκῳ 75 τῷ προσκειμένῳ πρὸς σε (= “... who ‘lives’ with (= among) you”) and Num 15,26: τῷ προσκειμένῳ πρὸς ὑμᾶς – both of which are materially different.