Ambiguous Signs

While driving the other day I saw this sign:

HITCHHIKERS MAY BE ESCAPING CONVICTS

Given that there is a ‘corrections’ facility nearby, this probably means, “Hitchhikers may be escapees from prison.” The word ESCAPING is functioning as an adjective—specifically, an adjectival participle—modifying the noun CONVICTS. Therefore, it means:

HITCHHIKERS MAY BE CONVICTS THAT ARE ESCAPING

But the way the sign is written, ESCAPING could be interpreted as a verb rather than the intended adjective:

HITCHHIKERS MAY BE ESCAPING FROM CONVICTS

This places an entirely different meaning over what was intended!

Should those responsible for creating this sign see this blog post, I hope they are convicted . . . of their unintended ambiguity. That is, I hope the writers would come under conviction for their imprecise wording. Making one minor change would alleviate the ambiguity:

HITCHHIKERS MAY BE ESCAPED CONVICTS

If convicts are hitchhiking, they have already escaped! So, changing the adjectival participle from present (-ing) to past (-ed) would convey the message properly.

Praising Polysemy

But sometimes ambiguity is intentionally employed as a linguistic device to enrich a text. It can take the form of polysemy, in which a text plays on a particular word’s myriad shades of meanings (also known as multivalence). Our Scriptures contain quite a few instances of such. An example is in John 1:5:¹

1:₁ In the beginning the Word existed, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ₂ He was in the beginning with God. ₃ Through Him all things came to be, and without Him not even one thing came to be that has come to be. ₄ In Him was life, and that life was the Light of humanity. ₅ The Light shines in the darkness, yet the darkness did not apprehend [katelaben] it.

D. A. Carson calls 1:5 “a masterpiece of planned ambiguity”.² A newcomer to John’s Gospel may only see the creation event of Genesis 1-2 here. But, of course, the Gospel writer intends much more than that.³

The final verb katelaben [aorist active indicative form] is a compound word consisting of the preposition kata and the verb lambanō. The former means ~down, the latter take or receive. But as with many words prefixed with a preposition, the resulting word acquires intensification and an additional nuance. Its basic definition is grasp, as in either hostile (seize) or non-hostile (secure), though, alternatively, it can carry the idea of mental grasping (perceive).⁴ Danker asserts that the writer in this context intends the combined “sense of grasp as seize and comprehend.”⁵ The translation “apprehend” above is an attempt to capture this perceived polysemy.

On first reading, one could understand all of 1:1-5 cosmologically, such that the darkness of Genesis 1:2 would not overcome the light of Genesis 1:3. But after having read through John’s Gospel, a subsequent reading of the prologue (John 1:1–18) may prompt the reader to see an allusion to Genesis 3.⁶ More likely, the light/darkness dichotomy exhibited throughout the Gospel will bring the reader to perceive a connection between v. 5 and vv. 10-11.⁷ While the Light continued and continues to shine (imperfective aspect) in order to illuminate the darkness (John 8:12; 9:5), the darkness chose to remain in darkness (John 3:19-21), failing to comprehend the true nature of the Light (John 11:9-10; 12:35-36, 46).⁸ Those in darkness can be brought to the Light through the continuous shining of the Light, but the darkness itself remains.

Continuing in this light (pun intended), the reader can see an illusion to Revelation 12:4: And the dragon [darkness] stood before the woman who was about to give birth [to the Light], so that when she gave birth he might devour her child. Yet despite the dragon’s best efforts, Christmas did come!

__________________________

¹ My translation.

² D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, Pillar New Testament Commentary, D. A. Carson, gen. ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991), p 119. [I am also reminded of one of my favorite lyric lines: well-defined ambiguity (from “Straight Jacket”, written by Mike Watt, as performed and recorded by Minutemen, The Punch Line, SST records, SST-004, 1981.)]

³ Carson, Gospel, states, “it is quite possible that John, subtle writer that he is, wants his readers to see in the Word both the light of creation and the light of the redemption the Word brings in his incarnation” (p 120).

⁴ F. W. Danker, The Concise Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (Chicago, IL: Chicago, 2009), p 191.

⁵ Ibid; emphasis in original. Cf. Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, two volumes (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, [2003] 2010 [1^st softcover ed.]), p 1.387. Contra, e.g., Andreas J. Köstenberger, Encountering John, Encountering Biblical Studies Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1999), p 55, in which the author opines that “overcome” is the primary meaning, though “understand” may be ‘latent’ (my word) in the verse “in preparation of 1:10-11”.

⁶ See Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John I-XII, The Anchor Yale Bible; (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974), p 8. Under this understanding the aorist κατέλαβεν, katelaben is interpreted as a one-time past event.

⁷ See C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text, 2^nd ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978), p 158.

⁸ See Keener, Gospel of John, pp 1.382-387 for fuller discussion of light, including light as Wisdom and Torah; cf. Brown, John I-XII, pp 519-522.