Lesson 8 | Levels of logic
What conjunctions connect
Conjunctions can connect single words or phrases
For the purposes of Bracketing, conjunctions between single words or noun phrases do not concern us. Consider this example.
And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. —Matthew 17:1
In this verse, Peter, James and John are connected with the conjunction “and.” However, neither “Peter” nor “James” nor “John his brother” is a proposition in and of itself. They are all single words or noun phrases and thus the two occurrences of “and” in between them are not of importance to us for the sake of Bracketing.
However, “led them up a high mountain by themselves” is a proposition and so the “and” that connects it to the rest of the verse is exactly the sort of conjunction we are interested in paying attention to in Bracketing.
Conjunctions connect the pieces before and after them, but not always
Generally speaking, conjunctions are placed in between the pieces that they are connecting (eg. the “and” in the example above). However, they can also come before the first piece or before both pieces. Distinct conjunctions may also appear one after the other and yet be connecting different pieces.
Examples of all of these can be see in John 13:31-34.
When he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once. Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, “Where I am going you cannot come.”...’
The conjunctions in red are placed in between the pieces they connect.
The conjunctions in blue are placed before the first piece being connected. The “when” connects “he had gone out” with “Jesus said...” (until the end of Jesus' speech). The “if” connects “God is glorified in him” with “God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once.”
The conjunctions in green work together as a single connector, connecting “I said to the Jews” with “now I also say to you.”
Note that this text also contains back-to-back conjunctions with “and” immediately proceeding “just as.” It is critical to recognize that these are distinct conjunctions indicating different connections.
What conjunctions connect in 2 Peter 1:5-11
Let's look again at this passage and note what the conjunctions are doing.
