Featured Greek 101

Yep, that's my take on it.

 

Now for your noun vocabulary:

ἀδελφος = brother (not brother and sister)
ἀνθρωπος = man or person
διακονος = servant, deacon
ἀποστολος = apostle, missionary
θεος = God, god (a generic term)
κοσμος = world, the world system (not the same as the word used for the Roman Empire)
λογος = word (the core meaning); message, etc., depending on the context
ὑιος = son; rarely, it can mean simply progeny, but there are two other words for child that are quite common

These are all significant words in Bible translation which must be carefully rendered. Each one of these can be declined as in post #19.

This is only the 2nd declension masculine nouns. There are also 2nd declension neuter nouns, which I will give (declension & vocabulary) tomorrow morning. In the meantime, there is a wedding about to occur here, and I have strict orders on getting into the auditorium early.

 

And now for the 2nd declension neuter nouns. Their endings are a little different. We will use δωρον, gift, for this declension. Also, I will not include the vocative any more. Students need to know what the vocative is and how to translate it, but it is not difficult. Seeing where it is in the sentence is usually all the student needs to translate it. Also, in the neuter, the vocative is the same as the nominative and accusative. Hey, there you go--the neuter is easier to remember because of the nominative and accusative being the same.

δωρον -- nom. sing.
δωρου -- gen. sing.
δωρῳ -- dat. sing.
δωρον -- acc. sing.
δωρα -- nom. plu.
δωρων -- gen. plu.
δωροις -- dat. plu.
δωρα -- acc. plu.

You will notice that the neuter is the same in nom. and acc., and also that the gen. and dat. are identical to the masculine nouns.

I've mentioned the usages of the cases, but there are a number of other usages that the student should know at this point. First of all, there is the ablative genitive, showing source, as in ἀγω δουλον οἰκου, "I lead a servant from a house" (Dr. Black's illustration). There is also the locative dative, αγρῳ, "in a field" (Dr. Black's). My favorite is the instrumental dative (also called the dative of means), such as in λογῳ, by a word.

Again, this declension must be learned by the student verbatim for quizzes and tests. I usually take off one point each time the student forgets to put in the breathing mark or the iota subscript, because these can affect the meaning. The word εἰς (eis) with a smooth breathing mark is the preposition "into," but with the rough breathing mark, εἰς (heis), it is the numeral "one."

Now I haven't mentioned the accents yet because they are less important. However, occasionally the accent can affect the meaning. The word ει with no accent is a word for "if," but with a circumflex accent it is the word εἶ, meaning "you are." The old Machen grammar has a whole chapter on the accents, but Dr. Black relegates them to Appendix 1. They can be complicated, so I see no need to clutter up the hapless sophomore's mind with them all at once. I introduce accents gradually.

 

By the way, here's just a word on transliteration. Recently here a member rebuked me for writing "f" for phi (φ), saying that it had to be transliterated "ph." I must confess I got a laugh out of that. I thought, really, you want to bust my chops over that and you don't even know Greek?

True, most textbooks show "ph" for the pronunciation of φ, but "f" is exactly the same sound in English. Truth be told, no textbook I have gives a specific scheme of transliteration. So, I guess I'll just go my own way and continue with "f" for φ. It is true, though, that Mounce does point out the four Greek letters that are transliterated with two English letters: θ (th), φ (ph or f), χ (ch), ψ (ps).

Mounce also helpfully points out several Greek letters that can be confused with English letters. So η is eta, not the English "n." Green ν, nu, is pronounced the same as "n" but not written the same. Rho, ρ, looks like the English "p" but is pronounced like an "r." Greek chi, χ, looks like an English "x" but extends below the line, and was probably pronounced with a "ch." Also, omega, ω, looks like a "w" but is pronounced like a long "o."

The only other problem with transliteration is the double gamma (γγ) or a kappa gamma (κγ), both of which put a nasal sound before the "g" sound.

 

Verrrrrrry phunny.

 

I'm back. Yesterday was very busy and I didn't have time to post. Sorry!

Now, there are also feminine nouns in the 2nd declension, notably these two:

ἐρημος--desert, wilderness. It is my view that there was not a true desert (sand, palm trees, sand storms) in Israel in the first century, so this shoiuld usually be translated "wilderness."
ὁδος--road, way, path. This is, of course, the word Jesus used when He said, "I am the way...." It has various meanings and must be translated according to context.

Now you say, "Those end just like the masculine ones!" Very perceptive, and true. However, they are feminine. They are declined just like the masculine nouns, but take the feminine article. (More about the article later.) "That's not far or logical," you say. Welcome to language study!

 

Now for the 1st declension nouns. The 2nd were given first because they are more common, but there are plenty 1st declension nouns to go around. Here is an example of a 1st declension feminine noun, ἡμερα, meaning "day." Note the similarities and differences compared to the 2nd declension nouns.

ἡμερα--nom. sing.
ἡμερας--gen. sing.
ἡμερᾳ--dat. sing. (Notice the iota subscript.)
ἡμεραν--acc. sing.
ἡμεραι--nom. plu.
ἡμερων--gen. plu
ἡμεραις--dat. plu.
ἡμερας--acc. plu.

Then, here is a masculine 1st declension noun, μαθητης, meaning "disciple." Now, don't make a big deal out of the fact that "disciple" is masculine. That has nothing to do with the meaning or exegesis. A female disciple is referred to with this same word.

μαθητης--nom. sing.
μαθητου--gen. sing.
μαθητῃ--dat. sing. (Notice the iota subscript.)
μαθητην--acc. sing.
μαθηται--nom. plu.
μαθητων--gen. plu
μαθηταις--dat. plu.
μαθητας--acc. plu.

In addition to the two above words, here are some vocabulary words for you.

γλωσσα--language, tongue. This means either a spoken, known language, or the tongue in your mouth. It never means some kind of "unknown tongue" in the sense that Charismatics use it. The word "unknown" tongue in the KJV was added by the translators in italics, who certainly did not believe in the charismatic version of tongues.
ἀγαπη--This is the noun for love by an act of the will. The verb cognate is, of course, ἀγαπαω. God loves us in spite of our sin.
γραφη--a written document, writing, Scripture
ψυχη--soul, life. The core meaning is "soul." Sometimes it means "life," (in the sense of "Get a life!") but there is another word for physical life, ζωη.

 

I don't know that name. What did he write?

 

You mean James Price, then, not David Price. If you don't mind me name-dropping, he was my Hebrew prof and is a friend. Yes, anything by James Price is good. He is (still alive) a well-known Hebrew scholar who got his Ph.D. in Hebrew at Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning. His two books on Bible translation are excellent, but Complete Equivalence in Bible Translation is out of print, and A Theory for Bible Translation is not for the faint at heart. King James Onlyism: A New Sect is a good resource on KJVO.

I do confess, though, that he is a Hebrew scholar, not a Greek one, so he sometimes goofs on the Greek. In particular, he is prejudicial against Byzantine priority. For example, he claims in King James Onlyism that there is "sufficient evidence" for a Lucian recension (p. 629), but alsosays, "Whether Lucian's work can be considered a recension is another matter" (p. 243).

 

Let's take a quick look at the Greek conjunction. It's a little different from the English conjunction. A conjunction is normally a linking word, hitching together nouns, phrases, etc. In Greek it very often occurs at the beginning of a sentence, which is confusing. There is a theory that when that happens it is only a particle showing the beginning of a sentence, since in the first century there was no punctuation in Greek, and not even spaces between words! So, without these conjunctions the sentences were hard to read. At any rate, when the conjunction occurs at the beginning of a sentence, it is postpositive, which means that it occurs as the second word in the sentence, not the first word like in English.

Here are some conjunctions for you to remember:

και--and
και...και--both...and
δε--and, but, now (etc.). This one can be fairly vague.
ἀλλα--but. Τhis is a stronger word for "but" than δε.

P.S. What is a particle, you may ask. I'm glad you asked. A particle is a word that has no definite meaning, but signifies a grammatical function. Greek has some of these, but they are rare in English. Japanese has particles as markers for the subject of a sentence, the direct and indirect objects, as a marker for a question at the end of a sentence, etc.

 

Here are two more conjunctions I did not include in the previous post, but are important:

ὀτι--that, because. One usage confusing to even advanced students is when it is used for both indirect ("He said that he...) and direct (He said, "") quotes. Koine Greek does not really distinguish between these two, so careful examination of the context is vital.
γαρ--for or because. It is usually translated "for," but the possibility of "because" should be carefully considered when translating.

 

And now on to the preposition, without which you cannot form a prepositional phrase in Greek (a little grammar joke there). The preposition can be difficult, because some of them are used with more than one case of nouns, several up to three. In a Greek prepositional phrase, the preposition comes first, then it is followed by the noun and it's modifiers (adj., article., etc.). The meaning of those prepositions can change drastically depending on the case of the noun that comes after it.

At this point I'll only give you several that only use one case:

ἀπο--from
εἰς--into
ἐκ--out of, from, etc.
ἐν--in, by, among, etc.

Never underestimate these simple prepositions. Simply because they only take one case does not mean that you can translate them by concordance, using the same English word every time. For example, εἰς is used often with "believe," but it would be a mistake to translate πιστευω εἰς Χριστος as "I believe into Christ." Rather, it should be rendered "I believe in Christ," since in English we do not "believe into" anything.

Even Greek profs can get confused on the prepositions. I once had a seminary theology prof question me when I used a prepositional phrase with ἐν as an instrumental dative. But then I quoted a noted Greek scholar to him who taught that. His answer was, well, most Greek scholars disagree.So who's right? The one I quoted, of course!

 

Looking back, I should have given you some more feminine 1st declension feminine nouns, so here you go:

βασιλεια--kingdom (not 御国, "honorable country" as Japanese versions have it, but 王国)
ἐκκλησια--assembly, church. This word was a political word originally, referring to the all-male all-citizen city assembly of a Greek city state.
ἐξουσια--power, authority
ἐπιθυμια--lust, desire. Unlike English, which has separate words for these meanings, the Greek word can be positive (desire) or negative (lust).

 

Now for adjectives. This is the part of speech that describes a noun. Unlike English adjectives (good, bad, ugly), Greek adjectives are highly inflected. Each adjective has endings for all of the cases that nouns have, and masculine, feminine, and neuter endings. Thus, a Greek adjective can modify any noun, no matter its case or number or gender. The noun and adjective must agree to make sense. In other words, if the noun is masculine nominative singular, the adjective must be the same.

I won't take time to give all of the declensions, which are fairly similar, but here is the declension for "small"

Masculine sing.:
μικρος
μικρου
μικρῳ
μικρον
μικρε

Masc. plu.:
μικροι
μικρων
μικροις
μικρους
μικροι

Fem. sing.
μικρα
μικρας
μικρᾳ
μικραν
μικρα

Fem. plu.:
μικραι
μικρων
μικραις
μικρας
μικραι

Neut. sing.:
μικρον
μικρου
μικρῳ
μικρον
μικρον

Neut. plu.
μικρα
μικρων
μικροις
μικρα
μικρα