Where did the meaning of Greek words come from?

Hi Everyone.

I have been using Logos 4 since it was released and really appreciate the programs abilities and everyones input in the forums. I have some translation questions that some of the more learned people on these forums may be able to help me with.

I am learning NT Greek at the moment (from workbooks) and really enjoying it but there is one question that keeps on bothering me and that is where do the translations for the NT Greek words come from?

Are we relying on all the English translations of the bible to find out what the original Greek words meant (ie. working backwards)? If so, then how is studying it in Greek giving us any more insight as the Greek will essentially be an translation from English, or are we just looking at patterns to gain insight into the English translation.

Alternatevly, is there a large body of Greek texts (other than the bible) that exist that have also been translated into English that confirm the accuracy of the definitions? OR better yet is it possible that the language never really stopped and has consistantly been used (maybe by Jewish Scholars)?

Thanks in Advance

Ben

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Rosie Perera

There have been Greek scholars all along who have passed on to us what the Greek words meant, including the Early Church Fathers (most of whom still spoke Greek themselves). And yes there is a large body of other Greek works that have been preserved and translated, first into Latin most likely, and later other languages including English. You can find lots of them at the Perseus Digital Database. Also, Greek is still a living language, and while certainly there are major differences between modern Greek and ancient Greek, the evolution of the language has been well documented all along. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (aka BDAG) is a very useful Greek lexicon because it shows usages of a word not only in the Bible but also in other non-biblical texts of the time, which confirms the meanings. Often the meanings can be figured out from context, too.

Ben Mckay

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198486#Comment_198486

Thank you Rosie for your reply.

Is there the same level of knowledge about the Hebrew language?

Ben

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198517#Comment_198517

Classical Hebrew has a much much smaller corpus than Greek. There is much less certainty for Hebrew meaning than for Greek. The general principle is that meaning is determined through context, ancient translations into other languages, and comparative Semitics (particularly with hapax legomena, words or roots that appear only once.)

Jonathan Burke

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198579#Comment_198579

Believe it or not we now know a lot more about classical and koine Greek than the original speakers did. It's quite incredible how much more we know in comparison with them. I stil find it a completely horrible language, but at least it's not as bad as Latin.

Jonathan Burke

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198579#Comment_198579

The general principle is that meaning is determined
through context, ancient translations into other languages, and
comparative Semitics (particularly with hapax legomena, words or roots
that appear only once.)

This is where the Ugarit texts come in useful.Unfortunately I don't have the time to learn Ugarit, especially since the writing system is about as inefficient as you could think of (except for Chinese), but I have found this collection of value.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198606#Comment_198606

I stil find it a completely horrible language, but at least it's not as bad as Latin.

Totally off-topic and irrelevant, but I am curious as to what you mean by "horrible"? Mind you, I know neither.

fgh

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198748#Comment_198748

Totally off-topic and irrelevant ... Mind you, I know neither.

Even more totally off-topic and irrelevant: which languages do you know? Besides, presumably, the Indian ones you keep referring to.

George Somsel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198608#Comment_198608

This is where the Ugarit texts come in useful.Unfortunately I don't have the time to learn Ugarit, especially since the writing system is about as inefficient as you could think of (except for Chinese), but I have found this collection of value.

Oh, come now. Ugaritic orthography isn't so inefficient. It's alphabetic as is English, Greek, Hebrew, etc. There are about the same number of letter forms to learn as in the other languages. Agreed, we aren't accustomed to reading the impressions of a cuneus on clay, but that doesn't mean the system is inefficient. If you want to see something inefficient, take a look at Borger's or Labatt's sign list for Akkadian. The number of signs there as well as the various ways in which each sign can be understood is mind-boggling. Probably as a consequence most Assyriologists use a transliteration rather than producing the original. See the sign list here:

http://www.alain.be/akkadien.html

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198778#Comment_198778

Even more totally off-topic and irrelevant: which languages do you know?

Primarily the Old Persian-Avestan-Vedic-Sanskrit-Pali-Prakrit-Sogdian-Khotanese spectrum, a bit of Tibetan, Chinese, Old Uighur, Orkhon, even less but able to muddle my way through certain topics in some European languages.- some are rustier than others and my vocabulary is very topic specific. Don't hire me as a translator in any of them now even if I am dusting them off for an international poetry project.

fgh

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198852#Comment_198852

Pretty impressive list! Haven't even heard some of those names (as far as I can remember).

I think I'll stick to the European and Biblical ones, though. [;)]

Jonathan Burke

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198748#Comment_198748

Totally off-topic and irrelevant, but I am curious as to what you mean by "horrible"? Mind you, I know neither.

The grammar is unnecessarily complex and massively redundant. When I first started learning it, I consoled myself with the idea that this mean the language could be extremely precise. Later I realised this wasn't actually the case, and Greek can still be as vague as any other language. The grammar isn't complicated for reasons of precision, it's complicated because of a vast accumulation of junk, just like English. Chinese grammar is far more efficient and intuitive than Greek or any of the Romance languages.

George, Ugarit isn't as bad as Akkadian certainly, but given the choice between poking clay with a sharp stick and grabbing a pencil and paper, what would you prefer? No one is going to go back to that method of writing, it's just ridiculously inefficient. It would still be inefficient even if you did use a pencil and paper. Some languages deserve to die.

tom

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198861#Comment_198861

The grammar is unnecessarily complex and massively redundant

This is why I think Greek is a beautiful language. For a simple illustration, while the language has 24 different words for the word "the", each word brings a sightly different flavor. I also love the beauty that there is no word order like English. Simply put, the most important word starts the sentence.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198861#Comment_198861

The grammar is unnecessarily complex and massively redundant. When I first started learning it, I consoled myself with the idea that this mean the language could be extremely precise. Later I realised this wasn't actually the case, and Greek can still be as vague as any other language. The grammar isn't complicated for reasons of precision, it's complicated because of a vast accumulation of junk, just like English. Chinese grammar is far more efficient and intuitive than Greek or any of the Romance languages.

Can't say that I agree with you ... I tend to consider the various paradigms for grammar as each having strengths and weaknesses. But I do understand why you could have your particular preference. Thanks for explaining.

Some languages deserve to die.

True - I like my languages dead - the deader the better. Reading is my skill not speaking.[:)]

tom

is where do the translations for the NT Greek words come from?

And there are words that we only have an idea what they mean in their context. An example is malakoi and arsenokoitai from 1 Cor. 6:9.

George Somsel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198861#Comment_198861

George, Ugarit isn't as bad as Akkadian certainly, but given the choice between poking clay with a sharp stick and grabbing a pencil and paper, what would you prefer? No one is going to go back to that method of writing, it's just ridiculously inefficient. It would still be inefficient even if you did use a pencil and paper. Some languages deserve to die.

Whether I would grab a pencil and paper or some clay and a stick would depend upon whether pencil and paper were available. The first paper-type product was papyrus which had to be split, cut to the proper length, laid next to one another with a second layer at 90° and pounded until they bonded together. Moreover, it was generally only available in Egypt. It wasn't until later that skins of animals were scraped and processed to be able to be used as writing materials. You use what you have available. If the Sumerians, Assyrians and Babylonians had pencils and paper available, they might well have devised a different system of writing. Even with papyrus available as far back as the third millenium B.C. it didn't become widely used until later. Meanwhile the Egyptian hieroglyphics were another horror to read.

George Somsel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198864#Comment_198864

The grammar is unnecessarily complex and massively redundant

This is why I think Greek is a beautiful language. For a simple illustration, while the language has 24 different words for the word "the", each word brings a sightly different flavor. I also love the beauty that there is no word order like English. Simply put, the most important word starts the sentence.

I don't think that is an accurate statement regarding the article in Greek. There is one article with is declined into 30 (not 24) forms (You left out pre-koine forms). It's still only one word. To call it 24 (or 30) words is like saying that "they", "them" and "their" are different words rather than diffent forms of the same word. One of the advantages of Greek (shared by Hebrew) is that it had a definite article which Latin, e.g., lacked. In order to specify that reference was to a single example rather than an indefinite reference it became necessary to use the numeral "one" (εἷς, μία, ἑν) as in

Revelation 8:13 (NA27)

¹³Καὶ εἶδον, καὶ ἤκουσα ἑνὸς ἀετοῦ πετομένου ἐν μεσουρανήματι λέγοντος φωνῇ μεγάλῃ· οὐαὶ οὐαὶ οὐαὶ τοὺς κατοικοῦντας ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἐκ τῶν λοιπῶν φωνῶν τῆς σάλπιγγος τῶν τριῶν ἀγγέλων τῶν μελλόντων σαλπίζειν.

George Somsel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198870#Comment_198870

And there are words that we only have an idea what they mean in their context. An example is malakoi and arsenokoitai from 1 Cor. 6:9.

Ultimately, we only know what any word means in its context. When I use the word "bad" do I mean that something is morally depraved, spoiled, unsuitable for a particular purpose or do I actually mean that it's very good? Only context will tell. Μαλακοί is not a word which is unknown outside of the NT. Philo, Josephus, Dio Chrysotom, Diogenes Laertius and others used the word as well. Ἀρσενοκοίτοι, on the other hand, seems to have been the product of Paul's productive mind so that we are driven to etymology and context to determine the meaning.

Ben Mckay

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198885#Comment_198885

Ultimately, we only know what any word means in its context. When I use the word "bad" do I mean that something is morally depraved, spoiled, unsuitable for a particular purpose or do I actually mean that it's very good? Only context will tell. Μαλακοί is not a word which is unknown outside of the NT. Philo, Josephus, Dio Chrysotom, Diogenes Laertius and others used the word as well. Ἀρσενοκοίτοι, on the other hand, seems to have been the product of Paul's productive mind so that we are driven to etymology and context to determine the meaning.

This is fascinating, and I guess this is where we need to ultimately rely on the Holy Spirit for interpretation. Two different interpretations could potentially be correct to 2 different people (or even the same person at different times). The bible is after all a living language.

Jonathan Burke

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198864#Comment_198864

This is why I think Greek is a beautiful language. For a simple illustration, while the language has 24 different words for the word "the", each word brings a sightly different flavor.

That's what I call a waste of time, and I'm not sure that there are actually 24 distinct and necessary flavours of definite article (and really, who needs them?). Noun declensions, verb conjugations, they're also just a waste. You can do everything with fixed verb and noun forms, using particles if necessary.

I also love the beauty that there is no word order like English. Simply put, the most important word starts the sentence.

The use of word order is certainly different to that in English, but I wouldn't say there's no word order.

Jonathan Burke

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198868#Comment_198868

Can't say that I agree with you ... I tend to consider the various paradigms for grammar as each having strengths and weaknesses. But I do understand why you could have your particular preference. Thanks for explaining.

From my point of view, the massive number of declensions and conjugations are just unnecessary. English doesn't use cases, and we get on just fine. We also have fewer conjugations, and we can still communicate ok. Of course English has far too much trash and needs to be completely reviewed anyway; I would drop all conjugations and declensions for a start, and standardize the grammar rules so we don't have a dozen exceptions to every rule.

Chinese doesn't conjugate verbs or decline nouns, and has no verb tenses; instead verbal aspect is communicated via contextual markers and particles (in Chinese there are about four formal tenses, though this is a simplification). People still manage to communicate effectively. As I've learned more about languages I've come to prioritize ease of learning and effectiveness of communication as the metrics for a good language. Alphabets are in, logographs are out. Conjugations and declensions are out, particles are in. Tenses are minimized, not maximized. Pidgins and creoles are good examples of efficient languages.

George Somsel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198925#Comment_198925

This is fascinating, and I guess this is where we need to ultimately rely on the Holy Spirit for interpretation. Two different interpretations could potentially be correct to 2 different people (or even the same person at different times). The bible is after all a living language

No, the bible is not a "living language. It is a fixed document. It means what the author intended it to mean which is not subject to the vagueries of an appeal to the Holy Spirit. I am reminded of the response of Zedekiah, the false prophet who said

1 Kings 22:24–25 (NRSV)

“Which way did the spirit of the Lord pass from me to speak to you?”

He may have been a false prophet, but the question remains "How does one determine who has the Spirit and when they have it?" This is an extremely subjective judgment.

Ben Mckay

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198933#Comment_198933

No, the bible is not a "living language. It is a fixed document. It means what the author intended it to mean which is not subject to the vagueries of an appeal to the Holy Spirit. I am reminded of the response of Zedekiah, the false prophet who said

1 Kings 22:24–25 (NRSV)

“Which way did the spirit of the Lord pass from me to speak to you?”

He may have been a false prophet, but the question remains "How does one determine who has the Spirit and when they have it?" This is an extremely subjective judgment.

Hi George,

Thankyou for your reply. I agree that the bible is the word of God and does not contradict itself and should be used to tell us how to live our lives and to test whether a teacher is a false teacher or not. I do not suggest that bible is totally open to interpretation as then people change it to suit them rather than the other way around.

I do however believe that the many parts of the bible can be interpreted in different ways and not contradict itself. This is why I believe God can be speaking to 2 different people differently about the same passage. The meaning of a number of Jesus' parables are widely debated and I think that it can rightly mean two different things to 2 different people. Is it possible that the Holy Spirit is leading 2 people to 2 different conclusions, where both are potentially correct in the context of the bible as a whole?

George Somsel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198936#Comment_198936

I do however believe that the many parts of the bible can be interpreted in different ways and not contradict itself. This is why I believe God can be speaking to 2 different people differently about the same passage.

I don't think it can be interpreted in radically different ways. I'm not concerned with whether the bible contradicts itself since I think it does. We speak of the progress of revelation. God speaks in various manners and by small steps. Some later steps are not in harmony with earlier steps. This is due to the fact that we are led along as we might lead a child -- little by little. What we are able to comprehend in one stage of our development may not be advanced as in a later stage. This leads not to seeming contradictions, but to actual contradictions. Israel was commanded to offer bloody sacrifices at one point, but later was told that God does not demand this but rather a heart, or life, which is attuned to his will. This is not a small matter and cannot be swept under the rug. It sounds very pious to say that the bible cannot contradict itself and perhaps almost blasphemous to say that it does, but we must deal honestly with the texts that are before us. Rather than look at the details and elevate them to the level of settled truth we must see precisely what it is that is being inculcated there. One step at a time.

Bohuslav Wojnar

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198966#Comment_198966

I do however believe that the many parts of the bible can be interpreted in different ways and not contradict itself. This is why I believe God can be speaking to 2 different people differently about the same passage.

I don't think it can be interpreted in radically different ways. I'm not concerned with whether the bible contradicts itself since I think it does. We speak of the progress of revelation. God speaks in various manners and by small steps. Some later steps are not in harmony with earlier steps. This is due to the fact that we are led along as we might lead a child -- little by little. What we are able to comprehend in one stage of our development may not be advanced as in a later stage. This leads not to seeming contradictions, but to actual contradictions. Israel was commanded to offer bloody sacrifices at one point, but later was told that God does not demand this but rather a heart, or life, which is attuned to his will. This is not a small matter and cannot be swept under the rug. It sounds very pious to say that the bible cannot contradict itself and perhaps almost blasphemous to say that it does, but we must deal honestly with the texts that are before us. Rather than look at the details and elevate them to the level of settled truth we must see precisely what it is that is being inculcated there. One step at a time.

It's a fascinating thread. Thank you guys.

George, I really appreciate your last post. It helps me so much to understand the logic of your view of Scriptures and I really like how consistent you are. Thank you.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198933#Comment_198933

It means what the author intended it to mean which is not subject to the vagueries of an appeal to the Holy Spirit.

To whose vagaries** do we then appeal if indeed it is the Word of God?

** an unexpected and inexplicable change

Jonathan Burke

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198974#Comment_198974

It means what the author intended it to mean which is not subject to the vagueries of an appeal to the Holy Spirit.

To whose vagaries** do we then appeal if indeed it is the Word of God?

** an unexpected and inexplicable change

I think George is recommending we avoid appeals to vagaries altogether.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198982#Comment_198982

I think George is recommending we avoid appeals to vagaries altogether.

Oh, my!

tom

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198885#Comment_198885

Ultimately, we only know what any word means in its context. When I use the word "bad" do I mean that something is morally depraved, spoiled, unsuitable for a particular purpose or do I actually mean that it's very good? Only context will tell. Μαλακοί is not a word which is unknown outside of the NT. Philo, Josephus, Dio Chrysotom, Diogenes Laertius and others used the word as well. Ἀρσενοκοίτοι, on the other hand, seems to have been the product of Paul's productive mind so that we are driven to etymology and context to determine the meaning.

George, I agree with you 100%. I too see Paul using malakoi as slang. The question before us is, what does "soft" mean in this context. Aristotle used this word for persons who lack moral self control (Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics 1150a.) Paul is using this word with πόρνοι (Fornicators), εἰδωλολάτραι (idolaters), μοιχοὶ (adulterers), and ἀρσενοκοῖται (sodomites). Therefore, in this context, Paul is using this word "soft" to have some sort of sexual meaning. The question is "What sexual meaning?"

If we look at how this word has been translated over the years, we can see:

KJV (1611): effeminate
ASV (1901): effeminate
JB (1966): catamites (a boy who has sexual relationship with a man)
NASB (1960): effeminate
NIV (1973): male prostitutes
NKJV (1982): homosexuals
NJB (1985): the self-indulgent
NAB (1986): boy prostitutes
NRSV (1989): male prostitutes

Is "soft" here referring to "effeminate" or "catamites" or "male prostitutes" or "homosexuals" or "boy prostitutes?" While there is a theme that runs throughout all of these interpretations, each interpretation is different. A catamite is not the same as a "boy prostitute."

All I am saying is that we have an idea of what Paul is talking about, but we cannot know for sure (100% sure).

tom

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198926#Comment_198926

I'm not sure that there are actually 24 distinct and necessary flavours of definite article

In the Greek language, there are 24 distinct flavors of the definite article, and each flavor is slightly different.

The use of word order is certainly different to that in English, but I wouldn't say there's no word order.

For an example, I can write "I hit the ball to
Sallie" the following ways in Greek:

I hit the ball to Sallie.
I hit to Sallie the ball.
I the ball to Sallie hit.
I the ball hit to Sallie.
I Sallie hit the ball.
I Sallie the ball hit.
Hit I the ball to Sallie.
Hit I to Sallie the ball.
The ball I to Sallie hit.
The ball I hit to Sallie.
Sallie I hit the ball.
Sallie I the ball hit.
Hit the ball I to Sallie.
Hit to Sallie I the ball.
The ball to Sallie I hit.
The ball hit I to Sallie.
Sallie hit I the ball.
Sallie the ball I hit.
Hit the ball to Sallie I.
Hit to Sallie the ball I.
The ball to Sallie hit I.
The ball hit to Sallie I.
Sallie hit the ball I.
Sallie the ball hit I.
Hit the ball to Sallie.
Hit to Sallie the ball.
The ball to Sallie hit.
The ball hit to Sallie.
Sallie hit the ball.
Sallie the ball hit.

While each sentence says the same thing (I hit the ball to Sallie), each sentence has a different meaning; its own flavor.

This is why knowing the Greek text is soooooooooooo important. While there are many ways to say something in the Greek text, and each structure has its own unique meaning, there is only one way to translate the text into English, and all of those beautiful flavors are now lost.

Jonathan Burke

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198997#Comment_198997

I think George is recommending we avoid appeals to vagaries altogether.

Oh, my!

I happen to agree with him. I thought he made an excellent point.

Jonathan Burke

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/199021#Comment_199021

In the Greek language, there are 24 distinct flavors of the definite article, and each flavor is slightly different.

Could you provide some examples so I know what you mean by 'distinct flavors'? I don't remember being taught this when I was learning Greek.

For an example, I can write "I hit the ball to
Sallie" the following ways in Greek:

Sure you can write a single clause in lots of different ways, but if you go beyond a single clause you'll find word order starts to get a little more important. Greeks didn't typically bunch up all the definite articles in one clause, then all the nouns in another, then all the verbs in a third, for example. We don't read Greek sentences which start with a string of definite articles like 'ths ton ton tou tos ths ton th ths tou ton tous', and have to read through the rest of the sentence and match up the articles to their nouns or verbs, for example. And I'm not sure that 25-30 are saying 'I hit the ball to Sallie'.

This is why knowing the Greek text is soooooooooooo important. While there are many ways to say something in the Greek text, and each structure has its own unique meaning, there is only one way to translate the text into English, and all of those beautiful flavors are now lost.

At the end of the day if these are all saying 'I hit the ball to Sallie' then I don't see what is lost. I don't see what's particularly beautiful about any of these 'flavors'. Greek is just a horrible messy language with the massive redundancy and lexical junk of an elderly language well overdue for having the trash removed (about 80% of the grammar for a start).

English is almost as bad. Have you ever tried to teach English to non-native English speakers? It's a nightmare. I love speaking in English, and I think it's a beautiful language for singing in, but as a medium of communication it's pathetic. It shows all the signs of being the historical accident which it was.

(‾◡◝)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/199057#Comment_199057

This is an interesting discussion.

Over the years, I have heard on several occassions what a wonderfully precise language Greek is - in fact, so precise that God chose it for the publication of the NT, just look at all of the different Greek words for "love", etc.. In my younger and less informed days, I believed it but now that I am older and have studied Greek, I am far more dubious about the claim and would side with another writer on this thread who suggests that it is no better or worse than many other languages.

Given that, I am curious to know from the historical perspective who and when this claim was first made. I am not aware of any claims like this from the first century down through the Reformation or even into the 19th century. Does anyone know or is there a way to find out? I wish that there was a "snopes.com" for preaching illustrations and other claims from the pulpit and printed materials. My suspicion is that somebody said it in the 20th century and it preached so well that many others have picked it up and used it ever since.

Just curious.

Jonathan Burke

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/199084#Comment_199084

JRS, your experience matches my own. I know that in the late 19th century it was popular to believe that the Greek of the Bible was a special 'Holy Spirit' Greek, and that the New Testament used Greek words with special meanings found nowhere else in Greek use. Deissmann made the breakthrough in the late 19th century which proved otherwise, and Mounce made similar advances in the 20th century with the use of newly discovered papyri. I believe George Somsel would know a lot more about this than I do, and will defer to him for further comment.

Pat Flanakin

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198579#Comment_198579

I question this statement. Perhaps your use of "certainty" is really meant to communicate that getting to the meaning is more complex or difficult, but not with the lack of ability to obtain certainty. If you are saying that the largest "corpus" of Scripture is not able to have certainty, then we are all to be pitied as Christians.

Would you mind clarifying, please?

There is much less certainty for Hebrew meaning than for Greek.

Pat Flanakin

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/199084#Comment_199084

JRS, care to provide specific reasons for your encroached skepticism surrounding the ability for N.T. Greek to be precise? See referenced quote below.

In my younger and less informed days, I believed it but now that I am older and have studied Greek, I am far more dubious about the claim and would side with another writer on this thread who suggests that it is no better or worse than many other languages.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/198929#Comment_198929

Pidgins and creoles are good examples of efficient languages.

Funny you should mention them - one of my master's papers (2 papers in lieu of a thesis) was on Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit as a pidginized language I don't evaluate languages in terms of efficiency but rather in terms of precision. To me, it makes no difference if the "particles" stand alone, are prefixes, are suffixes ... I will admit a prejudice against infixes.[:)] And admit that the Turkic languages are my favorites for ability to adapt over time.

(‾◡◝)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/199173#Comment_199173

JRS, care to provide specific reasons for your encroached skepticism surrounding the ability for N.T. Greek to be precise?

You changed my comment. I did not say it wasn't precise, I said that I am suspicious of the claims that it is has a level of overall precision that surpasses other languages. I claim no expertise on this question - I am simply suspicious of the claim and curious about its origins. Someone had to have made the first observation concerning the alleged superiority of Greek. I am curious if it can be determined who first made it and when. If those claims have a strong historical basis, then so be it - I will have to re-evaluate my suspicions. Until then, I remain dubious ... it sounds suspiciously like something that originated in the 20th century, preaches well, and which no one can refute without a great deal of investigation. IOW, an Urban Legend (or should I say a Pulpit Legend? [;)]).

Ben

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/199170#Comment_199170

Pat, I don't know your background or familiarity with languages, but I laid out some of my reasons. Hebrew is quite different than Greek. If you deduce a words meaning from context, than words attested 100,000 times are those best known. Ideally, then, you want a very large corpus of texts to deal with, and Greek has it. I include not just the NT, but the vast amounts of non-Biblical Greek, before and after the NT. Hebrew simply has a much smaller corpus, and consequently, many words are attested only a handful of times in what we have.

We also do not have quite the unbroken tradition of Biblical Hebrew the way we do with Greek, though we do have Jewish interpretive tradition. Even Jewish tradition did not really get into linguistic-grammatical issues until post-Talmudic times, and then it was due to their interaction with Arabic-speaking Muslim interpreters of the Koran.

There is also the issue(s) of Semitic roots. We may know what a particular form means, but often times it's very difficult to figure out what another form of the same root means, particularly when that form is rare. We may have to appeal to another root that has come to be written identically, but with different meaning. (Hebrew underwent several shifts resulting in mergers. For an english example, take "cleave" which has two opposite meanings, "to cling to" or "to separate." As it turns out, that's because two separate words came to be spelled and pronounced the same way, "cleave." So it is sometimes (often?) with Hebrew.

So, if the root doesn't appear often, and the few contexts we have don't help much, where do we turn? Cognate languages like Arabic, Aramaic, Akkadian, and especially in the last 50 years, Ugaritic. These often shed light on the meaning of a given word, but we can't be certain it meant the same thing in both languages.

So is there certainty? Definitely not, and less than exists with Greek.

George Somsel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/199200#Comment_199200

JRS, care to provide specific reasons for your encroached skepticism surrounding the ability for N.T. Greek to be precise?

You changed my comment. I did not say it wasn't precise, I said that I am suspicious of the claims that it is has a level of overall precision that surpasses other languages. I claim no expertise on this question - I am simply suspicious of the claim and curious about its origins. Someone had to have made the first observation concerning the alleged superiority of Greek. I am curious if it can be determined who first made it and when. If those claims have a strong historical basis, then so be it - I will have to re-evaluate my suspicions. Until then, I remain dubious ... it sounds suspiciously like something that originated in the 20th century, preaches well, and which no one can refute without a great deal of investigation. IOW, an Urban Legend (or should I say a Pulpit Legend? ).

I don't think that Greek is that much more specific than most other languages -- it is simply less precise in different ways. What we see in Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Sanskrit, whatever, among the older languages is a tendency to use more cases to convey relationships with gender and number specified even for adjectives. Even so there can be questions regarding precisely which noun was being modified by a particular adjective or whether it applies to more than one noun. We don't do too much of what I would consider to be excessive specification. This doesn't mean that English is therefore less specific. There are ways of being quite specific without the use of cases, number and gender. I have always maintained regarding concepts that if one couldn't explain it in terms that the average man-on-the-street could understand then the speaker didn't understand it himself. I could maintain the same regarding language translation. To say that some word (say, "dwibble" -- yes, I made it up) simply can't be translated precisely from language A to language B is just so much horse-pucky. If something is lost in translation then either the translator lost it or the cultural mileau isn't well understood by the reader.

(‾◡◝)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/199207#Comment_199207

I don't think that Greek is that much more specific than most other languages -- it is simply less precise in different ways. What we see in Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Sanskrit, whatever, among the older languages is a tendency to use more cases to convey relationships with gender and number specified even for adjectives. Even so there can be questions regarding precisely which noun was being modified by a particular adjective or whether it applies to more than one noun. We don't do too much of what I would consider to be excessive specification. This doesn't mean that English is therefore less specific. There are ways of being quite specific without the use of cases, number and gender. I have always maintained regarding concepts that if one couldn't explain it in terms that the average man-on-the-street could understand then the speaker didn't understand it himself. I could maintain the same regarding language translation. To say that some word (say, "dwibble" -- yes, I made it up) simply can't be translated precisely from language A to language B is just so much horse-pucky. If something is lost in translation then either the translator lost it or the cultural mileau isn't well understood by the reader.

George,

I can't quibble with your "dwibble", above. I think your comments are accurate. A few more thoughts that come to mind as I think about this ...

Precision or specificity (to use your term) is difficult to define w/r to language and even tougher to try and evaluate in order to objectively score one language as being more precise than another. In fact, to even speak of a language as being specific or precise, seems to me to be rather ambiguous as those terms can take on all sorts of different implications. For example,

As you suggest, one might be a natural speaker of the most "precise" language known to man but, if he has a cluttered mind, all of the precison in his language will not tidy up his thinking or his communication. The language is only a tool for the communication of thought ... messy mind, messy communication.

I suspect that each language has areas of great specificity which might outshine other languages ... for example, a culture that raises sheep might be far more able to accurately describe animal husbandry than than a culture whose economy is based on viticulture. And, we in the 21st century are far more able to precisely describe Hughey Helicopters than John's "locusts" in Rev (sorry, I couldn't help it [;)]).

It should also be noted that each user of a language has varying degrees of ability to utilize that specificity. A child may simply say, "Grandpa" whereas the lawyer who draws up the trusts and the will for "Grandpa" speaks of "the party of the first part hereafter referred to as, "George Somsel" &etc ". But who is to say which is speaking with more precision or specificity? In the child's world, "Grandpa" is wonderfully specific and precise and non-verbose but, it is a woefully ambiguous choice of words in drawing up a will.

So, how does one evaluate one language as being more precise than another??

Bottom line: I am just not convinced that there is any one language that exhibits a clear, overall superiority of precision in communication. Grammar, morphology, syntax, interlinears, Strong's, etc, are only tools that help our decisions in translation ... precision/specificity/meaning always comes back (ultimately) to context and logic.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/199207#Comment_199207

If something is lost in translation then either the translator lost it or the cultural mileau isn't well understood by the reader.

George, I essentially agreed with you up to this point. There is a great deal lost in translation, not because the translator doesn't know it but because there is no real match in the target language so that the translator needs a paragraph to explain the meaning for the man in the street. In addition the connotations rarely translate across easily yet are a fundamental piece of the meaning of the original text. Here, one often needs pages to explain to the average man in the street - my experience is that the average man in the street is bored stiff long before the short version of the differences are explained.

Let me give a very concrete example - when I was growing up there was a very funny and popular book titled "Little Black Sambo" which has been taken off library shelves as insulting to those of African heritage. This has always struck me as funny because Little Black Sambo is South Asian -where for many languages derivatives of the Sanskrit "nila" are used as a color that covers both black and dark blues ... it is the color of the Gods. The choice of black rather than blue for poor little Sambo made all the difference.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/199257#Comment_199257

I am just not convinced that there is any one language that exhibits a clear, overall superiority of precision in communication.

There is: mathematics ... and trailing far behind some forms of symbolic logic.[:P]

George Somsel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/199313#Comment_199313

If something is lost in translation then either the translator lost it or the cultural mileau isn't well understood by the reader.

George, I essentially agreed with you up to this point. There is a great deal lost in translation, not because the translator doesn't know it but because there is no real match in the target language so that the translator needs a paragraph to explain the meaning for the man in the street. In addition the connotations rarely translate across easily yet are a fundamental piece of the meaning of the original text. Here, one often needs pages to explain to the average man in the street - my experience is that the average man in the street is bored stiff long before the short version of the differences are explained.

Let me give a very concrete example - when I was growing up there was a very funny and popular book titled "Little Black Sambo" which has been taken off library shelves as insulting to those of African heritage. This has always struck me as funny because Little Black Sambo is South Asian -where for many languages derivatives of the Sanskrit "nila" are used as a color that covers both black and dark blues ... it is the color of the Gods. The choice of black rather than blue for poor little Sambo made all the difference.

I don't think one needs an entire paragraph. A correct translation (Perhaps with a short footnote to explain further) should suffice.

Ah yes, Little Black Sambo was one of my favorites as a child. I also read it to my son and daughter when they were young. I think the story was a tad puzzling as a child, but the pictures accompanying the story made it rather clear that it was about an Indian boy. Of course, I didn't simply read the story -- it had sound effects (the growling of the tigers) as well as liberal use of accent (Which may or may not have been accurate for India). Political correctness seems to be reaching its evil tenacles into everything. I think it's the product of joyless people who simply cannot enjoy life. I pity them.

fgh

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/199320#Comment_199320

If something is lost in translation then either the translator lost it or the cultural mileau isn't well understood by the reader.

I don't think one needs an entire paragraph. A correct translation (Perhaps with a short footnote to explain further) should suffice.

So how do you translate 'blue' into a language that has 5 or 10 different words for bluish colours, but no word to cover them all? Or the other way around: how do you translate 'purple' into a language that has only 3-4-5 words to cover the whole spectrum, and no way to differentiate between shades?

And, yes, there are such languages. I can't name them, but I've certainly read about them. Even showing a picture of the shade[s ] you mean won't help. If you've grown up with a different way of grouping colours, you simply won't see the same thing.

And, btw, how do we know exactly what colour an ancient Israelite saw in his mind when he spoke of 'blue'?

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/199320#Comment_199320

A correct translation (Perhaps with a short footnote to explain further) should suffice.

Perhaps if one stays within mainstream Western culture but ... how would you translate Adam ha-Ḳadmoni to have the connotation of the sefirot and link to Pauline Christology? oh yes, throw in a bit of a typological connotation while you're at it...

Mike Aubrey

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/199336#Comment_199336

So how do you translate 'blue' into a language that has 5 or 10 different words for bluish colours, but no word to cover them all? Or the other way around: how do you translate 'purple' into a language that has only 3-4-5 words to cover the whole spectrum, and no way to differentiate between shades?

Use an adjective. Just because a language cannot use a single word to express a meaning doesn't mean that meaning cannot be conveyed. That is to say, even in languages that divide the visible spectrum differently still have ways of conveying and differentiating between shades.

Russian divides into two lexical items what English has only one for: blue.

But English speakers can convey the same meaning as both of Russian's blues by using adjectives:

Light blue & dark blue.

tom

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/199057#Comment_199057

Sorry for the late response, but I have been extremely busy the past couple of days.

Could you provide some examples so I know what you mean by 'distinct flavors'? I don't remember being taught this when I was learning Greek.

Sure, an example is οἱ and τοὺς. In the first definite article, it tells the reader that the noun is masculine, nominative, and plural and the second definite article tells the reader that the following noun is masculine, accusative, and plural.

If the noun is in the nominative case, we know that the noun is the subject of the sentence. If the noun is in the accusative case, we know that the noun is the direct object. Thus, each "flavor" of the definite article tells us what part of the sentence we are reading.

At the end of the day if these are all saying 'I hit the ball to Sallie' then I don't see what is lost.

They do all say "I hit the ball to Sallie." and yet they all say something different. Going back to
three of examples that I provided, I have rewrote the sentence using the tools
that we have today thanks to use of computers.

The used the following to bring out what is being emphasized by the word
order:, I used the following key: #1 - font color of red, #2 - bold, #3 -
underlined, #4 - italicized

I hit the ball to Sallie. I
hit the ball to Sallie. (I am the one who
hit the ball to Sallie. Frank or June did not hit the ball to Sallie)
I the ball to Sallie hit. I hit
the ball to Sallie. (I hit the ball to
Sallie, I did not hit the rock to Sallie)
Sallie hit the ball. I
hit the ball to Sallie.
(I really really really hit the ball to Sallie, I did not hit the ball to Frank
or June.)

While they all do say the same thing, they do not have the same meaning.

Jonathan Burke

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/200187#Comment_200187

Sure, an example is οἱ and τοὺς. In the first definite article, it tells the reader that the noun is masculine, nominative, and plural and the second definite article tells the reader that the following noun is masculine, accusative, and plural.

Ah, so when you say 'flavours' you mean 'declensions'. This is a great example of the ridiculous level of redundancy in Greek. Sure, the definite article agrees with its noun in gender, number, and case. But this is completely unnecessary, because we don't need the definite article to decline in order to tell us the declension of the noun, because the noun already has its own declension.

Declining the definite article is an utterly useless duplication of information. We could change the definite article to one single form and lose absolutely no information whatsoever, because the noun already has the information we need. This is the kind of lunacy which I suppose people dream up when they have nothing to do but eat olives and drink ούζο, because slaves are doing all the work. And this is definitely the product of too much ούζο and hot sun.

The definite article in English doesn't decline, and we don't lose anything as a result. We even manage to do without half the declensions in clumsy language such as Greek, because we use prepositions instead of cases. We went a little crazy on the prepositions, and we could easily lose most of them (in Chinese you can get away with using just six most of the time), but at least it was an improvement on the hilariously stupid case system.

While they all do say the same thing, they do not have the same meaning.

Yes, some of them have a different emphasis depending on word order, like English. But they all have the same meaning, and some of them don't even seem to shift the emphasis to anything specific.

I'm looking at 'Sallie hit the ball' and trying to figure out how you get 'I really really really hit the ball to Sallie, I did not hit the ball to Frank
or June' out of it, given that you aren't even mentioned at all. On the contrary, Sallie hit the ball and you're nowhere in sight.

George Somsel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/200187#Comment_200187

The used the following to bring out what is being emphasized by the word order:, I used the following key: #1 - font color of red, #2 - bold, #3 - underlined, #4 - italicized

I hit the ball to Sallie. I hit the ball to Sallie. (I am the one who hit the ball to Sallie. Frank or June did not hit the ball to Sallie)

I the ball to Sallie hit. I hit the ball to Sallie. (I hit the ball to Sallie, I did not hit the rock to Sallie)

Sallie hit the ball. I hit the ball to Sallie. (I really really really hit the ball to Sallie, I did not hit the ball to Frank or June.)

While they all do say the same thing, they do not have the same meaning.

In the examples you give there is really little or nothing to distinguish them in written form. The one exception is #3 where I wonder whether "Socrates drank the hemlock" could be construed to mean that I drank the hemlock?

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/200237#Comment_200237

an utterly useless duplication of information

Actually if you look at redundancy from the perspective of communication theory - especially from the engineering side - you will find that redundancy serves a very real purpose both in human inattention and in data corruption detection. It is not the only technique but it is an important one.

My boss pointed this out to me with references when complaining that my writing was too concise.