News of Koine and Biblical Greek

For a long time I have noticed that the introduction to Paul's letter to the Romans does not hit my ear like normal prose. Instead it is very sonorous. Now looking at it carefully, I notice the stretch of long syllables at the beginning, and throughout many dactyls and spondee.

Two conclusions from this: 1) Paul is sensitive to vowel length in the first century AD. This may put some geographical limitations on his Greek ...

κατεσκεψάμην ἐν καρδίᾳ μου τοῦ ἑλκύσαι εἰς οἶνον τὴν σάρκα μου* καὶ καρδία μου ὡδήγησεν ἐν σοφίᾳ καὶ τοῦ κρατῆσαι ἐπ᾽ ἀφροσύνῃ** ἕως οὗ ἴδω ποῖον τὸ ἀγαθὸν τοῖς υἱοῖς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ὃ ποιήσουσιν ὑπὸ τὸν ἥλιον ἀριθμὸν ἡμερῶν*** ζωῆς αὐτῶν (Ecc 2:3 LX)

How I parsed in my head: I looked closely in my heart: in order to drag my flesh towards wine*, and my heart led in wisdom; and in order to** rule ...

Just switched from NT to LXX and thought I'd be fine with Intermediate LS.
But, in Eccl 1:14
εἶδον σὺν πάντα τὰ ποιήματα τὰ πεποιημένα ὑπὸ τὸν ἥλιον καὶ ἰδοὺ τὰ πάντα ματαιότης καὶ προαίρεσις πνεύματος
using LS entry, I'd maybe translate as "a choice" or "a deliberation" of spirit
But in translations, it looks like this should be "waywardness" or "vexation" ...

(in progress--Chapters 2-12 will follow, maybe 1-2 a week; updates will probably be interrupted by at least one week-long camping trip)
This vocab list is for anyone who has finished Croy or another beginning textbook in Biblical Greek and wants to memorize vocabulary for LXX Ecclesiastes before reading the Greek text. Be sure you are using LXX translation and not KJV when checking for understanding/etc.

Definitions taken mainly from Middle Liddell, and a few from ...

This is something I just stumbled upon and never heard about before: http://ntresources.com/blog/?p=1205 The argument is that the author of Mark may have spoken Latin or at least his Greek was influenced by Latin idiom. I've noticed the loanwords before and didn't think much of them, but the idioms are interesting. I've always assumed that the authors of the NT did not speak Latin, or maybe only "phrasebook" Latin. ...

Hello, my name is Douglas Collins. I hope I am putting this post in the right section.

I am in the process of studying compassion. I find that there are four different words translated as compassion, mercy, or pity in the KJV. They are(according to the Strong's Concordance):

sumpatheo means to feel sympathy
splagchnizomai means to feel sympathy, to pity
eleeo means to compassiate
oikteiro means to exercise pity

I can't seem to fully understand ...

I've been looking around a bit for an NT greek reading group, they are all for the most part quite inconvenient. (Im keen, but not 3:30am-4:30am keen).

Is there a group of Australians that might be interested in starting a Google Hangout, it would probably work for anyone closer to the +1100 timezone (Australia, China, New Zealand, PNG, Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Russia, etc...)?

What does really the Greek text tell us about those who were with Christ at the mountain of Galilee? Was there anybody else besides the Eleven?

οἱ δὲ ἕνδεκα μαθηταὶ ἐπορεύθησαν εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν εἰς τò ὄρος οὑ̃ ἐτάξατο αὐτοι̃ς ὁ ’Ιησου̃ς καὶ ἰδόντες αὐτòν προσεκύνησαν οἱ δὲ ἐδίστασαν.

Who was doubtful about whether or not it was Jesus? How is ιτ more correct to translate οἱ δέ: "some" (of them) as many translators ...

A poster(called "Civic") from another forum presented the following:

I saved this below a while back and cannot find the link. I saved it back in August 2011. Any old time CARM trinitarians remember ?


The two words in question are: θεός (G2316) and πατήρ (G3962). The question involves the words in an appositional phrase, such as θεός πατήρ, translated as "God the Father."

Wallace writes, "An appositional construction involves (1) two adjacent substantives (2) ...

I’m away from home this week, but on my father-in-law’s shelf was a translation of the Apostolic Fathers. The author — who was several years ago my introduction to the Apostolic Fathers through a different text — suggests that Didache is certainly within a decade of 70 A.D. So I thought that it would be a good opportunity to translate something from the 1st century. Also, it’s very easy Greek.

Corrections are welcome. I'm trying ...