Peccator
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![[*]](./images/perspective/default_icon.gif) posted on 10/2/2008 at 09:04 AM |
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Help a guy out with Greek?
I've stopped seminary (for the time being), so I'm back to trying to teach myself Greek. I thought maybe some folks around here could give me a
hand with some of the questions I have.
1. Is there a Greek tool that takes a book of the Bible and goes though it verse by verse explaining why it was translated the way it was?
2. Can we type in a Greek font in this web forum somehow?
3. When there are several genitive nouns in a row, how do we determine where to put the of's? For example, if I just put an "of" in front of every
genitive noun in Mark 1:1, I would render it, "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus of Christ, of the Son, of God" (I'm using Mounce's grammer,
and can't find an explanation of this)
Mike Bradley
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pitchford
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| posted on 10/2/2008 at 10:40 AM |
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Hi Mike,
Two quick comments:
1.) You might find Rogers and Rogers New Linguistic and Exegetical Key to the Greek New Testament helpful if you only have a little knowledge of
Greek, and want a verse by verse explanation of the more difficult grammatical and syntactical features of the Greek text.
2.) Your problem with genitives seems to be a lack of differentiating between substantives, apposition, and qualifiers. In the case you cited, there
are only three true genitive substantives, [of the] gospel, [of] Jesus, and [of] God. Both "Christ," and "Son of God" are in apposition to Jesus,
and hence share the same genitive form -- that is, it's the gospel of Jesus-Christ-the-Son-of-God. Adjectives modifying a substantive, as well as
appositives, will always share the case of the substantive, and so the force of the case (e.g. the genitive gloss "of") does not need to be
reduplicated.
Typically, the more difficult question, however, is how the different genitives are functioning. Is the genitive "of Jesus" subjective (the gospel
that Jesus brought -- probably not), or objective (the gospel that gives the news about Jesus -- more likely), or something else? For those questions,
an acquaintance with Wallace's categories and explanation in Greek Grammar: Beyond the Basics is helpful, although not without potential pitfalls.
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MrMerlin777
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| posted on 10/2/2008 at 10:44 AM |
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Sorry, Greek is, well, all Greek to me.
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Paleodoxy
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| posted on 10/2/2008 at 01:15 PM |
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Great explanation Nathan! Also Mike, since your question is a bit beyond the basics try Wallace's Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics along
with Dana and Mantey's Syntax and even Brooks and Winbrey's though the last two are a bit older. Any Greek Syntax can help allot with
such questions.
[Edited on 2-10-2008 by Paleodoxy]
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Peccator
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| posted on 10/3/2008 at 08:01 AM |
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| Quote: | | Adjectives modifying a substantive, as well as appositives, will always share the case of the substantive, and so the force of
the case (e.g. the genitive gloss "of") does not need to be reduplicated. |
Thanks, that helps.
Thanks also for the book recommendations. I'll probably eventually buy Wallace's Grammar, but for now, I found part of it online (yay
googlebooks)
My next question was going to be about determining what to do with the article.
Take Romans 1:2-4 for example.
1:2
The first "ho" I can figure out means "which" by looking at English translations
The twn goes with "prophatwn" and I take to mean "the prophets of him"
1:3
The first "tou" goes with the "huiou"
I don't know what to do with the second "tou." Does it go with the verb "genomenou?" Would it be accurate to say that the article is
conceptualizing the incarnation of Christ?
1:4
Same problem with the first "tou" here. Do I apply it to "horisthentos?" It matches the case of "hiou," so perhaps that is what it modifies?
What I'm trying to do:
My goal is to start memorizing portions of the N.T. in Greek. So I'm starting off with Romans. Whether or not I succeed in memorizing Romans, the
attempt is helping me to learn Greek and to meditate *slowly* on God's Word.
To do this, I don't really need to dive deep into Greek, at least not yet. For example, I can just memorize that "proepangeilato" means promised
before. I'll figure out the endings sometime later. In other words I'm cheating. But I'm having a hard time cheating my way through the article,
and it is more difficult to memorize a verse that has words in it that are meaningless to me. Is this perhaps where a book like Rogers and Rogers
could help?
Sorry for the long post ... I really appreciate the help.
[Edited on 10/3/2008 by Peccator]
Mike Bradley
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pitchford
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| posted on 10/3/2008 at 09:07 AM |
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Mike,
The first "ho" is not an article at all, it is a relative pronoun. You're confusing it for the masculine article "ho," but it is a neuter
pronoun, referring to the neuter antecedent "gospel". A little tip: the article will not have an accent, the relative pronoun will; it's accented
so it must be a relative, not an article.
As far as your other questions go, I would have to suggest Wallace again -- you're asking the sorts of questions that his Greek Grammar: Beyond the
Basics answers very systematically. But for the specifics you asked just now, I'll try to give a little help:
The second "tou" does go with "genomenou"; to understand it, you need to know a little about Greek substantives and adjectives; when an adjective
is anarthrous (without an article), it will be a predicate. For instance "ho anthropos agathos" means "the man *is* good". When the adjective is
articular, it will be attributive. Hence, "ho anthropos ho agaothos" means "the good man...". What you have in this verse is an adjectival
participle standing in attributive relationship to the substantive "huiou". Thus, a participle (i.e. a verb functioning as an adjective), which is
not a predicate, but an attributive. A gloss in English would be, "the son (of him), the-having-become-of-the-seed-of-David-one...". In other words,
recasting it into smoother English, "his Son who became of the seed of David". You'll find that many participles in Greek have to be retranslated
into relative clauses in English. English just can't accomodate all the various participial uses.
The article with "horisthentos" is functioning in the same way.
Make sense? Oh, and yes, for this sort of thing, Rogers and Rogers would be a good "cheat sheet". They'll do a lot of the difficult parsing and
give quick explanations of different grammatical features.
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Peccator
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| posted on 10/3/2008 at 12:37 PM |
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Thanks again. That does make sense. I had to read it a few times though 
Perhaps I need something like Schoolhouse Rock for Greek 
Mike Bradley
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MrMerlin777
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| posted on 10/3/2008 at 01:17 PM |
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Schoolhouse Rock....... well, ummm..... Rocks!
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