Koine greek learning community

Ταῦτά μοι εἴρηται πρὸς ἀπόδειξιν τοῦ κατὰ τοὺς φωστῆρας μεγέθους, καὶ σύστασιν τοῦ μηδὲ μέχρι συλλαβῆς ἀργόν τι εἶναι τῶν θεοπνεύστων ῥημάτων· καίτοι γε οὐδενὸς ἥψατο σχεδὸν τῶν καιρίων ὁ λόγος· πολλὰ γὰρ περὶ μεγεθῶν καὶ ἀποστημάτων ἡλίου καὶ σελήνης ἐστὶν ἐξευρεῖν τοῖς λογισμοῖς, τὸν μὴ παρέργως τὰς ἐνεργείας αὐτῶν καὶ τὰς δυνάμεις ἐπεσκεμμένον. Εὐγνωμόνως οὖν δεῖ κατηγορεῖν ἡμᾶς τῆς ἑαυτῶν ἀσθενείας, ἵνα μὴ τῷ ἡμετέρῳ λόγῳ μετρῆται τῶν δημιουργημάτων τὰ μέγιστα, ἀλλὰ ἐξ ὀλίγων τῶν εἰρημένων παρ’ ἑαυτοῖς ἀναλογίζεσθαι, πόσα τινά ἐστι καὶ πηλίκα τὰ παρεθέντα.

I found this passage particularly challenging. I spent about twenty minutes trying to parse the final word (I should've used Google sooner)!

This post may serve as an inspiration (to someone) to look at some Greek and maybe even post a translation. If you want some help (I needed it!), use Blomfield Jackson's dynamic, 19th-century, public-domain translation I've copied below the cut.

( TranslationCollapse )

I've done some searching around, but do any of you have some great online Greek resources that you'd like to share?  I'm looking especially for beginning Greek students who don't really read Greek but are able to use an interlinear somewhat.

Also, if you have any great resources that are not online, I'll take those too.  (I'm interested in internet resources because they're free. :) ) It's nice to know what's out there!

I know that technically this is more of a question for Aramaic scholars than Greek or Hebrew ones, but still....

We know that one of the apostles was named Kefa.This is translated by the Gospel writers as Πετρος, which has subtle differences in meaning from πετρα, the former is generally like English "stone" as opposed to the latter being more like English "rock". However, it could also be possible that Πετρος was chosen instead of Πετρα because the former is masculine and for no other reason.

My question, then, is about the Aramaic. Does that language have multiple words for "stone, rock," etc.? And what are they?

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x-posted to biblical_hebrew

This morning my greek prof emailed some of his students to see if we'd be interested in teaching greek as part of an adult education program at a church located a few miles away.  I am thinking this would be something I'd like to do since my schedule this year isn't as bad as last year, and I am becoming very eager to teach greek!

However, I was wondering if any of you have taught greek at a church before.  This would be once per week, and I'm assuming those in the class work full-time, have families, etc.  They will probably not have a lot of time for homework.  I'm concerned that if the class went too fast no one could keep up and put in the time, but if it went too slow then it would get boring for them.  Have any of you had this experience?  How did it go, and do you recommend it?

Next semester my Greek class will be working through parts of the Septuagint.  Almost all of my Greek work has been in the New Testament.  Does anyone know of books that are helpful that they could recommend? 

Thanks!

(crossposted to classicalgreek)

I ran into the Bibliotheca Augustana the other day, which has a modest collection of Greek texts, and was wondering whether anyone else knew of any other such collections online. There is the Perseus Digital Library, of course, but that can be difficult to access at times. There is also LATO, which I often forget, but which references the other two. Are there any others?

As a follow-up to my last Gk. post, I happily present this translation of John 3:1-24.

I would also like to say that I have edited several parts of my previous translation in my personal LJ, marking changes in bold. My original, inferior translation can still be found in the koine community. I shall follow this procedure in the future when editing translations which I have posted to both LJs.

( NicodemusCollapse )

This translation is the first one that I've done where one can really find things in the Gk. text that cannot be conveyed in the Eng.

For example, in a class I taught on the Bible at my church over the summer, there was one man whose hobby horse seemed to be debating "Protestants" (fundamentalists, I think) about what John 3:7 says. He insisted that it says "You must be born from above" and, according to him, they insisted that it says "You must be born again." I'm not sure why this mattered, honestly, but I was able to explain to him that the Gk. adverb "anothen" means both "from above" and "again." Most modern translators and exegetes believe that Jesus meant "from above" (because later he says that you must be born from the Spirit) but that Nicodemus misunderstood it as "again" (and so asked if one could enter the womb a second time). This sort of misunderstanding is common in John.

Secondly, one must note that the word "pneuma" means both "spirit" and "wind," hence Jesus' referring to "the wind blows where it wills" to explain those born of the Spirit. A related issue is when to capitalize "spirit," especially in the phrase "what is born of the Spirit is spirit." I capitalized the former Spirit because I take it to be a reference to the Holy Spirit.

Thirdly, the "you" of the later part of the story is plural, to contrast with "we." Jesus speaks on behalf of the Xians of the evangelist's day and has Nicodemus speak on behalf of the Jews of his day. This rhetorical anachronism is utilized in John but not in the Synoptics.

Lastly, there is the perennial issue of where to end quotations in John since the narrator speaks in the same fashion as he has Jesus speak. I stopped the quotation after the Son of Man reference, because otherwise Jesus keeps speaking in the third person, whereas it is typical for him to speak in the third person when calling himself the Son of Man.

x-posted to my personal LJ

Today my leather-bound Gk. NT arrived (along with the Turabian style guide, the one used by theologians, and a book of Gk. principal parts). Now panache62 and I each have our own Gk. NT and between the two of us we have the two versions that all NT scholars use, so that's handy.

Today I also completed my first translation from the NT, John 2:13-25. And, by coincidence, John 2:13-22 is today's Gospel! So, without further ado, and because it has taken a lot of work to get to this point in a very short amount of time (only ten weeks!), here it is!

( Cleansing of the TempleCollapse )

x-posted to my own journal

kai\ ei}pen au)toi~j, (Umei~j e)ste oi( dikaiou~ntej e(autou\j e)nw/pion tw~n a)nqrw/pwn, o( de\ qeo\j ginw/skei ta\j kardi/aj u(mw~n.

(Luke 16:15a)

Hi, I'm new to this community and new to Koine Greek this semester. I was just translating the above verse from Luke and couldn't understand the meaning of e(autou\j (acc. pl. masc. reflexive pronoun) in this context. My best guess was to translate it as "self" as in the following: "And he said to them, 'You are self-righteous before human beings, but God knows your hearts.'" Can anyone shed any light on this?

     In 1492, a dramatic discovery was made in the course of repairs to a mosaic in Church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme (Rome): a brick inscribed with the words TITULUS CRUCIS (Title of the Cross). Sealed behind the brick was a fragment of an inscription in wood, with the word «Nazarene» written in Hebrew, Greek and Latin. 

. . . . . . . . . . הנצ . . . . .
 . . . . . . . B SUNERAZAN SI
. . . . .  R SVNIRAZAN.I 

[ישו] הנצ[רי מלק היהודים]
[NWIADUOI NWT SUELISA] B SUNERAZAN SI
[MVROEADVI XE]R SVNIRAZAN.I

This Title is mentioned in all four Gospels accounts: