Posted on 11/04/2007 5:26:37 PM PST by blam
How close is “modern” Greek to Koine?
Someone told me that modern Greek is actually a reconstructed langauge like modern Hebrew.
BTW, I really like your tag lines, both of them.
Thanks for the compliments on the taglines - the first is from the Templars, the other I can’t remember where I saw it.
When I took Classical Greek in college, there was a Greek guy in my class. He spoke modern Greek and expected to ace the course. He didn’t. I did.
In my haste I misspelled it. Zorohite’ should be Zarahite, as in one of the sons of Judah, Zarah. His descendants populated the regions around the Med after being driven from Egypt, and went as far as Spain.
Well, if you don't count the road to Damascus experience a face to face. I believe he did meet Christ, but that is based in faith. Of course, faith is the essence of Christianity.
“Gospel” means Good news and Truth. I could write a book called the Gospel of Hitler, but that’s not a book in the Bible. Writing a “Gospel” of Judas could actually be written, but it has no weight. It’s a fictional story anybody could write. ergo, it’s not a Gospel.
I think we are going to get mired into a morass of semantics here. If you are referring to the Gospels of the New Testament you are correct.
If you wrote a book called “the Gospel of Hitler”, the book’s title would be the “Gospel of Hitler”. That wouldn’t elevate it to the New Testament but it would still be a “Gospel”.
Many words are the same as the ancient word, although maybe not pronounced exactly as Plato would have, or else are fairly close to the ancient word, but of course there are a lot of new formations for products or concepts that didn't exist in ancient times.
There is a "purifying" form of the language, katharevousa, which tries to keep as close as possible to ancient Greek, vs. the popular speech or "demotic" (dhimotiki).
It's all Greek to me.
There must be a substantial difference in grammatical structure between the modern and ancient Greek dialect. I had a Greek speaking student in my Classical Greek class who was really lost with Homer and Herodotus.
The number of Linear A texts is much smaller. According to John Chadwick's article on "pre-alphabetic scripts (Greece)" in the Oxford Classical Dictionary, Linear A goes back to about 1800 B.C. (Chadwick helped Ventris in the decipherment of Linear B, but Ventris is given most of the credit.)
I think most of the copies of Greek texts on papyrus found in Egypt also run the words together without breaks.
When FReepers gather, we take down Rather and things like that.
Not to be confused with DUmmies who gather and rally behind guys like Kookchinich and make great fodder for DUFU.
There are some FReepers who could easily translate it for us, I would bet my bottom dollar.
I have a bilingual New Testament (original text with facing Modern Greek, which is probably deliberately old-fashioned). Here is Matt. 6.11-12 from the Lord's Prayer (capital E stands for eta, small e for epsilon, capital O for omega and small O for omicron):
Koine:
ton arton hEmO ton epiousion dos hEmin sEmeron, kai aphes hEmin ta opheilEmata hEmOn, hOs kai hEmeis aphiemen tois opheiletais hEmOn.
Modern Greek:
to kathimerino mas psOmi dos mas simera ke sinkhOrEse o, ti kako ekhome kani, opOs ke emis sinkhOroumen ekinous pou mas ekhoun kani kako.
tοn artοn hηmωn tοn εpiοusiοn dοs hηmin sηmεrοn, kai aphεs hηmin ta οphεilηmata hηmωn, hωs kai hηmεis aphiεmεn tοis οphεilεtais hηmωn.
I just looked at a more scholarly text (published by the United Bible Societies) and it has instead of aphiemen the form aphEkamen.
The former is the present tense and the latter the aorist tense of the same verb. The aorist indicates an action took place in unspecified past time, without implying continuance or repetition--compared to the imperfect (the common past tense in Latin), the aorist is like a snapshot compared to a movie.
LSB Greek:
ton arton hmwn ton epiousion doV hmin shmeron
kai afeV hmin ta ofeilhmata hmwn wV kai hmeiV afhkamen toiV ofeiletaiV hmwn
Symbol:
ton arton hmwn ton epiousion doV hmin shmeron
kai afeV hmin ta ofeilhmata hmwn wV kai hmeiV afhkamen toiV ofeiletaiV hmwn
“I dont think it is wrong to keep an open mind about these things.”
Actually, it is. If you look, you can even see Satan’s signature modus operandi at work.
First, you define “keeping an open mind” as a good thing in itself, rather than appropriate in some circumstances and not in others. That principle established, you can resurrect ancient errors time and time again, and cause people to waste time, become confused, and perhaps even lose their immortal souls, all in the name of “keeping an open mind.”
Chesterton remarked that the purpose of having an open mind was to close it upon the truth. Need we keep an open mind about the shape of the Earth? Must we admit that it could be flat? How about abortion? Must we say that the killing of innocent human beings could be a moral good?
Does it seem reasonable that God would want us to keep an open mind on errors long debunked?
“If you look, you can even see Satans signature modus operandi at work.” I’m afraid it takes ‘spiritual eyes’ to see so clearly and spiritual ears to hear the truth. Thank you for posting that clear explanation.
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