learning Greek at home

A person could teach themselves Koine Greek, with the right resources. There is an online companion to the Croy textbook that looks useful for this purpose.

To check out this online resource, click here:

This site is meant to be used with Clayton Croy's A Primer of Biblical Greek, available at Amazon for about $15.

Here's what it looks like:

If you want to work on memorizing Greek vocabulary, there is a free flashcard program that you can install from my server space by clicking here:


Happy Greeking!

Matthew 10:24-39

Here are the NT passages that I found that use the word sparrow:

Mat 10:29 - Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. NRSV
Are not two sparrows sold (for) an assarion? And one of them will not fall upon the earth without the father of y'all. - Eshinee SV

The problematic word here is aneu (without). It occurs in 2 other places in the NT:

1Pe 3:1-2 - Wives, in the same way, accept the authority of your husbands, so that, even if some of them do not obey the word, they may be won over without a word by their wives' conduct, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. NRSV
Likewise wives, being submitted (to) their own husbands*, that even if any (men) are disobeying the word, through the wives' conduct without a word they will be gained/acquired, having observed the 'pure in fear' conduct of y'all. - Eshinee SV

* The being submitted thing is connected to the earlier subjunctive exhortation, "Let us live to righteousness - 1Pe 2:24," as a condition for the rest of the sentence arising from that righteous living. Like, the being submitted to one's own husband is an example of righteous living, the fruit of which can be seen in time.

1Pe 4:9 - Be hospitable to one another without complaining. - NRSV
[Be] hospitable to one another without grumbling. - Eshinee SV

I would have hoped for a larger sampling of verses from which to draw conclusions of range of meaning for this word. The argument in Bible translation circles is exactly whether it's the implied knowledge of God or the acting will of God that the sparrow's falling is apart from.
The reason I would run with the knowledge theory is because everything else in the context of this passage relates to knowledge. Jesus is talking about no secrets remaining unknown (27), instructing his followers to make secrets known (28) without fear of bodily consequence (29). And, immediately after the sparrow thing, Jesus says that the number of hairs are counted or known (30). The ultimate conclusion of Jesus spiel is not related to predestination but personal accountability (33). This is where the acting will of God element comes in, I think. As in:

A sparrow doesn't hit the ground without God
* Knowing about it
* Responding to that event/action

Let's look at the chain of "Fear" commands in Mat 10 that leads up to Jesus' command to "Fear not" because of our related worth to sparrows (31).
16 - I'm sending y'all as sheep among wolves: Become wise as serpents and Become innocent as doves.
17-18 - Be aware (prosecw) that they will persecute y'all.
19-21 - But Be not anxious (merimnaw) about what to say; the HS will give that to you.
22 - You'll be hated but the one enduring to the end will be saved.
23 - When you're persecuted in one city, Flee to another.
26 - Fear not (fobew) the ones persecuting you because all truth will be known.
27 - Speak and Preach the truth I tell you.
28 - Fear not the ones killing your body; Fear the one able to cast your soul into hell.
29 - worthless sparrows: they don’t "fall upon the earth" without God knowing? Making them fall? What? … more on this weird construction in Greek to come.
30 - God has counted your hair (i.e. God knows everything about you).
31 - Fear not [the killers? God?] because you're worth more than many sparrows.
32-33 - THEREFORE, if y'all confess/deny me, I'll confess/deny you before my Father.

Fall upon the earth - in Greek, this is sometimes an idiomatic construction: piptw epi tina (fall upon something). It means ‘to cause to suffer, to cause pain to.’ Now, most of the places in the NT where someone falls upon the earth, it just means it literally, to fall down on the ground (Mar 9:20, 14:35, Act 9:4). These instances are all in active voice; the person does the falling. I'm unclear as to whether that necessarily means that they were not cast down by an external force but cast themselves down. It could just mean a simple going from not being on the ground to being on the ground. In the case of inanimate objects, they are obviously cast down by an external force, being inanimate and all. Seeds are the example in the NT (Mat 13:8). Are we counting sparrows as inanimate objects? I don't know.

Here are 2 options that I might propose for 29, in the context of the passage as a whole:

* No sparrow (a tiny living being) causes suffering on the earth without God knowing about it.
* No sparrow (a tiny object) hits the ground without God knowing about it.

My paraphrase for 30-31 would, either way, run like this:

I mean, hey, God keeps track of your hairs, right? So, don't fear the body-killers; fear the God who keeps tabs on sparrows and, to a much greater extent, keeps tabs on you.

Luk 12:6 - Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God's sight. - NRSV
Are not five sparrows sold for two assarion? And one of them is not having been forgotten in-front-of God. - Eshinee SV

Again, we have a tricky word: lanqanw, forget. It can either just mean to not have in one's memory any more or to forget with the implication that it affects one's actions. The term for forgetting something completely is eklanqanomai. The term used in this passage is epilanqanomai. This does appear to be the subset of forgetting that refers to forgetting with a subsequent failure to act.

The immediate context for this verse is that Jesus is exhorting his followers to live in the fear of God who has the authority to cast them into hell, not fearing humans who kill the body. It's a warning against hypocrisy, saying one thing in secret and expecting to not experience divine repercussions. It is immediately followed by further exhortation against blasphemy and denying Jesus publicly. As in God doesn't forget things and then, subsequently, not take those things into account in his actions.

So, this passage doesn't speak to whether or not our deaths are a part of God's will. This passage as a whole says something more like, "Your faithful death or, alternatively, your faithless life will not slip under God's radar in the final judgment."

Conditional sentences

Here's a chart of the conditional sentence structure. Click to enlarge and download the bigger size.

Of course, I'm now realizing that the wording isn't what Dr. Peterson gave in class so this might not be as helpful as I thought it would be. Oops.

translating Greek indicative verbs

Click on the above chart to be taken to a large, letter sized jpg that you can either right click to save to your hard drive or to print.

A mnemonics and memory improvement resource

from BUILDYOURMEMORY.COM: "So if you wanted to commit this particular word to your long-term memory, in a way that will make it easy to recall, then the first thing that you would need to do, would be to transform it into a form that you can immediately visualise."

An interesting idea. And some of us in Greek last year used this technique to remember some of the trickier words ... words whose meanings in English come immediately to mind now when we read them!

Mark 5:23

The phrase referring to the daughter of the synagogue leader translated as at the point of death (NRSV) occurs only once in the New Testament, and it's in this verse. The only way we know escatws ecw as an idiomatic expression for being about to die is from its use in ancient Greek medical writings. Escatws is an adverb meaning finally. Literally, the leader's daughter had finally had [it].

This is a tricky verse to translate. What the leader literally says is, "My daughter is finally having it, in order that, having come, you might place the hand on her, in order that she might be saved/healed and she might live." Such a literal rendering of the leader's request makes it sound like the leader sees the situation of his daughter being at death's door as an intentional opportunity for Jesus to display his power. This speaks not only to the faith of the leader but to the leader's worldview with regards to suffering.

Blowfish baseball games

Info on their games at Capital City Stadium and abroad, including ticket purchase. Ryan and I are looking into taking the Summer Greekers to a game on July 4.

Greek flashcards for Croy textbook

I have uploaded the Greek flashcard program and the supplementary database of vocabulary organized by chapters in the Croy textbook to a server.

Alas, I only got as far as Lesson 24, which is still enough vocab to hold people over until July 24.

Click the following links to download:
* Greek flashcard program
* Croy vocab database

I originally got the program from Dr. Enermalm's website, here.

The flashcard system that Jeff Callier developed will be available soon at Dr. Peterson's Summer Greek webpage.

Acts 2:12

I like the words that describe the condition of those hearing the Holy Spirit languages event: existjmi and diaporew.

Existjmi has been translated as amazed (NIV and NRSV) and astounded (NET Bible). The root verb histjmi means something like stand or settle. The prefix ex- indicates, as we might expect in English, to be out of or no longer a part of whatever it precedes. Picture those foreigners, unexpectedly hearing the Galileans speaking in their own language, as being unsettled or mentally knocked out of their reasonable expectations of status quo.

Diaporew has been translated perplexed (NIV and NRSV) and confused (NET Bible). The related verb aporew means to be without means or resource. Diaporew was used as an intensive form of aporew. In a sense, the foreigners were totally at a loss, in easy speech, when they tried to get a handle on what they were suddenly exposed to.

Acts 2:4

As the room has been filled, pljrow, with the wind, so they have been filled, pimpljmi, with the Holy Spirit. This author uses the term pimpljmi in passive voice for being filled with the following:

• filled with/of (genitive) the Holy Spirit - Luk 1:15, 41, 67, Act 2:4, 4:8, 31, 9:17, 13:9
• filled days or time - Luk 1:23, 57, 2:6, 21, 22
• fulfilled Scriptures - Luk 21:22
• filled with emotion - rage (Luk 4:28), fear (Luk 5:26), fury (Luk 6:11), wonder (Act 3:10), zeal (Act 5:17, 13:45), confusion (Act 19:29)

Outside of these verses, pimpljmi only occurs in 2 other places in the New Testament, both times in Matthew. Both uses are, in contrast to the figurative Luke/Acts occurences, purely literal.

• 22:10 - The wedding hall of the king is filled with guests when the servants go out into the streets to bring in everyone they can find, both good and bad.
• 27:48 - The sponge offered to Jesus on the cross is filled with sour wine for him to drink.

The combination of all of these uses paints a picture of being filled with the Holy Spirit. From the seasonal and prophetic uses, we have the sense of the covenant promise that the filling of the Holy Spirit is the delivery on. From the emotional uses, in each case leading to activity on the part of the one filled, we anticipate a similar, visceral response to a force that will also bring to action, in word and deed. From the literal uses, we can infer a saturation as well as a crowding. Imagine the Holy Spirit filling the senses, crowding out fallen, human inclination, empowering and instigating in one heart-pounding moment.

Acts 2:3

The image we normally think of when we hear this passage is one of little candley flames appearing above their heads. Given that the next verse uses glwssa to mean language, rather than the organ of the tongue, there is an alternate reading of this passage possible, given some flexibility in the Greek verb oraw and s0me regularity in the adverb wsei.

Oraw can mean perceive as well as see. Combined with the pronoun autois, in or among them, it could be translated as they perceived among them languages being distributed like fire. The adverb wsei is usually applied to the word glwssa in this passage in English translation. This implies a missing copula, as in tongues [which were] like fire. As there is a verb present, diamerizw in the participle for which glwssa is the subject, languages being distributed, the wsei puros could be taken to be modifying the participle, indicating the manner in which the languages were being distributed, rather than some aspect of the languages or tongues themselves.

Imagine then the wind, filling the room, accompanied by the sudden impartation of another language to each person in the room. The realization sweeps through, spreading like wildfire, burning in their hearts, blazing in their consciousness. This realization settles firmly upon each of them, setting the stage for the dramatic events to follow.

Acts 2:2

Here, we have more language relating to fullness, pljrow, as the sound like a violent, carrying wind filled the whole house where they were sitting.

Acts 2:1

The phrase translated as when the day of Pentecost had come is actually not a dependent clause at all but a prepositional phrase with an articular infinitive; tw sumpljrow or the filling. This construction, indicating a fullness of time or an arrival of an anticipated moment, has the feel of all moments leading to this one. The verb, sumpljrow, appears 3 times in the New Testament. When it has no article, it has the literal meaning of swamping, filling to overflowing as a boat that can hold no more (Luk 8:23). In the other passage where it has an article (Luk 9:51), it refers to the fullness of the day of Jesus' ascension happening (literally ginomai becoming). So, in these texts, which are attributed to the same author, we see an idea of the gathering of history into one moment. There is a culmination of events leading to a singular, overwhelming event that alters the course of those who have been gathered together, sailing together in this Christian journey.