08.07.07 I Need A Greek Nerd
When I want to know what a word in the bible means I use a lexicon right? The lexicon tells me what Greek or Hebrew word that English word was translated from, and tells me where else it’s used in the bible and what other English words it’s translated into in those passages. So looking up “mourn” I’ll get nine Greek words that are translated into the English word “mourn” in the bible. And I’ll know every time those words were used and how many times they are translated into English as “wail,” “sorrow,” and “mourn.” I get that. (A good free on-line lexicon, by the way, is over at Studylight.org)
But let’s say, just because I’m a nerd and I’m curious, I wanted to see examples of how a Greek word was used outside of the bible in ancient Greece. Where do I go for that? For example, if I wanted to read a non-Christian ancient document that used the word “pantheo,” which means “mourn.” Where would I find that information?
I just think it might help me get a better grip on what a word or two means if I saw how they were used in other Greek documents, other settings, by other authors of the same time period.
Any Greek nerds* out there able to point me in the right direction?
[*The next post will have greater mass appeal, I promise. A video of a monkey picking his butt and smelling his finger or something.]
brody said:
That monkey video is so funny… I laugh just thinking about it.
said:
The main book you’ll want to consult is the BAGD…
Bauer, Walter; Arndt, William; Gingrich, F. Wilbur; Danker, Frederick. 1979. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Second Edition. Chicago, Ill: The University of Chicago Press. (BAGD).
That will give you different uses in different ancient texts. As far as actually finding those ancient texts, you’ll have to do more digging. I had an internet search that I’d used previously, but I’ve lost the reference. I can check with my prof sometime soon.
Or, you could always look up a Greek prof at a seminary and e-mail asking him(/her).
Paul said:
Here we have an issue. I remember a couple of things from Seminary. One of things is that scholars believed Biblical Greek (aka Koine or Common Greek) was a special Holy Spirit Greek. Classical Greek is like the difference between Middle English and 21st century English. If you only had one relatively small group of books in the latter, and a whole body of literature from the former, you might think 21st century English was some sort of special coded version of “regular English”.
This view was changed by the discovery of “erotic stories” in Koine Greek. These have only been known in the last 100 years or so. Most stories of this nature don’t deal with mourning.
I will say that the pieces of the word “pan” means across and “theo” means god. I don’t know if that helps. A Greek professor might be able to help more. I’m just a Seminary grad who does church video and is happy to use the $40,000 worth of education on occasion.
Paul
jwise said:
Shaun,
The best reference material for this is Kittel. Originally German, translated to English, Kittel has documented MANY various uses of words—OT, NT, LXX, classical greek, koine greek, etc.
You can read more about it here:
http://www.discountchristian.com/logos/kittel.html
Perhaps your church has a copy of them.. if you can afford them yourself, they’re an incredible asset to a scholar’s library
said:
Kittel and BDAG (as referred to by the former posts- but also look up New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology- NIDNTT) are great for finding citations of the extra-biblical texts, but as far as reading those texts in good English translations, you should try purchasing BibleWorks 7 (if you have a MAC- try Accordance). You can search the Greek word in the LXX (Septuagint), Apostolic Fathers, Philo, and Josephus, and you can actually read the English context for yourself (LXX, Philo, and Josephus are probably more helpful in comparing the Greek than are classical Greek texts). If you want to find classical Greek sources, you will need to use the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (look it up on-line) or the Loeb Classical Library Editions (they have Greek on one side and English on the other side of the page). Though language changes over the years and classical Greek is substantially different than koine Greek, you are absolutely on the right track, for we can still glean much information from word usage in classical Greek texts, etc.
Seth Ward said:
Sesame Street. Cookie monster knows quite a bit about greed. He hogs all the cookies and such…
hope that helps.
said:
Greek Nerd to the rescue...? The BAGD and Kittel are great references, but I have one that seems more in tune to what you are looking for. It will reference uses of a given Greek word across tons of documents. It is called Perseus and is from tufts university. I was told about it from a Greek prof when i was doing research. It’s pretty amazing.
the URL is:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/search
I wasn’t sure html would work here so there you go.