Hot answers tagged word-study
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Textual Usage
The word 'archangel' (lemma: ἀρχάγγελος) appears twice in the New Testament, at least once in the LXX translation of the book of Enoch (which mentions numerous angels and their duties and authority - I would read it here or here if this topic interests you), and also in a highly disputed verse in 2 Esdras. It should be noted that after the ...
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I decided to build a canonical answer to this question, since it seemed that all three answers had something to offer.
Greek and Hebrew
The Hebrew word yare (Strongs H3372) carries a number of meanings. There is both the definition being "terrified" or "afraid" along with the definition of having "reverence", "awe", or "respect".
In Greek, the word ...
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There are places in the Bible where "the world" means less than the globe, yet it would still not include all of Africa or Eurasia. For instance, "all the world should be taxed" in Luke 2:1. Clearly, Augustus' decree only held weight in the Empire, its provinces, and protectorates. Acts 11:28 is similar "a great famine over all the earth." That would ...
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Until somewhat recently, people didn't know the purpose of the brain. Aristotle proposed, quite reasonably, that the brain was a sort of radiator for the blood. We now know that the brain is the seat of not only the mind, but emotions as well. The state of the art in anatomy during Biblical times postulated that emotions came from the bowels. We still ...
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According to Waltke/O'Connor, "the Qal...is simple semantically in that notions of causation are absent." (p. 362). Qal is kinda like the Greek aorist of Hebrew (btw the LXX translates it with an aorist). There is no idea causation being communicated in the stem. This is not to say there is none being implied by the broader context. However, the parsing only ...
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A survey of the uses of these words in Johannine literature will be conducted.
ἀγάπη (agape): "The quality of warm regard for and interest in another, esteem, affection, regard, love (without limitation to very intimate relationships, and very seldom in general Greek of sexual attraction)."1 This word appears in the noun form 30 times in 25 verses of ...
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The ancient Hebrews believed the heart to be the locus of thought and the bowels to be the locus of emotion (well, at least the emotion of mercy and compassion).
For example, if you were to translate the English phrase "He thought to himself" into Hebrew (both classical and modern), you would say, אָמַר בְּלִבֹּו (amar belibbo)" which means "He said in his ...
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I've often heard that 'fear' as in 'fear the LORD' should not be understood to be 'fear' as in 'afraid', but rather 'awe' and 'reverence'.
But myself, I want to be cautious about watering down the 'fear' as in 'afraid' side, because:
I feel a sort of cultural pressure to do so which I think I then read back into the bible
There are usages that clearly ...
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Peter almost certainly didn't think of canonicity the way we do today. As Ignatius Theophorus points out, the Greek word (as used by New Testament writers) refers to sacred writings. In its most common use among early Christians, the word γραφὰς referred to those writings that could be read in church; however, Clement, bishop of Rome in the late first ...
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The definition of λῃστῶν is:
λῃστής, οῦ, ὁ (ληϊς, epic form of λεία ‘booty, spoils’; Soph., Hdt.+; ins, pap, LXX; ApcSed 15:3; Joseph.; loanw. in rabb.; Ar. 3, 2;
Just., Tat., Ath., R. 19 p. 72, 25; Theoph. Ant. 3, 14 [p. 232, 13]).
① robber, highwayman, bandit (in Palestine: Jos., Bell. 2, 125;
228 al.) Lk 10:30, 36; 2 Cor 11:26 (Chariton 6, 4, ...
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Within Johannine literature, there seems to be quite a bit of overlap in the uses of the agapao and phileo word groups. Here are a number of pairings of verses across the body of work wherein there seems to be no distinguishable difference of usage. Each pairing below begins with a verse using the agapao word group followed by a similar one using the phileo ...
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The usual hermeneutic rule is that words are interpreted to mean what they usually mean in the wider culture unless there's good reason to read it differently. For instance, in the New Testament, the word εὐαγγέλιον (gospel) begins to take on a specific sense related to the good news of Jesus Christ. It becomes a technical term.
In order for the term ...
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From my understanding of Strong's and Thayer's, γραφὰς always means, "sacred writings." It does not necessarily imply the entire canon as Christ used the word to refer (presumably) to the Tanach. In addition, it does not even imply which canon is to be trusted (as there were several present at that time). All of that being said, I think it is fairly safe to ...
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I think the "meaning" of this word in the context is that Yahweh (God) will lift the curse from the ground. The thorns and thistles (nettles) are the result of the curse on the ground. Isaiah is prophesying that there will be a time when these products of the curse of the ground will be removed, and then substituted with "living" plants that actually bear ...
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I guess we are into Bible trivia here but it is an unidentified desert plant. It apparently comes from the root word סָרַף which means to burn. Therefore it was probably a prickly bush/plant that 'burned' when one was pricked by it. It is not used anywhere else in the Bible.
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When the Tanak was first written, it was written without vowels. In the early Middle Ages (ca AD 800), scribes known as the Masoretes added the system of vowel points (niqqud or "diacretic markings") that are used in pointed Hebrew texts since then. Other systems were developed at roughly the same time (as Hebrew became less of a spoken language), but only ...
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Bruce M. Metzger writes in Bibliotheca Sacra 150 (July-September 1993) (pp 277–278):
The great majority of these hapax legomena occur also in other Greek sources, and so the meaning of most of them is not often in dispute. The meaning, however, of a word in the Lord's Prayer as recorded in Matthew 6:11 and Luke 11:3 has often been debated. Does ...
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We have no records of the word being used prior to the Lord's prayer. The NET Bible translates:
6:11 Give us today our daily bread
They then note that other potentially valid translations would include “Give us bread today for the coming day,” or “Give us today the bread we need for today.”
Unfortunately, the Greek term appears only in early ...
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As you've pointed out, Gehenna (γέεννα) is just a transliteration of the Hebrew for "Valley of Hinnom" (גֵּי הִנֹּם) and the Aramaic for the same (גֵיהִנָּם / ܓܗܢܐ). The NET translators point out,
This was the valley along the south side of Jerusalem. In OT times it
was used for human sacrifices to the pagan god Molech (cf. Jer 7:31;
19:5–6; 32:35), ...
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From the American Heritage Dictionary:
charity ...
often Charity Christianity The theological virtue defined as love directed first toward God but also toward oneself and one's neighbors as objects of God's love.
[Middle English charite, from Old French, Christian love, from Latin cāritās, affection, from cārus, dear; see kā- in ...
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Where the phrase is used
Here are several places where the apostle Paul uses this phrase, usually translated by the ESV as "The statement is trustworthy":
(1Tim 1:15 [GNT])
πιστὸς ὁ λόγος καὶ πάσης ἀποδοχῆς ἄξιος, ὅτι Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς ἦλθεν εἰς τὸν κόσμον ἁμαρτωλοὺς σῶσαι· ὧν πρῶτός εἰμι ἐγώ,
(1Tim 3:1 [GNT])
Πιστὸς ὁ λόγος· εἴ τις ἐπισκοπῆς ὀρέγεται, καλοῦ ...
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A word study that organizes how many different English translations for the word, and in what frequency splices the difference up fairly reasonably:
ψυχὴ is translated in many ways. Here in descending order. In other words mostly soul, souls, or life, lives:
soul, souls, life, lives, living, person, persons, mind, minds, being, me
ζωὴ is only translated ...
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I hate to dump a lengthy quote here, but I have a great scholarly resource available on the meaning of this word that gives TONS of extrabiblical quotations. Here are a bunch of places it occurs in other literature:
συνείδησις, εως, ἡ (συνεῖδον)
① awareness of information about someth., consciousness (Democr.,
Fgm. 297 σ. τῆς κακοπραγμοσύνης; ...
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The phrase 'poor of the Saints' (πτωχους των αγιων) is just what it means from the most reliable sources I have looked up.
Kittel notes that this 'collection for the poor' without indicating there was any debate about its meaning in the original Greek:
The accent is to be placed on the fact, not that they are poor saints at Jerusalem, but that they are ...
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After thinking about it some more, there is a medium strength argument to be made that Peter here supports any letter submitted by Paul under his ministry, past or future. It is an argument not directly from the text, but from omission. In other words, Peter says that people twist Paul’s writings, in the same way that they do scripture. He does not logically ...
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The Hebrew word יָרֵא (yare', H3372) carries a number of nuances. In addition to "fear", "afraid" or "terror", it also can mean "reverence", "awe", "honor" or "respect". The Greek word φοβέω (G5399) carries very similar meanings.
Effectively, all of these verses are saying exactly the same thing: There is only One that you should fear/reverence/honor - ...
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Not only is this interpretation of "the world" unsound, it is recent. If the world only refers to Eurasia and Africa then the founders of this nation would never have come here. A great deal of the motivation for explorers was to take the gospel into all the world in fulfillment of this command.
It is true that God inspired men to write the scriptures in a ...
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We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the Greek 'work' (εργου) signifies external 'acts' done by people, which can be good or evil. In contrast to this 'labour' (κοπου) does not focus on the 'thing' itself but in the 'effort' behind ...
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Various biblical scholars have described this dichotomy in terms of "already/not yet". That is, ontologically the believer is forgiven and united with Christ (baptized into his body), and therefore the believer is a "new creature" (2 Cor 5:17). But the same believer still exists in a mortal body, which is descended from Adam and therefore possesses Adam's ...
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Take the word apart: έπι + ούσιον = on/upon/above essence/substance. It most likely means "necessary for existence" or "more than necessary." Origen taught that the Evangelists invented the word. The earliest translations into Syriac interpreted the word as continual or for our need. Supersubstantialis was the original translation into Latin by Jerome, but ...
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