Tag: Koine Greek

2026-07-05

Does ἐγὼ εἰμί always mean “I am”? Time, Tense, and Sense

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by Tim Widowfield

Filed under: Biblical Studies
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You are leaving the American sector Checkpoint Charlie Berlin 23443784732 300x225
You are leaving the American Sector

While we were living in Berlin, many years ago, during the Cold War, I recall being confused by a rather common question:

How long are you in Berlin?

The phrasing of this query, at first, sounded to me as if the person wanted to know how long I would be staying in Berlin, not how long I had been living there. What does this odd concatenation of English words mean? It’s actually a word-for-word translation of the original German question, and it reveals a difference in German versus English when it comes to the expression of verbal tense and aspect.

In German, the following sentence is completely normal:

Ich bin seit einem Jahr in Berlin.

Literally, that says: “I am since a year in Berlin.” But that translation doesn’t just sound wrong; it is wrong. A native English speaker would express the durative (i.e., progressive) aspect with a different construction, namely:

I have been in Berlin for a year.

A brain thinking in German does not hear the strangeness of the present indicative in this situation. Similarly, a brain thinking in English has a great deal of difficulty hearing “ich bin” as correct in this context.

Tense and sensibilities 

It turns out Greek has a similar sort of construction. In his Greek Grammar, Herbert Smyth explains it succinctly:

The present, when accompanied by a definite or indefinite expression of past time, is used to express an action begun in the past and continued in the present. The ‘progressive perfect’ is often used in translation. (Smyth  1956, p. 422)

Here’s an example in the Gospel of John:

λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς· ⸂Τοσούτῳ χρόνῳ⸃ μεθʼ ὑμῶν εἰμι καὶ οὐκ ἔγνωκάς με, Φίλιππε; ὁ ἑωρακὼς ἐμὲ ἑώρακεν τὸν πατέρα· (John 14:9a, SBLNT)

Typical translations look like this:

Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? (NIV)

Jesus saith unto him, Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? (KJV)

Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? (NASB)

The Greek uses the present tense, but the English does not. A word-for-word translation in this case wouldn’t be merely stilted or awkward — it would be wrong.

We can find examples in the Septuagint as well. For example:

ταῦτά μοι εἴκοσιν ἔτη ἐγώ εἰμι μετὰ σοῦ· τὰ πρόβατά σου καὶ αἱ αἶγές σου οὐκ ἠτεκνώθησαν· κριοὺς τῶν προβάτων σου οὐ κατέφαγον·

I have been with you for twenty years; your sheep and your goats have never miscarried; nor have I eaten any of the rams from your flock;

We can see that sometimes ἐγώ εἰμι means “I am,” while on other occasions, it means “I have been.” How can we tell the difference? Context.

And now we come to a verse with tremendous weight in orthodox Christianity. John 8:58 reads as follows in the original Koine:

εἶπεν ⸀αὐτοῖς Ἰησοῦς· Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, πρὶν Ἀβραὰμ γενέσθαι ἐγὼ εἰμί. (SBLNT, emphasis mine)

Practically every English translation of the NT renders the verse with “I am” — the present tense. In fact, some capitalize the verb, while others use all capital letters. The International Standard Version, “the most readable and accurate modern English language Bible ever produced,” translates the verse like this: Continue reading “Does ἐγὼ εἰμί always mean “I am”? Time, Tense, and Sense”

2019-07-21

Bibliolatry, “God-Breathed Scripture,” and the NIV

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by Tim Widowfield

Filed under: Biblical Studies
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[What follows is the text an email, with some emendations, that I wrote over a year ago.]

As you may already know, I have problems with the NIV [New International Version]. The translation of 2 Timothy 3:16 is particularly irksome. Since the time of the Latin Vulgate through the Authorized Version (KJV) and beyond, the word θεόπνευστος (theópneustos) was understood to mean “divinely inspired.”

omnis scriptura divinitus inspirata . . .

Whoever wrote 2 Timothy may have coined the word, but a form of it does appear in Pseudo-Plutarch. In Book 5, Chapter 2 of Placita Philosophorum, the author writes:

Herophilus [says] that dreams which are caused by divine instinct (θεοπνεύστους) have a necessary cause . . .

The KJV translates 2 Timothy 3:16 as follows:

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

gleason_archer
Gleason Archer

Nearly all its descendants (NASB, NET, ASV, etc.) follow suit. For centuries, it simply meant that the men who wrote the scriptures worked under the influence of divine inspiration. The living, continuing Church (its clergy and theologians) would interpret those scriptures as needed, because although under the influence of the spirit, men are still imperfect.

I cannot find the unusual translation, God-breathed, before 1849. At first, we see it used only as a hyper-literal rendering to argue that scripture is divine revelation. There’s really nothing extraordinary or new about that claim. But by the turn of the century, we start to see the argument blossom into the notion that scripture itself is a divine creation, reminiscent of the scenes in Genesis wherein God’s spirit moves across the face of the waters or when God breathes life into Adam’s nostrils. [Note: In its most extreme form, the Bible seems to become a kind of divine emanation, or at least a holy conduit through which God speaks to us.]

By mid-century, Christian fundamentalists were using it as an argument for the inerrancy of all scripture. And here’s where it really takes off. In 1964, the conservative Evangelical Christian, Gleason Archer, wrote (in A Survey of Old Testament Introduction pp. 20-21): Continue reading “Bibliolatry, “God-Breathed Scripture,” and the NIV”

2019-06-28

Is Koine Greek a Pidgin?

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by Tim Widowfield

Filed under: Ancient Literature
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Alexander the Great mosaic cropped 224x300
Alexander the Great

While looking over my notes from the past few years, I came across something I wrote to Valerie Tarico. She had asked Neil and me to take a look at an extended version of her article, “Why Is the Bible So Poorly Written” (which is, unfortunately, behind a paywall).

In the draft we received, she quoted Ken Jacobsen, a graduate of Princeton Seminary, from a comment he made at Quora. Here’s what he said.

Koine Greek is pidgin Greek… developed by Alexander’s armies to communicate, not to impress.  It’s a step down from Classical Greek.

That statement is wrong in at least two respects. Below was my response to Valerie, edited slightly. Continue reading “Is Koine Greek a Pidgin?”

2018-12-12

The Unclear Origins and Etymology of Kleopas (Κλεόπας)

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by Tim Widowfield

Filed under: Biblical Scholars, Biblical Studies
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300px-Duccio_di_Buoninsegna_Emaus
The Road to Emmaus

The author of the third gospel tells the well-loved post-crucifixion story of two disciples walking on the road to Emmaus. Along the way they meet a stranger (Jesus, incognito) who asks them what’s going on.

One of them, named Cleopas, answered and said to Him, “Are You the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of the things which have happened here in these days?” (Luke 24:18, NASB)

Here, Cleopas (Κλεόπας) makes his first and only appearance in the canonical gospels, unless you believe the character named Clopas in John’s gospel is the same person.

Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. (John 19:25, KJV)

Notice that the Authorized Version manages to hide the fact that the underlying Greek contains a different name. The Textus Receptus says κλωπα, but the KJV translators have pre-harmonized John with Luke, a fact the lay reader would scarcely suspect.

(From this point forward, I’ll use the modern transliteration for Kleopas and Klopas.)

Virtuous Harmonization

Some have even argued that Alphaeus, Klopas, and Kleopas are all the same person, but you would have to dive pretty deeply into the upside-down world of the apologists to believe that. Harmonization here, given the scant information we have about the name and the characters portrayed in the gospels, is unwarranted.

We might even suspect that Luke invented the name, given the lack of attestation to it in contemporary literature and the uncertainty surrounding its etymology. Some authorities have presented the argument, not without merit, that Kleopas is short for Kleopatros, the masculine form of Kleopatra, a name that means something like “glory of the father.” As an example, they note that the nickname of Herod Antipater was “Antipas.” On the other hand, several authors have claimed that the names Kleopas and Klopas both come from the same Aramaic source, which seems possible, but tough to prove.

Fictional Characters

Being called Antipater or Antipas was not intended as an insult.

Richard Carrier, in On the Historicity of Jesus, says Luke probably invented the name and then goes further, claiming that it means “Tell All.” He writes: Continue reading “The Unclear Origins and Etymology of Kleopas (Κλεόπας)”

2015-05-17

Did Paul See a Fireball on the Road to Damascus?

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by Tim Widowfield

Filed under: Biblical Studies, New Testament
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Recently, David Ashton commented here on Vridar:

Conversion of Saint Paul Michelangelo Buonarroti 300x278
The Conversion of Saul on the Road to Damascus — by Michelangelo. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

May I annoy our totalitarian mythicists even further by suggesting that Paul, also a real person, experienced a reparative hallucination, precisely because of a pre-crucifixion hostility to Jesus and his activists, although he may not have engaged Jesus in debate or observed him directly in person. Jacob Aron suggests that Paul’s Damascene Light was the result of a fireball (“New Scientist”, April 25, 2015, pp. 8-9); not so much a medical epilepsy as a meteoric epiphany.

I’m not a mythicist, but I do think the Doherty/Carrier theory is worth considering. I confess I did bristle a bit at the term “totalitarian.” You’d think that ten years as a cold warrior would inoculate me from such charges. And you’ll be hard pressed to find a blog with a more permissive comment policy than Vridar’s. So, I suppose that’s why I responded with the flippant:

Oooh, a fireball! I don’t see why a story invented by the author of Acts requires an ad hoc explanation as to “what it really was.”

But perhaps I was too hasty. Let’s take a look at this story more closely and see if we can learn anything from it. When I checked on line, I could find only brief summaries, so in the end I had to rent the article, Chelyabinsk, Zond IV, and a possible first-century fireball of historical importance (Meteoritics & Planetary Science, 50, Nr 3), for 48 hours. Yes, even stuff like this gets trapped behind paywalls.

A flash and a crash

The author, William K. Hartmann, holds a PhD in astronomy and works at the Planetary Science Institute. He suggests that the narratives of Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus accurately describe an atmospheric encounter with some object that produced a bright light and a big boom, similar to the Tunguska Event of 1908 or the more recent encounter with the Chelyabinsk meteor. For your entertainment, we present a video compilation from the Chelyabinsk event.

Continue reading “Did Paul See a Fireball on the Road to Damascus?”

2015-02-24

Did Jesus’ Mother and Brothers Lose Faith in Jesus?

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by Tim Widowfield

Filed under: Biblical Studies, New Testament
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Max Zerwick
Max Zerwick

He said, she said, they said

Sometimes I like to lull myself to sleep at night by reading obscure books about Biblical Greek. I recently picked up a real snore-fest by Maximilian Zerwick called Biblical Greek: Illustrated Examples. Early in the book Zerwick talks about a phenomenon in Greek, which also exists in English, in which the third person plural refers to some general, anonymous group, usually best translated as “they say” or “people say.”

In German and French, there’s a singular form (“man sagt” and “on dit“), but in English we have the same sort of thing as in Greek. For example:

They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it’s not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. –Terry Pratchett (Equal Rites, emphasis mine)

As Zerwick rightly points out, we usually see the indefinite plural with verbs of telling, hence in Latin: “dicunt, ferunt, tradunt.” It’s possible that indefinite plurals were common in Aramaic, which Zerwick suggests may have influenced Mark. He writes:

This is perhaps why it occurs with especial frequency in Mk, often, in parallel passages, corrected by Mt, and still oftener by Lk. . . . [I]n Mk (3,21) we read a text which seems offensive to the honour of the Mother of God: ἀκούσαντες οἱ παρ’ αὐτοῦ ἐξῆλθον κρατῆσαι αὐτόν, ἔλεγον γὰρ ὅτι ἐξέστη [akousntes hoi par’ autou exēlthon kratēsai auton, elegon gar hoti exestē]. These παρ’ αὐτοῦ [par’ autou] are later (v. 31) said to be “His mother and his brethren.” Were they necessarily the ones who thought Jesus was deranged? (Zerwick, 2011, p. 2)

In most English translations, the meaning seems to be that Mary and Jesus’ brothers thought he had come unhinged.

And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.” (Mark 3:21, ESV)

“His family heard” . . . “they went out” . . . “they were saying.” Simple, right?  Continue reading “Did Jesus’ Mother and Brothers Lose Faith in Jesus?”