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Course 5 · Lesson 3.4

A core Greek vocabulary and how to learn it

10 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 5 outline

Module 1: What the Languages Are and What This Course Can Do

  1. The languages of the Bible: Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek
  2. What an introduction can and cannot do: no fluency, and why
  3. Biblical Hebrew in brief: history, script and sound
  4. Koine Greek in brief: history, script and sound

Module 2: Hebrew Fundamentals

  1. The Hebrew alphabet, reading right to left, and the vowel points
  2. Roots, nouns, gender, number and the construct chain
  3. Hebrew verbs: perfect, imperfect and the seven stems in outline
  4. A core Hebrew vocabulary and how to learn it

Module 3: Greek Fundamentals

  1. The Greek alphabet, accents and breathing marks
  2. Nouns, cases and the definite article
  3. Greek verbs: tense, aspect, voice and mood in outline
  4. A core Greek vocabulary and how to learn it

Module 4: The Texts: Masoretic, Septuagint and New Testament Manuscripts

  1. The Masoretic Text and the codices that preserve it
  2. The Septuagint and where translators consult it
  3. Greek New Testament manuscripts and printed editions
  4. How variants are recorded in footnotes and critical editions

Module 5: How Translations Are Made

  1. Formal and dynamic equivalence, and the middle positions
  2. Who translates: committees, churches and traditions of translation
  3. Hard cases: idioms, word play, gender and untranslatable words
  4. Reading a translation’s preface to learn its principles

Module 6: Tools for the Reader

  1. Interlinear Bibles: what they show and what they hide
  2. Lexicons and concordances: how to read an entry
  3. How to do a word study, step by step
  4. Common word study errors and how to avoid them

Module 7: Evaluating Translation Differences

  1. Locating the Hebrew or Greek words behind a verse
  2. Types of translation differences: text, grammar, word meaning and style
  3. A worked example from the Old Testament
  4. A worked example from the New Testament
  5. Knowing your limits, and when to ask a specialist

All courses

Program / Course 5: Biblical Languages / Lesson 3.4

What you will learn

  • Recognize about thirty of the most important Greek words of the New Testament by sound.
  • Explain why a few hundred words cover most of the running text of the New Testament.
  • Use a simple, repeatable method for learning vocabulary and keeping it.
  • Treat glosses with care and check a word’s range in the Septuagint and the New Testament.

The big idea

The Greek New Testament uses roughly five thousand different words, but a core of a few hundred common words accounts for most of the running text. Learning those first lets a reader recognize words in an interlinear and look them up. The best method is short daily practice with review at growing intervals, saying words aloud and learning them in families and in context. A gloss is only a hint at a word’s range. A core vocabulary is a useful tool and does not amount to reading Greek.

Key terms

Lexical form
The form in which a word is listed in a dictionary, such as the first person present of a verb or the nominative singular of a noun.
Principal parts
The key forms of a verb from which all the others can be built. A lexicon may list some of them.
Cognate
A word that shares a root with another. English loan words from Greek, such as apostle and baptism, are cognates of their Greek sources in a loose sense.
Semantic domain
A group of words that share an area of meaning, such as words about love or about authority.
Synonym
A word that overlaps in meaning with another word. Greek has many near synonyms.
Loan word
A word taken into one language from another, such as the English word church from a Greek source.

Background

The Greek New Testament has about 138,000 words of running text and, by common counts, roughly five thousand different words. A small part of those, a few hundred, occur very often. It is often reported that the words occurring fifty times or more, about three hundred in number, make up around four fifths of the running text. The numbers vary with the edition and the way words are counted, but the pattern is clear.

For a student who wants to use the tools, vocabulary is the most direct gain. A learner who knows the common words can look at an interlinear and see which words are the same from verse to verse. The caution of the last lesson applies here as well: glosses are labels, and the study of a word means looking at its range.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: A first set of words

God and Christ: theos, God; kyrios, lord; Iesous, Jesus; Christos, Christ or anointed; pneuma, spirit, wind or breath; patēr, father; huios, son; anthropos, human being or man. Ideas: logos, word, message or reason; agape, love; pistis, faith, trust or faithfulness; charis, grace or favor; eirene, peace; zoe, life; sarx, flesh; kosmos, world; ekklesia, assembly or church; euangelion, good news; hamartia, sin; dikaiosyne, righteousness or justice.

Small words: kai, and; de, but or and; gar, for; en, in; eis, into; ek, out of; ho, the. Verbs: lego, say; ginomai, become or happen; erchomai, come or go; echo, have; eimi, be; didomi, give; pisteuo, believe or trust; akouo, hear. The glosses are starting points only.

Step 2: Words with a wide range

Many of these words have a range. Pneuma means wind, breath or spirit, and in John 3:8 the word is used for both wind and spirit. Logos covers word, speech, message, account and reason. Pistis can be trust, belief, faithfulness or the body of what is believed, and its sense in Romans and Galatians is debated. Sarx can mean the body, human weakness or the sinful tendency, depending on the author and the passage. Kosmos can be the created order, humanity or the world’s system opposed to God.

A student who learns a single English word for each of these will meet trouble. The remedy is to learn each word with typical phrases, to note its range in a lexicon and to learn when different authors favor different senses.

Step 3: Methods that work

The method is the same as for Hebrew. Study a little every day, in sessions of ten or fifteen minutes. Make cards or use a spaced repetition program with the Greek on one side and the gloss, a sample phrase and the word family on the other. Say each word aloud. Add a few new words at a time and review old words at growing intervals.

Learn words in families and in context. Memorize related words together, such as pistis, pisteuo and pistos, and learn a short verse for each word. Learn near synonyms together, and note how a lexicon distinguishes them. Finally, read in the text. A student who reads short passages, like the opening of 1 John or the Lord’s Prayer, with a translation beside them, will see the same words many times and will remember them.

Step 4: Loan words and false friends

Many English words come from Greek, which makes some vocabulary easy: baptism, apostle, angel, evangelist, ecclesiastical, theology. But the English meaning may have moved from the Greek. Angelos means messenger, and baptizo originally meant to dip or wash. Whether the New Testament uses the Greek word in its ordinary sense or a technical sense is a question of context. The student should check the meaning in a lexicon, and should not assume that the English word’s sense is the Greek word’s sense.

  1. Which of the words in the first set can I recognize by sound?
  2. What is the range of each word, and what verse shows each sense?
  3. Do I know the related words in the same family?
  4. Is my review routine realistic and steady?
  5. Am I assuming that an English loan word has the same sense as its Greek source?
  6. Which words have I learned from reading and not only from a list?

Examples

Pneuma in one chapter

In John 3:8, the Greek pneuma is used for the wind that blows where it wishes and for the Spirit. The King James Version translates the first as wind and the second as Spirit. A student who knows only one gloss may miss the play on the double meaning.

Agape and its neighbors

Agape is the usual New Testament word for love, but there are other words in the same domain, such as phileo, to be a friend to, and storge, a family affection used in compounds. The word agape is used in the Septuagint and in secular writing too. Its meaning is shown by its use, not by a claim that it is a special Christian word.

A weekly plan

A learner takes ten new words a week from a frequency list. She makes cards, reviews daily for ten minutes, and on Sunday reads a short passage in which the words appear. After a year she has learned several hundred words. (A constructed example.)

Different perspectives

Orthodox

Greek words such as logos, ekklesia and theosis carry weight in Orthodox theology. Orthodox writers often stress that these words are understood within the life of the church and the writings of the fathers, who spoke Greek as their own language.

Catholic

Catholic theology also draws on Greek terms, and many were translated into Latin by words that shaped Western doctrine, such as gratia for charis. Catholic study notes the differences between the Greek and the Latin words.

Protestant

Protestant preachers have often explained Greek words in sermons. The tradition values this teaching and also has a long list of cautions about word study errors, which the last lessons of this course discuss.

Scholarly

Lexicographers agree that meaning comes from use. They compile entries from large bodies of Greek text, including papyri, inscriptions and the Septuagint, and revise them as evidence grows.

Why it matters

A core vocabulary lets a reader recognize what the same word is doing in different places. It also supports the later skills of looking up entries and doing word studies. The knowledge of how many senses a word has is as useful as the knowledge of the word itself.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Agape is a special word that always means divine, unconditional love.

Correction: Agape is used for many kinds of love, including a wrong love of the world in 2 Timothy 4:10. Its meaning in a verse comes from context.

Misunderstanding: A Greek word means what its English descendant means.

Correction: English words from Greek often shifted in meaning. Check the Greek word’s sense in the lexicon.

Misunderstanding: Memorizing three hundred words is enough to read the New Testament.

Correction: The core vocabulary helps a great deal, but reading needs grammar, further vocabulary and practice.

Misunderstanding: Each Greek word has one English meaning.

Correction: Words have ranges. Lexicons list senses, and the right one depends on context.

Knowledge check

Why is it efficient to learn frequent Greek words first?

A small group of words, about three hundred by a common count, make up most of the running text of the New Testament, while many others occur rarely. Learning the frequent words lets a reader recognize much of any verse. Rare words are better looked up in a lexicon than memorized.

Give an example of a Greek word with a range of meanings.

Pneuma means wind, breath or spirit. In John 3:8 it is used for both wind and Spirit in one verse. Logos can mean word, message, account or reason. Pistis can mean trust, belief or faithfulness. Any of these shows that a single gloss cannot cover the range.

What is one risk of English loan words from Greek?

The English word may have moved away from the Greek sense. Angelos means messenger, and baptizo originally meant to dip or wash. A reader who assumes that the English sense belongs to the Greek word may read too much into it. The lexicon and the context give the actual meaning.

Describe a good learning routine.

Study ten or fifteen minutes each day, adding a few new words and reviewing older ones at growing intervals. Say each word aloud, and learn related words together. Attach each word to a sample phrase or verse, and read short passages where the words occur. Track the words that keep slipping and give them extra attention.

Think it through

  1. Which Greek words do you already know through English, and which might mislead you?
  2. How can you decide whether a New Testament writer uses a word in a technical sense?
  3. What practice would help you keep a routine over many months?
  4. How does knowing a word’s range change the way you read a sermon that explains it?

Independent assignment

Ten words in context

In your own notebook, write 300 to 450 words. Choose ten words from the first set. For each, look up a lexicon entry, write its main senses, and find one verse in an English Bible where it occurs, using a concordance. Note how the English renders it. Then write a paragraph on which words had the widest range and one on what you learned about glosses. Write the schedule you will follow for review. Do not send this to anyone.

Further study