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by Jonathan_Burke
August 7th, 2011, 5:04 am
Forum: Grammar Questions
Topic: Differentiating fictive and biological kinship
Replies: 44
Views: 14941

Re: Differentiating fictive and biological kinship

Remember Sean, the readers of Galatians didn't have all of Paul's writings to read. They had the letter sent to them. This being the case, how are they likely to understand his reference to 'James the brother of the Lord'? * With a meaning unattested in any proximate Greek text * With a meaning atte...
by Jonathan_Burke
August 7th, 2011, 3:47 am
Forum: Grammar Questions
Topic: Differentiating fictive and biological kinship
Replies: 44
Views: 14941

Re: Differentiating fictive and biological kinship

This is an assertion meant to deal with 70 odd confirmable uses of αδελφος for a non-biological meaning of brother and none to the contrary. It's not an assertion, it's a matter of standard lexical practice. When you can prove that we have a sufficiently large corpus of Paul's writings on which to ...
by Jonathan_Burke
August 6th, 2011, 2:07 pm
Forum: Grammar Questions
Topic: Differentiating fictive and biological kinship
Replies: 44
Views: 14941

Re: Differentiating fictive and biological kinship

So you are proffering two layers of linguistic mystification here. One, that αδελφος does mean"brother of the flesh" and that you can somehow know that Gal 1:19 refers to Jesus and not to God in the non-titular use of κυριος. What you offer in your defence is that Jesus did have a brother...
by Jonathan_Burke
August 6th, 2011, 12:33 pm
Forum: Grammar Questions
Topic: Differentiating fictive and biological kinship
Replies: 44
Views: 14941

Re: Differentiating fictive and biological kinship

Sean, have you conducted diachronic and synchronic analysis to see if the syntax '[name] τὸν ἀδελφὸν τοῦ [name]' is ever used by anyone as a reference to fictive kinship rather than biological kinship? This is especially important since, as David already pointed out, you cannot consider what Paul wr...
by Jonathan_Burke
July 29th, 2011, 10:48 am
Forum: Grammar Questions
Topic: Differentiating fictive and biological kinship
Replies: 44
Views: 14941

Re: Differentiating fictive and biological kinship

1) So somebody tried to implement a phonetic system in the 1920's. However, it still hasn't caught on, so most likely the disadvantages of the system outweighed the benefits. Actually it was massively successful, and caught on so much so that it remains in official use today. 2) China doesn't seems...
by Jonathan_Burke
July 28th, 2011, 9:23 pm
Forum: Grammar Questions
Topic: Differentiating fictive and biological kinship
Replies: 44
Views: 14941

Re: Jonathan Burke

Considering how terrible English supposedly is for communication, you sure have communicated quite a lot. It isn't terrible for communication. It's just not as efficient as it could be. 2) Contrary to what you seemed to be suggesting, the "cultural revolution" of Mao (of which the unfortu...
by Jonathan_Burke
July 28th, 2011, 1:12 pm
Forum: Grammar Questions
Topic: Differentiating fictive and biological kinship
Replies: 44
Views: 14941

Re: Jonathan Burke

Reducing languages to mere "efficiency"* would rob them of their subletly and beauty, and most likely would render nuanced expression and understanding impossible. It's all relative. Chinese grammar is far simpler and more efficient than English, but you try telling the Chinese that their...
by Jonathan_Burke
July 28th, 2011, 8:28 am
Forum: Grammar Questions
Topic: Differentiating fictive and biological kinship
Replies: 44
Views: 14941

Re: Differentiating fictive and biological kinship

I see you already have quite a discussion going on with this over in Introductions. But to answer your question, in a word, context. The word can bear either sense. There is no separate or special word used to designate metaphorical kinship in the NT. ἀδελφός is used for both. Thank you, that confi...
by Jonathan_Burke
July 28th, 2011, 2:38 am
Forum: Grammar Questions
Topic: Differentiating fictive and biological kinship
Replies: 44
Views: 14941

Re: Jonathan Burke

Jonathan, The entry to the main Greek-English lexicon of the NT speaks to this directly. There are two main entries for ἀφελφός· Take the time to read this entry and look up the appropriate passages for each category. Try making the same argument in English that "brother" always means &qu...
by Jonathan_Burke
July 27th, 2011, 4:04 pm
Forum: Introductions
Topic: Jonathan Burke
Replies: 0
Views: 1281

Jonathan Burke

I'm Jonathan Burke, director at a corporate training company, and PhD student at Taiwan National University of Science and Technology. I took two years of Greek and a year and a half of Latin during my Bachelor of Arts degree (double Classics major). Having lived in Taiwan for the last seven years, ...

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