Romans 16.7 - "Natural Gender" and "Arbitrary Gender"?
Posted: September 14th, 2015, 10:35 pm
Well, I finally passed Greek I with an overall grade of 95%. And, it's been several weeks since I've looked at the text books so I'm finding out really fast that "if you don't use it, you lose it ."
Question (I hope this is the place to ask this?): While discussing "aner" and "gune" my proff. mentioned something about "natural gender" & "arbitrary gender." Is anyone familiar with this? He said that there are nouns that are "naturally" gender specific (e.g., John or Mary), then there are nouns that seem to have no rhyme or reason as to why they are gender specific (e.g., "Ekklesia" is feminine).
I've been looking closely at ἀποστόλοις in Rom. 16.7. My query is that while looking at the nouns used for the entire 5-fold ministry, I noted that they are all in the masculine. Would this be simply due to "people group" nouns (i.e., arbitrary gender) or is this a "natural gender"?
I am not asking a theological question (hope this question is not out of order ), just wondering about the gender issue & if there's any meaning to this?
Thank you much in advance.
Question (I hope this is the place to ask this?): While discussing "aner" and "gune" my proff. mentioned something about "natural gender" & "arbitrary gender." Is anyone familiar with this? He said that there are nouns that are "naturally" gender specific (e.g., John or Mary), then there are nouns that seem to have no rhyme or reason as to why they are gender specific (e.g., "Ekklesia" is feminine).
I've been looking closely at ἀποστόλοις in Rom. 16.7. My query is that while looking at the nouns used for the entire 5-fold ministry, I noted that they are all in the masculine. Would this be simply due to "people group" nouns (i.e., arbitrary gender) or is this a "natural gender"?
I am not asking a theological question (hope this question is not out of order ), just wondering about the gender issue & if there's any meaning to this?
Thank you much in advance.