Fw: Concepts and Words

Peter Phillips p.m.phillips at champness.shef.ac.uk
Wed Jul 1 03:53:26 EDT 1998


I always understood the root of KUNEW being "cone" or "wedge-shape" - the 
same as "cuneiform" writing being writing made of wedge shapes.  Hence the 
person in "proskunates" herself makes a wedge shape with her body - head 
down, 'posterior' up as a sign of obeisance.  I thought that LSJ says that 
the earliest time that this word is used as "kiss" is in reference to some 
priest kissing a bishops ring in about 300-400CE.  Again it is not a sign 
of intimacy but obeisance.  You would harldy consider the kind of act of 
homage paid to some ancient kings as "kissing up to" the king!!!  My life, 
can you imagine what a turn around we would need to have in translating 
Thucydides and Herodotus et al. if everytime someone "proskunated" 
themselves before a despot, we were to translate it "and he kissed up to 
the king"...and presumably had his lips sugically removed very swiftly!!!

Pete Phillips,
NT Tutor
Cliff College, Sheffield, UK



More information about the B-Greek mailing list