Acrostic What is it?

Gerald E Lincoln glincoln at juno.com
Sat Feb 12 09:58:15 EST 2000


A brief example of what may be an acrostic in the NT is Philippians 3:2.

BLEPETE     TOUS     KUNAS,
BLEPETE     TOUS     KAKOUS             ERGATAS,
BLEPETE     THN       KATATOMHN.

It is also an example of a sentence type, called anaphora, where each
clause begins with the repetition of the same word.

ERGATAS stands outside of the form of the acrostic and draws attention. 
It also serves as a point of comparison and contrast to his works in the
flesh and faith in 3:3-11.



Gerald E. Lincoln
Mount Joy, PA

On Sat, 12 Feb 2000 19:57:04 +0800 "Paul Zellmer"
<zellmer at digitelone.com> writes:
>Steve Puluka asked:
>
>> Sorry for being slow on the uptake here, but I actually just looked
>this up
>> in webster's.  What to my surprise, but the Hebrew verse of the 
>Psalms
>is
>> definition number two!
>>
>> Number one is from the Greek AKROSTICHOS, a construction, usually 
>in
>verse,
>> where a certain letter of each line spells the name, title or motto 
>of
>the
>> subject of the verse.
>>
>> Is anyone aware of any examples of this construction in Greek, or 
>any
>other
>> langauge for that matter?
>
>I know of none off hand in (biblical or classical) Greek, Steve, but 
>the
>use of acrostics in this manner is very common among children's 
>programs
>around the world.  It got a bit tedious, but I recall one Vacation 
>Bible
>School program in the Philippines that spelled out an entire sentence 
>in
>an acrostic.
>
>Another famous one in American English is the Mother's Day song: "M 
>is
>for the ..."
>
>HTH,
>
>Paul
>
>----
>
>Paul and Dee Zellmer, Jimmy Guingab, Geoffrey Beltran
>Ibanag Translation Project
>Cabagan, Isabela, Rep. of Philippines
>
>zellmer at digitelone.com
>
>
>---
>B-Greek home page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek
>You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: glincoln at juno.com
>To unsubscribe, forward this message to 
>$subst('Email.Unsub')
>To subscribe, send a message to 
>subscribe-b-greek at franklin.oit.unc.edu
>
>


________________________________________________________________
YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET!
Juno now offers FREE Internet Access!
Try it today - there's no risk!  For your FREE software, visit:
http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.



More information about the B-Greek mailing list