Church
Vincent M. Setterholm
Vincent at zeteotech.com
Fri Jan 19 10:26:39 EST 2001
I don't think it is possible to make any good arguments regarding
how the church was perceived based on noun gender. It may seem odd to
English speakers to give nouns genders, but if you were to ask a native
French speaker whether they though of cabbage as masculine because it has
'le' as its article, I think most native speakers would say 'no'. (my
french teacher did.) Even if it could be argued that thought went into the
gender of the term when it was coined, words are not likely to change in
spelling even if they change somewhat semanically. In other words, from a
philisophical standpoint, Herodotus might have had a very different image of
what EKKLHSIA embodied in his mind that Paul would have, even though the
spelling didn't change. (gets down to words not having inherent meaning,
but serving as flexible symbols, etc. etc.)
I further point of reference, there are many words that have one
gender in Hebrew and yet are translated to having a different gender in
Greek. Hebrew does not even have a neuter gender. Did the Hebrews consider
the Spirit to be a person, while the Greeks considered the Spirit and It
because the word PNEUMA is neuter in Greek? Any attempt to argue a major
worldview shift based on gender of nouns, then, overlooks the history of the
words in question. A given word is masculine because it has always been
masculine and if you change the gender on your listeners they might not
understand what you are talking about, if it would even occur to you to
change the gender at all, since doing so would be 'bad' grammar.
While you cannot make any strong arguments from the genders of the
words you mentioned, you might find it interesting to look at the imagery
used to describe the church. Masculine and feminine are used: The chuch is
the Bride of Christ and yet the Sons of God. Neuter words are used as well,
the church is the seed (to sperma) of abraham, but that would be back to
argueing based on word gender rather than imagery that can be more
completely tied to conceptual gender.
Hope this provides food for thought,
Vincent M. Setterholm
-----Original Message-----
From: Bryce Griffy [mailto:bgriffy at tds.net]
Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2000 7:26 PM
To: Biblical Greek
Subject: [b-greek] Church
Hello, I am new here, but I look forward to asking you folks lots of
questions. I have a question that I wish someone could help me with, I have
looked up the word church and it is a feminine noun. Now my dilemma is I am
told that if you are speaking of the body it can become masculine, as to
take on the form of a masculine noun, and thereby referring to the church as
a "he" instead of a "she" or bride. I can word this over again if it is not
clear as to what I would like explained. I would like someone with a good
back ground to tell me either yes or no on this matter, either yes church is
always referred to as a feminine noun, but if you are talking about the body
of Christ then it suddenly becomes a masculine noun??? I'm looking for
something constant is the body of Christ referred to in a feminine or a
masculine sense, please help me here.
Thanks for your help... [New subscribers: (a) Please use full names in
signatures; (b) Please use plain-text ASCII and NOT "styled text" for
B-Greek messages.]
Bryce
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