Greek Idioms

Dave Washburn dwashbur at nyx.net
Sat Mar 24 12:30:54 EST 2001


> Porter's book is an intermediate grammar.  It really isn't concerned with
> 'idioms'.  Since he named his work after Moule's, I am guessing Moule's is
> also not about Idioms in the common use of the word (Porter's Introduction
> implies this), but I have not read Moule.
> 
Back in college I reviewed Moule for my Greek professor.  I found 
the title curious, because  basically it's a collection of observations 
on various constructions and uses of different moods etc.  I 
suppose the reason he called it and Idiom Book is because, if he 
called it "A Collection Of Observations on Various Constructions 
and Uses of Different Moods, Cases, etc." the title wouldn't have fit 
on the cover :-)

I don't know of a book that actually treats *idioms* in Greek in any 
detail.  One apparent idiom that comes to my mind is OUK EN 
TIMHi in Colossians 2, which means "are of no value."  The same 
expression occurs in Xenophon's "Anabasis" which is how I 
discovered that it was an apparently idiomatic use of TIMH.  A 
book that treats such idioms would be a very useful tool indeed.

Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"No study of probabilities inside a given frame can ever
tell us how probable it is that the frame itself can be
violated."  C. S. Lewis



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