[B-Greek] Greek trivia: all the letters...

Peter Ballard pballard at ozemail.com.au
Tue May 6 21:25:06 EDT 2003


>I just ran across a note from Bruce Metzger to the effect that 1 Peter
>3:19-20 contains all the letters of the Greek alphabet (*Interpretation,* 1
>[1947] 473, citing Georg Pasor--one of the oldest Greek grammars, 1655).
>
>Although this passage might be useful the first day of class, it's not an
>ideal passage for beginners, even for an inductive approach. Does anyone
>know of other *short* texts which contain all the letters of the Greek
>alphabet? (The shorter, the better.)

I found 2 verses with all letters. Neither is particularly short, but
the former at least I would put in the "well known" category:

MAT:5:30 KAI EI H DEXIA SOU CEIR SKANDALIZEI SE EKKOYON AUTHN KAI BALE
APO SOU SUMFEREI GAR SOI INA APOLHTAI EN TWN MELWN SOU KAI MH OLON TO
SWMA SOU EIS GEENNAN APELQH  

REV:2:10 MHDEN FOBOU A MELLEIS PASCEIN IDOU MELLEI BALLEIN O DIABOLOS
EX UMWN EIS FULAKHN INA PEIRASQHTE KAI EXETE QLIYIN HMERWN DEKA GINOU
PISTOS ACRI QANATOU KAI DWSW SOI TON STEFANON THS ZWHS  

(I think the text is UBS 3rd edition).

BTW the least common letters were psi (947), zeta (1572) and xi
(2226). 

I'm sure I could find a way to find the shortest *passage* containing
all the letters but hey, I've got some real work to do :-)

Regards,

Peter Ballard
Adelaide, AUSTRALIA
pballard at ozemail.com.au
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~pballard/

"Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you" - Jesus
(Matthew 5:44, NIV)



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