[B-Greek] What does this mean

Barry Hofstetter nebarry at verizon.net
Sat Aug 21 06:10:49 EDT 2004


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Remington186 at aol.com>
To: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2004 5:32 AM
Subject: [B-Greek] What does this mean


> Steven Lo Vullo slovullo at mac.com
> Writes, Fri Aug 20 21:37:05 EDT 2004

> >But PISTEUMA, PISTEUTIKOS, and PISTOTHS are not used in the NT. PISTOW >is
> used only once. And PISTEWS is the genitive singular form of PISTIS. I think >
> you will find that many translations do in fact catch the nuances of the words
> that >are used in the NT in their respective contexts.
> >Steven Lo Vullo

> [RM] A word count from Dr. Robert Young's Analytical Concordance:

Remington, why would you want to use the KJV as a base?  One normally starts
with the best available critical Greek text, and goes from the Greek to the
English.

> Even though you seem to brush PISTEWS off ["And PISTEWS is the genitive
> singular form of PISTIS."] [they are both feminine singular] have you ever
noticed
> how many times it is connected to EK? More than one-fourth of the time. You
> will never find EK and PISTIS together. If the only difference was the case
then
> you might imagine [like, for instance, IHSOU and IHSOUS] it only changed for
> agreement and not meaning. Besides, most of the time PISTIS can be translated
> 'loyalty.'

Steven is not "brush[ing] off" PISTEWS.  You see, Steven has actually studied
Greek, and is aware that the EK is a preposition that governs the genitive case,
so that if EK is used with PISTIS, PISTIS has to go into the genitive.
Furthermore, he understands that it is the same word, with the same semantic
range, as PISTIS, but PISTIS is in the nominative case.  The case endings do not
change the semantic range of the word, only its grammatical/syntactical usage in
context.

As for your final claim, that has to be determined on a case by case basis, as
with any word, but I think you will find very few who agree with "most of the
time."

N.E. Barry Hofstetter
Professor of Theological and Biblical Studies
 The Center for Urban Theological Studies
         Philadelphia, PA
http://mysite.verizon.net/nebarry/




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