[B-Greek] Greek for "brother-in-law"?

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Thu Jun 30 17:35:24 EDT 2005


On Jun 30, 2005, at 3:42 PM, Harold R. Holmyard III wrote:

> Dear B-Greek,
>
> Did ancient Greek have a special word for brother-in-law and
> sister-in-law? There is a special word for father-in-law (PENQEROS),
> mother-in-law (PENQERA), and daughter-in-law (NUMFH). I am looking at
> the question of whether there are four individuals named in John
> 19:25:
>
> hEITHKEISAN DE PARA TWi STAURWi TOU IHSOU hH MHTHR AUTOU KAI hH
> ADELFH THS MHTROS AUTOU, MARIA hH TOU KLWPA KAI MARIA hH MAGDALHNH
>
> The two "KAI"s seem to suggest three people in all, but some argue
> that there would not be two Marys who were sisters. Of course, such
> double naming could occur, since it did in the Herodian family
> (Michael Jackson has two sons named Michael), but it does seem
> unlikely. So the question arose in my mind, does ADELFH only refer to
> a blood sister, or can it refer to a sister-in-law or a step-sister?

One perfectly good word for "relation by marriage" that does appear  
in older Greek literature is GAMBROS, attested by LSJ as having the  
sense "brother-in-law" in Homer and Herodotus. You can discern the  
association with GAMOS in the word. I don't know, however, if the  
word was still in use in Hellenistic Greek.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at ioa.com or cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/




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