[B-Greek] Question Regarding John 4:11 kurios

William Ross woundedegomusic at gmail.com
Sat Sep 2 06:49:42 EDT 2006


There seems to be some indication in the scriptures that addressing
someone as KURIE is an affirmation of their authority over you:

Mt 7:21  Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter
into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father
which is in heaven.

Lu 6:46  And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?

John 13:
13  Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am.
14  If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also
ought to wash one another's feet.
15  For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.
16  Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than
his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him.
17  If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.

1Pe 5:3  Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being
ensamples to the flock.

At times it seems that the title is used emptied of any import other
than politeness:

John 12:
20 ¶  And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship
at the feast:
21  The same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of
Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir [KURIE], we would see Jesus.

It is an interpretive issue based on context.

William Ross
VGB, Argentina



On 9/1/06, frjsilver at optonline.net <frjsilver at optonline.net> wrote:
> Dear Friends --
>
> The scriptural KURIOS is informed by two separate semantic trends.
>
> In the Hebrew Bible, the Name of God is represented in consonants only, but it is never pronounced;  we don't know its authentic sound anyway, and we're much safer for that.
>
> But whenever the Name appears, Jewish practice is to say either HA SHEM ('The Name') or else `ADONAY (my Lord).  As a result, the Jewish translators of the Greek 70 pretty consistently rendered the Name as KURIOS, and this, perforce, leaked into the Christian scriptures.
>
> So there's no question that a couple of centuries BC, the designation KURIOS was invested with great reverence by Hellenistic Jews, at least. This is one of the Jewish problems with the Christian scriptures, I suppose:  that Jesus Christ shares the euphemism of the divine Name.
>
> All that notwithstanding, Greek-speaking women (when they're being polite), to this day refer to their husbands as KURIOS and address them as KURIE.  In strictly Modern Greek parlance, KURIOS means simply 'mister', but it's still considered honorific.
>
> Among us orthodox Christians, bishops are often referred to as KUR, an as yet unexplained (to me, at least) apocopation.
>
> I hope this helps a little.
>
> Peace and blessings to all.
>
> Father James Silver
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: James Becknell
> Date: Friday, September 1, 2006 12:18 pm
> Subject: [B-Greek] Question Regarding John 4:11 kurios
> To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
>
> > I am interested to know if anyone understands why kurios is
> > rendered as
> > sir in John 4:11? I understand its use as a title for the
> > purpose of
> > formal address, but I was wondering how it is concluded that the
> > Samaritan woman is not referring to Jesus as lord, but as sir? Are
> > there any other places where this is brought out into English as sir?
> >
> >
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> >
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-- 

William Ross
VGB, Argentina



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