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

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Sat Sep 2 16:15:38 EDT 2006


 
On Saturday, September 02, 2006, at 02:24PM, Elizabeth Kline <kline_dekooning at earthlink.net> wrote:

>
>On Sep 2, 2006, at 9:31 AM, cwestf5155 at aol.com wrote:
>
>> I don't know why the idea that "Sarah didn't just just say 'Mister'  
>> to Abraham" is an a priori assumption, or maybe again, it is an  
>> issue of the perceived semantic range of both KURIOS and "Mister"  
>> and also how English has changed.
>>
>>  "Mister" has been used to indicate honor and respect in English-- 
>> so some parents still train their children to refer to a friend as  
>> "Mr. Jones" rather than by their first name. There was an old- 
>> fashioned practice where spouses also referred to each other as  
>> "Mr." and "Mrs." as a sign of respect and where a titled wife might  
>> refer to her spouse as "Lord..." or by his last name alone which  
>> had an honorific association--and Abraham's high status would  
>> overlap here--after all, Sarah was called "princess".
>>
>>  Such uses of "Mr." are clearly shifting, though I think we  
>> recognize it when we see it.
>>
>>  Titles that indicate honor and respect collocate with authority,  
>> but the use of KURIOS does not always convey authority, so that is  
>> not part of its minimal definition--it has to be inferred from the  
>> context.
>
>Cindy,
>
>This reminds me of another title which is difficult to render into  
>current English.
>DESPOINA the feminine equivalent of DESPOTHS is used with the names  
>of goddesses.
>Lady Artemis or Mistress Artemis both fail to communicate in  
>contemporary English. Do we have a term for a female in a position of  
>authority which could serve for DESPOINA? Queen Artemis doesn't  
>really work either.

Contemporary English -- unless we mean to include honorific British titles for nobility -- doesn't address females in positions of authority other than as equals, I think. But if you're willing to use honorific British titles, I see nothing wrong with "Lady" or "My Lady" when Hippolytus, let's say, addresses Artemis.

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



More information about the B-Greek mailing list