[B-Greek] The difference is?

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Fri Jul 18 17:23:53 EDT 2008


On Jul 18, 2008, at 3:31 PM, Tyler Rowe wrote:

> So I'm trying to teach myself Greek and in the book I'm using it  
> lists the words oikia and oikos as words that both mean house or  
> home. Why their are two words that both mean the exact same thing?  
> Whats the difference between the words? I know its not really a  
> question about the actual Bible but I'm still trying to learn the  
> language so I can one day read it. Any help would be appreciated.

This is what a lexicon is for; this is not information that "the book  
you're using" is likely to provide. OIKOS and OIKIA are words that  
derive from the same root, that have overlapping meanings, but that  
tend generally to be used in slightly different ways: OIKIA for a  
house as a structure, OIKOS for a household as an economic unit of  
persons living and working together in a shared OIKONOMIA. As I said,  
these words do overlap in meaning and either one is sometimes used in  
the same way as the other. Of essential NT lexical resources it would  
be good to read the entry in BDAG on this; useful also for questions  
of synonyms or near synonyms in GNT usage is Louw and Nida (Greek- 
English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains  
Johannes P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida, Editors Copyright © 1988, 1989 by  
the United Bible Societies, New York, NY 10023 Second Edition.)


Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)






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