[B-Greek] Fwd: Romans 16:1

Stephen Carlson stemmatic at gmail.com
Mon Dec 13 19:46:44 EST 2010


On Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 5:31 PM, Dony K. Donev <dony at cupandcross.com> wrote:
> I've been wandering recently, about the use of the word "deacon" (noun masc.
> sing.) in Romans 16:1-2
> in reference to Phoebe who was a woman. How common of usage that was in the
> Biblical Greek language?
> Does it stand out as wrong or was it commonly applied that way?

Certain nouns in Greek are "epicene" (or "common") in that their form
is the same for both masculine and feminine but their gender depends
on whom the noun is referring to.  DIAKONOS (aide) is one of them.
PARQENOS (virgin) is another.

Stephen
--
Stephen C. Carlson
Graduate Program in Religion
Duke University



More information about the B-Greek mailing list