[B-Greek] CHALINAGWGEW and its use in James 1.26; 3.2

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Mon Sep 27 15:44:07 EDT 2010


On Sep 27, 2010, at 3:23 PM, P R wrote:

> CHALINAGWGEW (James 1.26; 3.2)

CALINAGWGEW?

> 
> The KJV uses “bridle” to translate this word. Looking it up in Liddell &
> Scott (the big one), it mentions a few references for it in extra-biblical
> literature, but they date to the 100s AD. I didn’t find this term used in a
> LXX concordance, but I’m not sure if I was looking in the right place. I
> went to Perseus but it recognized neither my transliterated Greek nor Greek
> pasted, formatted in a Greek font.
> 
> Was this term used before the writing of the New Testament, in this
> figurative sense of bridling one’s senses/passions? Does anyone know of its
> use in the LXX, or in non-biblical writers, before the writing of the NT?

It does seem to be late, but it seems like a sort of obvious compound of 
semantically unambiguous roots -- one of those words that one doesn't
need to be afraid of guidance from the etymology. One thinks of similar
compounds as ψυχαγωγέω (YUCAGWGEW -- used by Plato) and 
παιδαγωγέω (PAIDAGWGEW -- pretty old). I've seen "brainwash"
used for YUCAGWGEW, "tutor" for PAIDAGWGEW, and it seems
natural to understand CALINAGWGEW as "bridle" or "rein in."

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






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