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βίος, ζωή (and ψυχή)

Posted: February 14th, 2014, 12:22 pm
by Stephen Hughes
In the days before I had even a little Greek, I remember reading an article in a Scripture Union magazine that in the period before the New Testament, βίος was the highest form of life - the course of a person's life, and ζωή refered to the the animal life. In the New Testament, however, the writers use ζωή as the highest form of life.

Now that I know some Greek I can see that ψυχή is part of the picture too.

To what extent is that statement about βίος and ζωή a true statement?

Re: βίος, ζωή (and ψυχή)

Posted: February 14th, 2014, 12:46 pm
by Stephen Carlson
Sounds bogus to me.

On a related note: this article has some semantic maps of soul and spirit in various languages, including Greek and Latin: https://www.academia.edu/846905/Semanti ... _languages

Re: βίος, ζωή (and ψυχή)

Posted: February 14th, 2014, 12:55 pm
by Stephen Hughes
It is probably one of those things that have been simplified so far as to have taken on a life of its own.

This βίος, ζωή thought doesn't seem to have the same currency that the "The four words for love in Greek." urban myth seems to have.