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Trivia: Is there a NT verse that contains all 24 letters?
Posted: January 7th, 2014, 11:42 am
by Stephen Hughes
Is there a New Testament verse that contains all 24 letters of the Greek alphabet?
If there is, then GREAT, if there is not one single verse that does that:
What is the minimum number of contiguous verses that are needed to contain all the letters?
Re: Trivia: Is there a NT verse that contains all 24 letters
Posted: January 8th, 2014, 12:44 pm
by Mark Cain
Looks like there are two verses in the NT which contain all of the Greek letters:
Matthew 5:30
καὶ εἰ ἡ δεξιά σου χεὶρ σκανδαλίζει σε, ἔκκοψον αὐτὴν καὶ βάλε ἀπὸ σοῦ, συμφέρει γάρ σοι ἵνα ἀπόληται ἓν τῶν μελῶν σου καὶ μὴ ὅλον τὸ σῶμά σου εἰς γέενναν ἀπέλθῃ.
Revelation 2:10
10 μηδὲν φοβοῦ ἃ μέλλεις πάσχειν. ἰδοὺ μέλλει βάλλειν ὁ διάβολος ἐξ ὑμῶν εἰς φυλακὴν ἵνα πειρασθῆτε, καὶ ἕξετε θλῖψιν ἡμερῶν δέκα. γίνου πιστὸς ἄχρι θανάτου, καὶ δώσω σοι τὸν στέφανον τῆς ζωῆς.
Since there are no squirrels playing outside in view of my window at this minute, this proved to be distraction enough to keep me from "real" work.
Re: Trivia: Is there a NT verse that contains all 24 letters
Posted: January 8th, 2014, 1:54 pm
by Jonathan Robie
Kudos - I assume you wrote a program to search for such sentences?
Re: Trivia: Is there a NT verse that contains all 24 letters
Posted: January 8th, 2014, 2:21 pm
by Mark Cain
Jonathan Robie wrote:Kudos - I assume you wrote a program to search for such sentences?
Yes. Having the digitized text of the SBL GNT in MySQL helps. So in some justifiable sense, I was honing my skills.

Re: Trivia: Is there a NT verse that contains all 24 letters
Posted: January 8th, 2014, 5:09 pm
by cwconrad
Mark Cain wrote:Jonathan Robie wrote:Kudos - I assume you wrote a program to search for such sentences?
Yes. Having the digitized text of the SBL GNT in MySQL helps. So in some justifiable sense, I was honing my skills.

Arming yourself in advance, no doubt, against the coming of the Ghost of Trivia Questions Yet-to-come.
Re: Trivia: Is there a NT verse that contains all 24 letters
Posted: January 9th, 2014, 5:11 am
by Stephen Carlson
Mark Cain wrote:Looks like there are two verses in the NT which contain all of the Greek letters:
Since there are no squirrels playing outside in view of my window at this minute, this proved to be distraction enough to keep me from "real" work.
This forum needs a like button. κῦδος!
Trivia: All the diphthong together.
Posted: January 9th, 2014, 6:35 am
by Stephen Hughes
Stephen Hughes wrote:Is there a New Testament verse that contains all 24 letters of the Greek alphabet?
Mark Cain wrote:Looks like there are two verses in the NT which contain all of the Greek letters: Matthew 5:30, Revelation 2:10
[each with 32 words in SBL - SGH]
Wow, well done!

The best that I knew of before that answer was
Luke 14:27, 28 (RP) wrote:Καὶ ὅστις οὐ βαστάζει τὸν σταυρὸν αὐτοῦ καὶ ἔρχεται ὀπίσω μου, οὐ δύναται εἶναί μου μαθητής. Τίς γὰρ ἐξ ὑμῶν, ὁ θέλων πύργον οἰκοδομῆσαι, οὐχὶ πρῶτον καθίσας ψηφίζει τὴν δαπάνην, εἰ ἔχει τὰ εἰς ἀπαρτισμόν;
[With 35 words in RP, but only 32 in SBL - differences underlined and ἑαυτοῦ for αὐτοῦ]
In deference to your choice of using SBL, the number of words are the same, but it's great to get it all into one verse not two....
In fact, that was handled so well, let me up the question a bit (and possibly produce something else useful to forum member students)...
Same basic conditions about single verse or contiguous verses and make the question;
Is there a verse that contains all the diphthongs?
Iff there is and there are many:
What is the
shortest verse that contains all of the diphthongs?
Re: Trivia: Is there a NT verse that contains all 24 letters
Posted: January 10th, 2014, 8:57 am
by Mark Cain
cwconrad wrote:Arming yourself in advance, no doubt, against the coming of the Ghost of Trivia Questions Yet-to-come.
Κύριε, θεωρῶ ὅτι προφήτης εἶ σύ.
Re: Trivia: All the diphthong together.
Posted: January 10th, 2014, 9:34 am
by Mark Cain
Stephen Hughes wrote:Is there a verse that contains all the diphthongs?
If there is and there are many:
What is the shortest verse that contains all of the diphthongs?
No single verse contains all of the diphthongs. So, in anticipation of your next question, "What is the minimal number of verses needed to include all of the diphthongs?", I have found the following data:
All 8 diphthongs were found in the following two scopes of 3 verses each:
Matthew 26:43-45
43 καὶ ἐλθὼν πάλιν εὗρεν αὐτοὺς καθεύδοντας, ἦσαν γὰρ αὐτῶν οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ βεβαρημένοι. 44 καὶ ἀφεὶς αὐτοὺς πάλιν ἀπελθὼν προσηύξατο ἐκ τρίτου τὸν αὐτὸν λόγον εἰπὼν πάλιν. 45 τότε ἔρχεται πρὸς τοὺς μαθητὰς καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς· Καθεύδετε τὸ λοιπὸν καὶ ἀναπαύεσθε· ἰδοὺ ἤγγικεν ἡ ὥρα καὶ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου παραδίδοται εἰς χεῖρας ἁμαρτωλῶν.
Acts 27:28-30
28 καὶ βολίσαντες εὗρον ὀργυιὰς εἴκοσι, βραχὺ δὲ διαστήσαντες καὶ πάλιν βολίσαντες εὗρον ὀργυιὰς δεκαπέντε· 29 φοβούμενοί τε μή που κατὰ τραχεῖς τόπους ἐκπέσωμεν ἐκ πρύμνης ῥίψαντες ἀγκύρας τέσσαρας ηὔχοντο ἡμέραν γενέσθαι. 30 τῶν δὲ ναυτῶν ζητούντων φυγεῖν ἐκ τοῦ πλοίου καὶ χαλασάντων τὴν σκάφην εἰς τὴν θάλασσαν προφάσει ὡς ἐκ πρῴρης ἀγκύρας μελλόντων ἐκτείνειν,
There are a couple of significant determinants in these findings: specifically the "ψ" in respect to the search for all letters as it occurs only 945 times in the SBL GNT and "ηυ" for the diphthongs as it occurs only 33 times in the SBL GNT.
Re: Trivia: Is there a NT verse that contains all 24 letters
Posted: January 10th, 2014, 10:39 am
by Stephen Hughes
Mark Cain wrote: So, in anticipation of your next question, "What is the minimal number of verses needed to include all of the diphthongs?", I have found the following data:
All 8 diphthongs were found in the following two scopes of 3 verses each:
Well done!!