From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Thu Aug 09 2001 - 11:54:04 EDT
At 10:11 AM -0400 8/9/01, George Blaisdell wrote:
>Dear b-greekers...
>
>The petitioning of the Lord in the Gospels with the aorist imperative
>active of ELEEW, and the inclusion of it in the beattitudes [Matt 5:7],
>sent me looking into the lex to find out origin and meaning of this Greek
>word. All it says is that it is a derivative of the word ELEOS, and that
>this word itself is "of uncertain affiliation" but means divine compassion
>or mercy.
>
>A quick search of the archives turned up nothing at all on this word.
>
>What is the origin of ELEEW? Is this a Hebrew term that found its way
>into the Greek? If so, is it related to the obvious Elohim? And if so,
>how does it work?
Back again to B-Greek once more from the lumberjacking or wherever, George?
And still eager to play etymological games?
ELEOS as a Greek word meaning "compassion" or "pity" is already found as
early as Homer; a scholiast on Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus says that
ELEOS was even worshipped as a deity in Athens.
No doubt ELEEW and the noun ELEOS in Greek came to represent a distinct
Hebraic conception, but this root (probably #ELES-) is essentially Greek
and bears no relationship whatsoever to Hebrew ELOHIM.
--
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad@ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
---
B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [jwrobie@mindspring.com]
To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-327Q@franklin.oit.unc.edu
To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:37:03 EDT