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Opinions needed on some original language books

Harald

New Member
It was good to learn the truth about the 8 case system. I had read somewhere that some hold to five cases and some to eight, but had not given it any serious thought and did not know exactly what to think of all this. Now I see it is reasonable to say that the Greek of the Bible exhibits 8 cases as can also be proven from various contexts. In light of this I wonder why some plainly deny that the Biblical Greek has 8 cases. Still there is one instance which I wonder how it would be classified - Romans 1:4. In the Greek it reads thusly - tou oristhentos uiou Theou en dunamei kata pneuma
agiôsunês ex anastaseôs nekrôn Iêsou Christou tou Kuriou êmôn. The wording I ponder on is "...Iêsou Christou tou Kuriou êmôn". Ricker Berry in his interlinear has it like this: "...resurrection of [the]dead- Jesus Christ our Lord; " . But all the last five words are genitive. Therefore I ask, would it be grammatically legitimate to translate them as "concerning Jesus Christ our Lord". If it read "of Jesus Christ etc." it would not sound so logical, neither would "from Jesus Christ our Lord" sound logical in this context. The "of Jesus etc." would be genitive of definition/description and the "from Jesus etc." would be ablative. But if it might read "concerning Jesus etc.", what would that be designated? It looks like a genitive as to construction but in this context what is it?

Harald
 

Pastor Larry

<b>Moderator</b>
Site Supporter
Thanks for the reply Thomas. A couple of follow up questions, since I have never really studied this.

First, how do we know that the NT was written in 8 case Greek?

Second, it appears that the five case system took the three extra cases and folded them into the genitive and dative cases since there does not appear a strict lexical difference between them. Is this the case? Or perhaps more precisely, how did the five case system come about?
 

Harald

New Member
Hi Tom. I happen to own Friberg's Analytical Greek NT. Apart from the inconvenience of having the UBS Greek text I have found it most useful. As a Textus Receptus advocate I would prefer the Greek text to be the TR. Friberg apparently holds to the five case system as can be seen from the abbreviations and symbols card which helps decipher the morphological tags beneath the Greek words. So one would have to study the context carefully to discern between e.g. ablative and genitive so as to know how to render it in another language. But it is one of those tools I use most frequently. It might be it is the only of its kind available. In those instances where the UBS text omit words in regard to the TR I check from Perschbacher's Analytical Lexicon which has all words of the TR. But as one who likes to translate the Greek myself into my two native languages as well as English it feels almost indispensable, especially as I most definitely try to consistently translate using formal equivalence. Hope this helped somewhat.

Harald
 

Pete Richert

New Member
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
So one would have to study the context carefully to discern between e.g. ablative and genitive so as to know how to render it in another language.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Or you could say it more positivily. One gets to study the context to decide between ablative and genitive (considering they have the exact same form), instead of letting someone else make the decision for you. It doesn't matter if you call it the genetive or ablative or ablative genitive, it still is the exact same thing.
 

Pete Richert

New Member
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
genetive or ablative or ablative genitive
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't want to confuse anybody. What I mean is, an ablative is still an ablative if you call it an ablative or genetive ablative (or ablative genetive) in the five case system.
 
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