Physis and Nature

I thought you might enjoy this tidbit from Louw and Nida's Greek-English Lexicon. The information can be found under semantic domain 58.8:

"φύσις,εως f: the nature of something as the result of its natural development or condition--'nature.' τοῖς φύσει μὴ οὖσιν θεοῖς 'beings who by nature are not gods' Ga 4.8; θείας κοινωνοὶ φύσεως 'sharers in the divine nature' 2 Pe 1.4.

For languages in which there is really no ready equivalent to the lexical term 'nature,' it may be possible to render the expression in Ga 4.8 as 'beings who are really not gods,' and in 2 Pe 1.4 one may translate 'to share in what God is like' or 'to be like God in certain ways.'"