Let's presume that you're working on Greek or never really learned how to identify the gender of Greek nouns as to whether they're grammatically masculine, feminine or neuter. If you're reading a Greek text, then how can you tell which gender the noun is?
If you have not begun to recognize the endings of nouns yet, maybe you could try this suggestion. First, I will post a well-known favorite (John 1:1):
Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.
The first noun is part of a prepositional phrase, so let's skip it for now. However, what is the gender of ὁ λόγος? One way you can tell is by the article that accompanies the noun: if you know the gender of the article, then you can easily discern the noun's gender.
The same principle applies to πρὸς τὸν θεόν, but that might be tricky for beginners since the noun form is accusative and singular and it's part of a prepositional phrase as well.
Regarding John 1:1c, θεὸς is anarthrous in this case, so you can't rely on the article to determine the noun's gender. However, notice that John 1:1 ends with ὁ λόγος, so I hope this tip comes in handy. Moreover, depending on the Greek article works with noun phrases like ἡ σοφία or τὸ πνεῦμα. Try this tip when reading Greek, but in the long term, I would recommend mastering noun endings to some degree along with verbal suffixes.
Saturday, March 25, 2023
How to Tell The Grammatical Gender of Greek Nouns
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34 comments:
http://storage.cloversites.com/koineministries/documents/TFBI%20Grammatical%20and%20Morphological%20Manual%20with%20Answers.pdf
Is pg.14 generally correct?
Thanks, Duncan. There is a lot to consider with that document, but I would have qustions about his characterization of the grammatical genders in Greek. For instance, arche and sophia are feminine, so where do they fit into his scheme? The word for child is neuter, but is a child an instrument?
I am amature at best with koine, so I don't know but I have also come across this - https://koine-greek.com/2022/07/10/gender-as-classification/
https://www.bible-researcher.com/poythress2.html
Firstly, regarding the koine-greek site, that is a nice site and I agree with their points about gender. Notice that I used the terminology, "grammatical gender," and that's because biological/ontological gender doesn't always correspond to grammatical gender. That's a conversation we've had before, but that is what the koine-greek site appears to be saying. Please keep in mind that my suggestion for identifying the grammatical gender was meant for beginners only, not for more advanced students.
Regarding the Poythress article, I need to read it more closely without distraction, but it reminds me of a discussion I had here one time. I don't wish to revisit that discussion now, but how should one handle the morphology in Revelation 14:4? οὗτοί εἰσιν οἳ μετὰ γυναικῶν οὐκ ἐμολύνθησαν, παρθένοι γάρ εἰσιν· οὗτοι οἱ ἀκολουθοῦντες τῷ ἀρνίῳ ὅπου ἂν ὑπάγει· οὗτοι ἠγοράσθησαν ἀπὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἀπαρχὴ τῷ θεῷ καὶ τῷ ἀρνίῳ
For more on morphology, please see https://whitacregreek.com/general-greek-resources/
Something I haven't mastered: is their a specific set of letters that we expect for a word for gender?
reference: Daily dose of Greek (Warning may peeve you off, highly trinitarian but teaches koine Greek, Dr Plummer)
I've listened to many videos by Dr Plummer; they contain fine information despite the Trinitarianism, which is not on every video. I've been through numerous grammar books and read various Greek works, both Trinitarian and non-Trinitarian. I still sometimes read intro works to Greek and one new work I found very helpful is the intro Greek book by Dana Harris. Bill Mounce book on morphology is good too.
But to answer your question, yes, there are patterns to Greek letters. One who wants to learn Greek needs to learn the endings but it's important to know that the ending will depend on the noun's declension. See https://pressbooks.pub/ancientgreek/chapter/19/
For Attic Greek, I used the work by Donald Mastronarde. My former classics professor likes Athenaze. See https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/athenaze-book-i-an-introduction-to-ancient-greek-9780190607661?cc=ca&lang=en&
I don't want to debate specific verses either. I recently mentioned the quality of Greek in Revelation, so I hope not to get hung up on the language, perhaps other examples? But to me, pointing out the fact that masculine and feminine, are not the best designations for the usages in these languages should be stressed. Doesn't context tell us actual sexual masculine, feminine and neuter, in most cases?
I wonder if, other than determining syntactic relations, gender is all that important for exegesis. I'm just thinking of my own reading of Greek, it's not very often that relevant. That being said it's usually not all that difficult :).
Roman, gender is certainly important for diagramming and knowing syntax is essential for good exegesis. I would say that grammatical gender informs theology as well. On the difficulty part, when one first starts, it's somewhat confusing. And may i suggest reading Homeric Greek, where the forms are even more challenging 😀
Duncan, the gender classification is old and pretty much fixed, so the chances it will change anytime soon are small. I agree that context helps, but how does one navigate the exceptions.
If I was a beginner, it would not be apparent to me that sophia is feminine or that pneuma is neuter based on context alone.
παρθένος is tricky because it was initially feminine but later used as a masculine noun plus it's got a neuter form. philosophia is also feminine, not neuter.
See also https://fosterheologicalreflections.blogspot.com/2013/06/donald-mastronarde-on-greek-grammatical.html
Another perspective: https://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/test-archives/html4/2000-07/1231.html
John 14:6-λέγει αὐτῷ Ἰησοῦς Ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ὁδὸς καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια καὶ ἡ ζωή· οὐδεὶς ἔρχεται πρὸς τὸν πατέρα εἰ μὴ δι' ἐμοῦ.
the way, the truth, the life, all feminine nouns.
Door is also feminine at John 10:9.
https://biblehub.com/text/psalms/119-160.htm Truth is feminine. The Hebrew words for way and life are not so obvious as there may be more than a single option.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CF%80%CE%B1%CF%81%CE%B8%CE%AD%CE%BD%CE%BF%CF%82
Some useful information here.
Boethius has an interesting take on philosophia.
https://theconversation.com/lady-philosophy-loving-wisdom-in-medieval-rome-45247#:~:text=If%20we%20recall%20that%20Philo,understood%20as%20our%20rational%20intellect.
This all comes back to the point that gender in this sense is grammatical: after all philosophy is an activity and truth is a quality or attribute. Boethius is also interesting. I've read the Consolation more than once and used it to teach medieval philosophy classes. See https://fosterheologicalreflections.blogspot.com/2015/03/part-of-paper-in-works-on-god-time.html
I discussed parthenos earlier and have elsewhere on thhis site, but Wiktionary makes the same points about parthenos that the word is used in masculine feminine and neuter senses.
https://fosterheologicalreflections.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-old-interpreters-bible-on-1.html
About parthenos
see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_gender
"In reality, it is likely that ships are given a female gender due to be a combination of the evolution of language and personal preferences of sailors.
Through tradition, the practice of referring to ships by female pronouns has remained consistent for centuries. Despite the recent controversy, it is likely that the tradition will continue for years to come."
This demonstrates a problem, the ongoing tradition Vs the original reason.
"Interestingly, Captain Ernst Lindemann of the German battleship Bismarck referred to his ship as 'he', in view of its awesome power."
I think most of this gender talk in ancient languages is about morphology, but part is cultural. In Greek, the sun is masculine but moon is feminine; it is the converse in Japanese mythology, at least, in Shinto.
Edgar probably knows better than I do - but from memory I read somewhere "Personification is primarily done in the feminine gender"
This says something similar but is not what I read: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/rh.1998.16.2.149#:~:text=In%20short%2C%20personified%20characters%20in,gendered%20quaUties%20of%20the%20feminine.
Note just because something is personified as female doesn't make it living or female (if living) Solomon and Jesus are both personified with feminine qualities though being male
There are many examples of feminine personification. Think of Jerusalem, Samaria, Babylon, wisdom and more
But in Hebrew, I just do not think "feminine" is an accurate designator and I am not so sure about Greek either.
It's the lingo of textbooks, Greek and Hebrew, but all say the distinction is grammatical.
I suppose my question would is that statement "primarily done in the feminine gender" true - from my observations that would be the case, I know of no instance where its done in the masculine..
I tend to believe that it is true, but personification in the bible is not limited to feminine examples. For instance, sin is depicted as a wild animal in Genesis.
and the other for the word teknon - is it neuter because perhaps (I dont have the direct quote, and am slightly paraphrasing) children were not looked on as "people" but something else - similar to Woman
(disclaimer: I don't personally agree with that ideology nor do I endorse it)
I read a book some time back about children not being viewed as full persons in ancient times. But is that the reason, teknon is neuter? Maybe, but another book says it's because babes or little ones don't have full agency.
From the TGC website:
Anthony Thiselton contends that no significance should be placed on the fact that ruach is feminine. “It is,” he notes, ‘an accident of convention that ‘spirit’ (ruach) in Hebrew is feminine, and ‘spirit’ (pneuma) in Greek is neuter. It does not suggest that Greeks viewed children as subpersonal merely because teknon, ‘child,’ is neuter” (see his The Holy Spirit—In Biblical Teaching, through the Centuries, and Today,121).
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