The Greek Vocabulary

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In order to realize the concordant idea the whole vocabulary of the Word of God was divided into its smallest elements, having a meaningful language unit (morphemes). To these Greek Elements uniform English STANDARDS were given, which, on their part, were assigned only once to the Greek. As a result, no double meanings are possible. The corresponding interlinear is named std-2.en. In order to express the whole variety of meaning in every Greek word, these STANDARDS were adapted to every lemma of the Greek vocabulary in accordance with the rules of word-building in Greek. Moreover, idiomatic variants were added, which, as for the STANDARDS themselves, were derived from the language usage of the Sacred Scriptures by an exhaustive concordance study. Most of these variants were taken from the Concordant Literal Version of the New Testament (CLV), published by the Concordant Publishing Concern. The corresponding interlinears are named std-1/std-1b.en. Std-1 is close to the lemma of the Greek words, without observing declension, while std-1b in some cases (e.g. pronouns) is considering the case-system, which makes a specific study of these word groups easier.

In the concordant Greek-English sublinear (cles.en), the etymological expressions of std-1.en are normally given in the corresponding grammatical forms (c.f. the article The Greek Grammar and the tables of forms in the associated PDF file Intro_Conc_Gram). Also, the rules of word-building were uniformly observed (c.f. Intro_WB).

Sometimes the etymological expressions are awkward in English and therefore difficult to understand, in which case variants were taken, identifiable by small letters in contrast to the CAPITAL LETTERS of the STANDARDS. For example, we will take the word ‘eon’, literally ‘UN-IF-BEING’ or, more idiomatically, ‘ever-BEING’. While the etymological expression does not make much sense in the sublinear, the more idiomatic one can easily lead to misinterpretation in certain circumstances. ‘Ever-BEING’ does not mean ‘always being’, which brings to mind the common understanding of the word ‘eternal’ in a biblical context, but describes, rather, a period of time which is, regarded from the perspective of human experience, unreviewable – in other words ever-BEING. But this has nothing to do with the fact that an eon has a beginning as well as an end, which also corresponds to the word ‘eternity’ colloquially, when we say for instance, “I haven’t seen you for an ‘eternity'”. The exact meaning of a word derives not from its etymology only, but above all from the contexts of its usage.

Occasionally, large word-families differentiate into smaller groups, which have the same standard meaning in common, but idiomatically clearly differ in meaning, which can be seen through the variants. Frequently generic terms can be found among these variants, which can be taken as types of main variants, because they have a characteristic meaning inside their smaller word-family. If we take, for example, the standard ‘TEACH’ with the Greek Element ‘da’, which all members of the family TEACH have in common, we will find a subordinated group ‘daimon’, which gets the main variant ‘demon’ in English. Correspondingly, the sublinear (cles.en) has the expressions ‘demon’, ‘demonian-one’, ‘demoniacal’. The etymological meaning of the word TEACH can be explained by the fact, that demons are higher intelligences, which occur with all sorts of TEACHINGS and therefore are acting as TEACHERS. Nevertheless, the literal meaning is with less sense in the sublinear than the word ‘demon’, which the reader will understand easily.

If possible we have indicated these main variants in the std-1/1b.en, uti-lizing the laws of word-building, which can be seen by means of the spe-cific suffixes. Let us have a look, for instance, on the standard BEFORE-AVER with the Greek Elements ‘pro/prO/por + phE’. Immediately we will find the BEFORE-AVERer or prophet, who acts as a prophet (BEFORE-AVERER-be, prophet-be) and prophesies correspondingly. The suffix -er shows the actor, who, in his ministry, prophet-is or practices as a prophet. Accordantly the BEFORE-AVERment is a prophecy, which has an abstract meaning, according to the laws of word-building, in contrast to something showing an ongoing process. Take, for instance, the word ‘char[s]is’, ‘grace’, which literally means JOYing. In fact, grace never stops causing JOY, rather more, it is an ongoing source of JOY, at least as long we are able to open our hearts.

It is also grace (ongoing joy) to study the word of God in accord with the rules, which the great Author Himself has given in the languages of inspiration in the Sacred Scriptures. Mortal man will never be able to understand them completely. On the contrary, the deeper we investigate, the greater the divine glory will be shining. And this also has an ongoing effect, namely, that we will not stop studying and researching, in order to come closer to the God of love, Who has given His only begotten Son, The Word Who has come in flesh, to bring us all near to Him. May He be blessing these present efforts to bring the treasures of His word closer to the hearts of His beloved saints, so that they may be edified and established in belief for the laud of His glory!