Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Greek Adjectives, With or Without Articles
The first tricky thing about Greek adjectives, I’m gathering, is that they can have what seems to English speakers to be an extra article. We would say “the large tree”; Greek could have “the tree the large.” From Porter’s Idioms of the Greek NT (more earlier):
The four positions of Greek adjectives:
Position 1: article-adjective-substantive
Position 2: article-substantive-article-adjective
Position 3: substantive-article-adjective
Position 4: adjective-substantive or substanstive-adjectiveActs 1:1: [TON MEN PRÔTON LOGON epoiêsamên] (I completed the first word), position 1. ...
Col. 1:2: [tois en Kolossais hagiois kai pistois adelphois en Christôi] (to the holy and faithful brothers in Christ in Colossae), position 1. Some interpreters take [hagiois] as a substantival use of the adjective, while others take it as an attributive adjective along with [pistois], which the translation reflects.
Mt 6:14: [aphêsei kai humin ho patêr humôn ho ouranios] (your heavenly father will also forgive you), position 2.
Jn 1:9: [Ên to phôs to alêthinon] (he was the true light), position 2.
Jn 14:27: [eirênên tên emên] (my peace), position 3 ...
Mk 4:32: [poiei kladous megalous] ([a mustard plant] produces large branches), position 4.
The second tricky thing about Greek adjectives is that they can modify the substantive without a linking verb where English would have one:
In Greek, the fact that these words are linked in this way is marked by the modifying word, often an adjective, not having an article ...
Mt 5:3: [makarioi hoi penthountes] (the poor in spirit [are] blessed), in which beatitudes a number of predications are made….
Mt 9:37: [Ho men therismos polus, hoi de ergatai oligoi] (the harvest [is] great but the workers [are] few), with two nominal (verbless) predicate clauses