LUKE not Skywalker the Evangelist

While I was "convalescing" from a nasty bout of sinusitis and its usual side effects and symptoms I was translating the preface of Luke's Gospel and let me tell you ... its even wierder in Greek!

#NTgreek #newtestamentgreek #luke #gospel

Matthew starts his Gospel with over a dozen verses listing Jesus' ancestors from Abraham to Joseph.

Mark starts with the source of the goodnews of ... cites one of Isiah's prophecies and then its straight to the action of the Baptism.

John is in the beginning was the word ...

Luke however is SO VERY HELLENIC YET STILL JEWISH !

Legend has it that Luke was a physician but Jewish or Hellenic ?

I think both !

He opens with a very greek epeideeper epei+dee+per ..since indeed or in asmuch as  or
I'll stick to the simplest translation since ... since many things I did attempt to arrange (in) a narrative about the and here's a Perfect Passive Participle of all things! ... not even a common term in Hellenisitic greek pepleerophoreemenoon his narrative is about matters pragmatoon that amongst us have been fullfilled events that happened.

He's saying this is history not a story or essay a narration based on ... verse 2 eyewitnesses those who saw the events themselves and "attendants" people who were nearby at the time 

Like Herodotus and other historians he did an enquiry before he wrote a report

Like a doctor he's asked about what happened and taken notes.

Luke also tells us and Theophilos at the beginning of Acts that his previous writings or first words were made about all the things which Jesus began to both do and teach.

Getting back to that wierd perfect passive the things and events and actions he wrote about needed to be expressed in the Perfect tense rather than Aorist because they to him were a sequence of events not one single action.

I should note some translate pepleerophorew as fully believe but note it is a compound of pleerow and phorew something fully carried out FULFILLED

Its as if he's both referring to prophecies being fulfilled but wants to stress they were actions that have consequences and are still having results.

His target audience apart from Theophilos seems to be Greek speaking Literate Jews similar to both Historical literature and the Old Testament and he is said to have come from Antioch a Greek colony.

Unlike the other apostles he feels to the need to emphasize this is history.

and this formal declaration's strength comes across in English and Greek

Next time I may look at some other prefaces ... if my wretched sinusitis finished clearing up and I don't have another relapse into being surrounded by tissue boxes and alternating coughing with sneezing.

ARCHEE the source and the origin

The Source and the Power ΆΡΧΗ

In Latin the Gospel of John begins with the famous statement

In principio verbum erat

But this is a Latin translation from Greek.

Here's Verse 1 of St John's Gospel in Greek

1. Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.

Ἀρχῇ is the dative form of ἡ Ἀρχὴ the beginning or source.

The word first appears in Greek in Homer's Odyssey and then Pindar's Odes.

This word has another meaning of being a source of origin of a flow of power and so we see it used as a suffix or prefix as – archos – arch(ee) and – arch(y) in English.

A good example especially given the Diamond Jubilee this week would be Monarch and Monarchy, two words with Greek origins that have become thoroughly established in English.

Rather like the Force in Star Wars or the Tao in Chinese?

You will see it used with a sense very similar to this if you read some Neoplatonists and Christian orthodox mystics and theologians writing in Greek.

IN French it becomes – arce, Italian arce and arci, Spanish arce, and German erz and I have seen it borrowed inot other languages with a spelling of - arky.

Don't forget there is a verb - ἄρχω