Featured
The Contours of the Land in Israel's History
The Land of Palestine
The land of Palestine took its name from the Philistines (the Pelishtim in Hebrew) who settled along the Mediterranean coast from Joppa to Gaza about 1300–12...
Read Post
Aktionsart and Ask, Seek, Knock (Matt 7:7-8) - Mondays with Mounce 283
In first year Greek, we teachers need to make a bigger deal of Aktionsart. Meaning isn’t conveyed just by the meaning of the word, or its te...
Read More
When Not to Say “Hello” (2 John 10) - Mondays with Mounce 282
How do you treat people who disagree with you theologically?
There has been a lot of dissension in the church over this question. My compute...
Read More
What Is a “Just” Man? (Matt 1:19) - Mondays with Mounce 281
I came across another example of how word-for-word translations aren’t always translations, assuming that a translation is meant to convey m...
Read More
That Pesky γάρ (Rom 5:6) - Mondays with Mounce 280
By now we should all recognize that γάρ means much more than “for,” and yet so often I hear people complaining that translators don’t always...
Read More
When Word-for-Word Is Ambiguous (John 9:7) - Mondays with Mounce 279
I have been sensitive lately to finding passages in which a word-for-word translation is not clear but is ambiguous and perhaps even mislead...
Read More
Clarity or Ambiguity? (John 1:13) - Mondays with Mounce 278
This is another way of asking the age old question, do you err on the side of word-for-word translation or on the side of meaning? Do you wa...
Read More
What Is Worse? Removing from Scripture or Adding to Scripture? (Matt 18:11) - Mondays with Mounce 277
I was asked why all modern translations “omit” Matt 18:11. “For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost” (KJV). The form of the q...
Read More
If Only We Knew What μόνον Means (2 Thess 2:7) - Mondays with Mounce 276
I don’t know what kind of mood Paul was in when he wrote his second letter to the Thessalonians, but it is remarkable how many grammatical i...
Read More
What Does God Call You? (Acts 2:39) - Mondays with Mounce 275
In Peter’s sermon on the eschatological outpouring of the Holy Spirit, he says this. “The promise is for you and your children and for all w...
Read More
The Ambiguity of Substantival Adjectives (1 Cor 15:53-54) - Mondays with Mounce 275
When an adjective is used as a noun, it is usually clear what it is referring to. But every once in a while the ambiguity is unclear.
Take, ...
Read More
The Challenges of Apposition (Acts 3:20) - Mondays with Mounce 274
Apposition is when you want to use a substantive to qualify another substantive. One way to do this is by putting the second substantive in ...
Read More
Is “He is Risen” Passive? (Matt 28:6) - Mondays with Mounce 273
The other day in class we translated what Herod said about John. “This is John the Baptist; he has risen (ἠγέρθη) from the dead, and that is...
Read More
More on Aktionsart and How Words Convey Meaning - Mondays with Mounce 272
I have been thinking more these days about how words convey meaning. The challenge in any first year Greek class is to create a solid, accur...
Read More
Is Celibacy the “Right” Thing? (1 Cor 7:37)
Does καλῶς mean “right” or “well”? This is one of those situations where I would think we hear things differently.
Paul has been arguing for...
Read More
When is Greek Grammar Bad English Grammar? (1 Cor 9:6) - Mondays with Mounce 270
This blog can be placed in the category of the inconsistencies of formal equivalent translations, which try to keep Greek word order if poss...
Read More
The Many Faces of γάρ (1 Cor 14:23) - Mondays with Mounce 269
We all know that a word has a range of meanings. In fact, I am not sure there is a word that only means one precise thing. And while a word ...
Read More