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Mounce Archive 9 — A Shift from "Seed" to "Person" in Matt 13:19

Categories Mondays with Mounce

From time to time we like to pull some of Bill Mounce's most intriguing and popular posts on biblical Greek from the Mondays with Mounce archives.

Today's Greek insight came to Mounce two years ago when he was reading the well-known Parable of the Sower from Matthew 13:1–23:

I was reading through the Parable of Sower and noticed something strange. It isn’t a big thing, but isn't it nice when Greek slows you down and you start to notice God’s words?

The parable starts with the emphasis on what was sown. “And as he sowed, some seeds (ἃ) fell along the path” (Matt 13:4). “Seeds” is assumed from the relative pronoun. The antecedent is not explicit, but it is implicit from the infinitive (ἐν τῷ σπείρειν αὐτὸν).

And yet, why is it neuter?

Good question! Continue reading the original post to find out, and why it matters.

bill-mounce
Bill is the founder and President of BiblicalTraining.org, serves on the Committee for Bible Translation (which is responsible for the NIV translation of the Bible), and has written the best-selling biblical Greek textbook, Basics of Biblical Greek, and many other Greek resources. He blogs regularly on Greek and issues of spiritual growth. Learn more about Bill's Greek resources at BillMounce.com.
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