ὄνομα and ὄνομά. What's the difference?

How can I best learn the paradigms of nouns and verbs and the other inflected parts of speech?
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bywaterandblood
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Joined: December 26th, 2018, 3:40 am

ὄνομα and ὄνομά. What's the difference?

Post by bywaterandblood »

I am allowing this post to answer your questions, but please note:

1) For continuing participation, please notify a moderator of your real name so that we can change your screen name accordingly. This is a formal B-Greek policy.

2) Full participation requires that you have at least begun studying Greek, either informally or formally. -- BH

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I'm not a student of Greek but this is the only page that showed up when I searched for this exact form of ὄνομά. I am researching the Greek behind Revelation 3:12 and noticed two different forms of the word ὄνομα and ὄνομά. What's the difference? I'm curious why it was translated this way when it appears, to a lay like me, to be saying, "the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God and My new name." This implies the New Jerusalem comes down from God (the Father) AND from His Son's name (His character or authority), which makes sense because other passages tell us that everything was made through Him. The New Jerusalem takes on His character and authority.

I've attached a screenshot of my two interlinear Bibles. I'd be very happy if anyone can help shed some light on this. In digging into the Greek I'm finding there are many assumptions made in the translations which, even to a lay like me, are obviously either rushed or come from a serious lack of understanding of Greek (or a third possibility that perhaps passages were translated according to limitations placed on translators by the Church).
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Barry Hofstetter
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Re: ὄνομα and ὄνομά. What's the difference?

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

1) These are not different forms of the word.

2) The syntax of this verse is every loose (as is often the case of the writer of Revelation). However, the final "my new name' is the direct object of the the main verb, "write" and not the preposition translated "of" or "from."
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
Ph.D. Student U of FL
Instructor of Latin
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
καὶ σὺ τὸ σὸν ποιήσεις κἀγὼ τὸ ἐμόν. ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε.
Jonathan Robie
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Re: ὄνομα and ὄνομά. What's the difference?

Post by Jonathan Robie »

bywaterandblood wrote: December 26th, 2018, 3:53 am I'm not a student of Greek, but this is the only page that showed up when I searched for this exact form of ὄνομά.
B-Greek is a forum for people who are at least learning Greek. And we ask people to quote the text - not with a screenshot of an interlinear, but with the text. Like this:
Rev 3:12 wrote: ὁ νικῶν ποιήσω αὐτὸν στῦλον ἐν τῷ ναῷ τοῦ θεοῦ μου, καὶ ἔξω οὐ μὴ ἐξέλθῃ ἔτι, καὶ γράψω ἐπ’ αὐτὸν τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ θεοῦ μου καὶ τὸ ὄνομα τῆς πόλεως τοῦ θεοῦ μου, τῆς καινῆς Ἰερουσαλήμ, ἡ καταβαίνουσα ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ μου, καὶ τὸ ὄνομά μου τὸ καινόν.
Let's get back to your post:
bywaterandblood wrote: December 26th, 2018, 3:53 amI am researching the Greek behind Revelation 3:12 and noticed two different forms of the word ὄνομα and ὄνομά. What's the difference?
How can you research the Greek without knowing Greek? If you want to understand Greek, you have to learn it, just like any other language.

The difference here is that ὄνομα becomes ὄνομά when followed by a word like μου. It does not change the meaning, it has to do with the sound structure of Greek, a little like the rules for when you use "a" versus "an" in English. Read about "enclitics" and Greek accentuation rules if you want to understand this. This is the trap of interlinears - you think you see something, but you don't understand the language and don't know how to interpret what you see. There are other traps - an interlinear tells you nothing about the syntax of the language, which is central to the meaning. That's one reason you have to actually learn a language to know what is going on.
bywaterandblood wrote: December 26th, 2018, 3:53 amI'm curious why it was translated this way when it appears, to a lay like me, to be saying, "the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God and My new name." This implies the New Jerusalem comes down from God (the Father) AND from His Son's name (His character or authority), which makes sense because other passages tell us that everything was made through Him. The New Jerusalem takes on His character and authority.

I've attached a screenshot of my two interlinear Bibles. I'd be very happy if anyone can help shed some light on this. In digging into the Greek I'm finding there are many assumptions made in the translations which, even to a lay like me, are obviously either rushed or come from a serious lack of understanding of Greek (or a third possibility that perhaps passages were translated according to limitations placed on translators by the Church).
An interlinear tells you nothing about the syntax of a passage. Seriously. In general, interlinears are mostly unhelpful, giving the impression that you see what is going on when you don't. And if you don't know Greek, how can you possibly be in a position to criticize the translations?

As Barry points out, the syntax here is loose, but he is saying he is going to write three names on him (γράψω ἐπ’ αὐτὸν ...):

καὶ γράψω ἐπ’ αὐτὸν
1. τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ θεοῦ μου,
2. καὶ τὸ ὄνομα τῆς πόλεως τοῦ θεοῦ μου, τῆς καινῆς Ἰερουσαλήμ, ἡ καταβαίνουσα ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ μου,
3. καὶ τὸ ὄνομά μου τὸ καινόν.

You could imagine that middle part written with parentheses:

καὶ τὸ ὄνομα τῆς πόλεως τοῦ θεοῦ μου (τῆς καινῆς Ἰερουσαλήμ, ἡ καταβαίνουσα ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ μου)
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Devenios Doulenios
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Re: ὄνομα and ὄνομά. What's the difference?

Post by Devenios Doulenios »

I definitely second what Barry and Jonathan said about learning Greek. If you aren't yet learning the language, how can you research it in any meaningful way? How could you evaluate your findings? In the present state of your knowledge, things might seem odd to you that are, in fact, perfectly normal for Greek usage.

I don't say any of this to discourage you, but to help you be realistic. We encourage you to start learning Greek. If you do, you will find a lot of help and good advice here on B-Greek.

Dewayne Dulaney
Δεβένιος Δουλένιος
Dewayne Dulaney
Δεβένιος Δουλένιος

Blog: https://letancientvoicesspeak.wordpress.com/

"Ὁδοὶ δύο εἰσί, μία τῆς ζωῆς καὶ μία τοῦ θανάτου."--Διδαχή Α, α'
Devenios Doulenios
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Re: ὄνομα and ὄνομά. What's the difference?

Post by Devenios Doulenios »

Jonathan wrote:
And if you don't know Greek, how can you possibly be in a position to criticize the translations?
Amen! Translation, and the skill to evaluate translations, requires a high order of competency in the language(s) the translation is made from, and the target language . As Dr. Seamus Macdonald notes, translation is a high-order skill, not a low-order one. Thus, attempting to learn a language by translating won't truly get you there. To be a competent translator, you have to already mastered the language to a large degree. You can, of course, improve translation skills with practice. But mastery of the language has to come first.
Dewayne Dulaney
Δεβένιος Δουλένιος

Blog: https://letancientvoicesspeak.wordpress.com/

"Ὁδοὶ δύο εἰσί, μία τῆς ζωῆς καὶ μία τοῦ θανάτου."--Διδαχή Α, α'
Shirley Rollinson
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Re: ὄνομα and ὄνομά. What's the difference?

Post by Shirley Rollinson »

bywaterandblood wrote: December 26th, 2018, 3:53 am - - - snip snip - - -

**********

I'm not a student of Greek but this is the only page that showed up when I searched for this exact form of ὄνομά. I am researching the Greek behind Revelation 3:12 and noticed two different forms of the word ὄνομα and ὄνομά. What's the difference? I'm curious why it was translated this way when it appears, to a lay like me, to be saying, "the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God and My new name." This implies the New Jerusalem comes down from God (the Father) AND from His Son's name (His character or authority), which makes sense because other passages tell us that everything was made through Him. The New Jerusalem takes on His character and authority.

I've attached a screenshot of my two interlinear Bibles. I'd be very happy if anyone can help shed some light on this. In digging into the Greek I'm finding there are many assumptions made in the translations which, even to a lay like me, are obviously either rushed or come from a serious lack of understanding of Greek (or a third possibility that perhaps passages were translated according to limitations placed on translators by the Church).
Your question seems to be about the presence of an acute accent on the ultima (last syllable) of ὄνομά - It's not a different meaning of the word, it's just that the accent has appeared because it is followed by a word (called an enclitic) which throws an accent onto it. To learn a bit more about the language (and about accents if you wish) you're welcome to try the Online Greek Textbook at http://www.drshirley.org/greek/textbook02/index.html

Thanks
Shirley Rollinson
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