Quoting bible verse in biblical greek

pmander
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Quoting bible verse in biblical greek

Post by pmander »

Hi!
I am starting to learn koine greek after the summer as a part of theological studies. But before I have this knowledge, I ask, do anyone of you know how you typically quote a bible verse in greek (italic or not, where to put book name and so on, see examples below)? And also I would very much like to know if the name of the bible book is in "capital" or "small" letters, when that book is being quoted. Since I am thinking it is going to be tattooed on my back, it would feel very stupid if it was wrong grammar or if it just looked wrong when an educated mind reads it (some might argue that it is stupid to get a tattoo in the first place).

Here are the three texts (from NA 28 online) which I want to quote :

καὶ νὺξ οὐκ ἔσται ἔτι καὶ οὐκ ἔχουσιν χρείαν φωτὸς λύχνου καὶ φωτὸς ἡλίου, ὅτι κύριος ὁ θεὸς φωτίσει ἐπ’ αὐτούς, καὶ βασιλεύσουσιν εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων.
- ΑΠΟΚΑΛΥΨΙΣ ΙΩΑΝΝΟΥ 22:5 (or Αποκάλυψις Ιωάννου 22:5? But this is probably not Koine, which is kind of a fail)

Πάλιν οὖν αὐτοῖς ἐλάλησεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς λέγων· ἐγώ εἰμι τὸ φῶς τοῦ κόσμου· ὁ ἀκολουθῶν ἐμοὶ οὐ μὴ περιπατήσῃ ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ, ἀλλ’ ἕξει τὸ φῶς τῆς ζωῆς.
- ΚΑΤΑ ΙΩΑΝΝΗΝ 8:12 (or something like Ἰωάννης 8:12?)

ὁ ἀγαπῶν τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ φωτὶ μένει, καὶ σκάνδαλον ἐν αὐτῷ οὐκ ἔστιν· (also can someone tell me what this last "flying punctuation" is? Is it correct to write that or should that be a regular punctuation or something else?)
- ΙΩΑΝΝΟΥ ΕΠΙΣΤΟΛΗ ΠΡΩΤΗ 2:10 (I have no idea how to write this in any other way. Google was not my friend.)
Peter Mänder
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Quoting bible verse in biblical greek

Post by Jonathan Robie »

I'd avoid italic here on B-Greek at least, it's less readable. I'm not sure that the book conventions for capitalizing names of books apply to tattoos, the Patriarchal Edition uses sentence case for the names of books, software tends to use all caps for book names if it uses Greek names, I have no idea why.

As you learn Greek, you'll develop your own taste about a lot of things. If you get a tattoo now, I suspect there's a fair chance that you won't be able to detect any errors, and will make different choices than you would once you learn the language. If it were me, I'd learn Greek first.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
pmander
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Re: Quoting bible verse in biblical greek

Post by pmander »

Thank you for your answer.
Jonathan Robie wrote:I'd avoid italic here on B-Greek at least, it's less readable.
So if it's a readable font there is nothing unusual or wrong quoting a bible text like it was latin characters (with italics)?
Jonathan Robie wrote:I'm not sure that the book conventions for capitalizing names of books apply to tattoos, the Patriarchal Edition uses sentence case for the names of books, software tends to use all caps for book names if it uses Greek names, I have no idea why.
Ah, I went to http://www.motorera.com and saw the Bible book names there. Are these the correct ones?
αποκαλυψις ιωαννου
ιωαννου α
κατα ιωαννην

The one I am having thoughts about is that NE 28 used the name ΙΩΑΝΝΟΥ ΕΠΙΣΤΟΛΗ ΠΡΩΤΗ for John 1. Why is this much longer than "ιωαννου α" and how would you write ΙΩΑΝΝΟΥ ΕΠΙΣΤΟΛΗ ΠΡΩΤΗ with the same type of letters as "ιωαννου α"?
Jonathan Robie wrote:As you learn Greek, you'll develop your own taste about a lot of things. If you get a tattoo now, I suspect there's a fair chance that you won't be able to detect any errors, and will make different choices than you would once you learn the language. If it were me, I'd learn Greek first.
That is a good point. I won't do anything until I have developed a sense that I feel good about all this. I would say I am starting my development in the language right here in this forum, which I feel is a good start.
Peter Mänder
Barry Hofstetter
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Re: Quoting bible verse in biblical greek

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

One thing thing I'll point out is that in ancient times, there was no convention for citing biblical books. They might say something like εν περιοχη του ευαγγελιου κατα Μαρκον, "in a passage of the gospel according to Mark" or ως Παυλος εγραψεν "As Paul wrote..." and of course, no verse references, since they wouldn't be invented until medieval times.
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.
pmander
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Re: Quoting bible verse in biblical greek

Post by pmander »

Thank you for your answer.
Barry Hofstetter wrote:One thing thing I'll point out is that in ancient times, there was no convention for citing biblical books. They might say something like εν περιοχη του ευαγγελιου κατα Μαρκον, "in a passage of the gospel according to Mark" or ως Παυλος εγραψεν "As Paul wrote..." and of course, no verse references, since they wouldn't be invented until medieval times.
That is a good point as well. I guess one can see things dialectically between the ancient and the modern, with the greek being ancient, and the quoting being more modern and find a balance that fits. I think I'll still want to use the verse references though, since I have nothing against modern influences and it might point more specifically towards which passages of John and Paul. I guess I will use the form that fills function but also looks the best according to the sense I am trying to develop.

Altough it would be a neat idea to return to the source in the way that you describe above, which will be in my thoughts.

So the bible book names of αποκαλυψις ιωαννου, ιωαννου α, κατα ιωαννην are correct in a modern sense?
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Barry Hofstetter
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Re: Quoting bible verse in biblical greek

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

pmander wrote:Thank you for your answer.
Barry Hofstetter wrote:One thing thing I'll point out is that in ancient times, there was no convention for citing biblical books. They might say something like εν περιοχη του ευαγγελιου κατα Μαρκον, "in a passage of the gospel according to Mark" or ως Παυλος εγραψεν "As Paul wrote..." and of course, no verse references, since they wouldn't be invented until medieval times.
That is a good point as well. I guess one can see things dialectically between the ancient and the modern, with the greek being ancient, and the quoting being more modern and find a balance that fits. I think I'll still want to use the verse references though, since I have nothing against modern influences and it might point more specifically towards which passages of John and Paul. I guess I will use the form that fills function but also looks the best according to the sense I am trying to develop.

Altough it would be a neat idea to return to the source in the way that you describe above, which will be in my thoughts.

So the bible book names of αποκαλυψις ιωαννου, ιωαννου α, κατα ιωαννην are correct in a modern sense?
Well, yes, they are the traditional ascriptions given to the various books. Your GNT should have them listed in the table of contents... :shock:
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.
pmander
Posts: 23
Joined: July 25th, 2014, 12:44 pm

Re: Quoting bible verse in biblical greek

Post by pmander »

Barry Hofstetter wrote:
pmander wrote:Thank you for your answer.
Barry Hofstetter wrote:One thing thing I'll point out is that in ancient times, there was no convention for citing biblical books. They might say something like εν περιοχη του ευαγγελιου κατα Μαρκον, "in a passage of the gospel according to Mark" or ως Παυλος εγραψεν "As Paul wrote..." and of course, no verse references, since they wouldn't be invented until medieval times.
That is a good point as well. I guess one can see things dialectically between the ancient and the modern, with the greek being ancient, and the quoting being more modern and find a balance that fits. I think I'll still want to use the verse references though, since I have nothing against modern influences and it might point more specifically towards which passages of John and Paul. I guess I will use the form that fills function but also looks the best according to the sense I am trying to develop.

Altough it would be a neat idea to return to the source in the way that you describe above, which will be in my thoughts.

So the bible book names of αποκαλυψις ιωαννου, ιωαννου α, κατα ιωαννην are correct in a modern sense?
Well, yes, they are the traditional ascriptions given to the various books. Your GNT should have them listed in the table of contents... :shock:
Aah. In the GNT's I've seen so far they have all been in caps. Which I don't really get and don't think it is as pretty, if one may say so. So if there is no problem using the smaller letters as above, I will probably want that on my body rather than the capital letters. Do you know what variation of ιωαννου α "ΙΩΑΝΝΟΥ ΕΠΙΣΤΟΛΗ ΠΡΩΤΗ" is (which I found in NA 28)? What does this last one mean? ιωαννου α I think I can decrypt to "John 1".
Last edited by pmander on July 28th, 2014, 10:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
Peter Mänder
pmander
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Re: Quoting bible verse in biblical greek

Post by pmander »

Barry Hofstetter wrote:One thing thing I'll point out is that in ancient times, there was no convention for citing biblical books. They might say something like εν περιοχη του ευαγγελιου κατα Μαρκον, "in a passage of the gospel according to Mark" or ως Παυλος εγραψεν "As Paul wrote..." and of course, no verse references, since they wouldn't be invented until medieval times.
I have thought about this and it feels pretty right to quote like that. How can I translate the following into greek? Would you say that this is close to how they were quoting?

How can you say: In a passage of the gospel according to John... Πάλιν οὖν αὐτοῖς ἐλάλησεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς λέγων· ἐγώ εἰμι τὸ φῶς τοῦ κόσμου· ὁ ἀκολουθῶν ἐμοὶ οὐ μὴ περιπατήσῃ ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ, ἀλλ’ ἕξει τὸ φῶς τῆς ζωῆς. (Chapter 8 verse 12)

or: As John wrote in his first letter... ὁ ἀγαπῶν τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ φωτὶ μένει, καὶ σκάνδαλον ἐν αὐτῷ οὐκ ἔστιν· (Chapter 2 verse 10)

or: As John have forseen in the apocalypse... καὶ νὺξ οὐκ ἔσται ἔτι καὶ οὐκ ἔχουσιν χρείαν φωτὸς λύχνου καὶ φωτὸς ἡλίου, ὅτι κύριος ὁ θεὸς φωτίσει ἐπ’ αὐτούς, καὶ βασιλεύσουσιν εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων. (Chapter 22 verse 5)

What do you think about that, if it is translated into greek? Perhaps even take away the paranthesis and just remember chapters and verses (I bet they did back then)?

Also do you know what the symbol after the "ν" in "λέγων·" or "κόσμου·" means (κατα ιωαννην 8:12)? Also seen after the "ν" in "ἔστιν·" (αποκαλυψις ιωαννου 2:10). What does it indicate? Is it necessary? Is it the key to understanding who Jesus was?
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Stephen Hughes
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All-caps and no references

Post by Stephen Hughes »

My suggestion is that you could write the Greek verses in Greek all-caps (without diacritics), and not write the verse references at all.
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(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Shirley Rollinson
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Re: Quoting bible verse in biblical greek

Post by Shirley Rollinson »

You could do it like an inscription, all caps, and no spaces between words, words carrying on to the next line without a hyphen :-)
e.g.
YOUCOULDDOITLIKEANINSCRI
PTIONALLCAPSANDNOSPACE
SBETWEENWORDSWORDSC
ARRYINGONTOTHENEXTLINE
WITHOUTAHYPHEN
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