There is a new Unicode Polytonic Greek font available for all you font collectors out there. Rod Decker has the details and download instructions. His post is so complete, there is not much need for me to add to it.

The basic idea: this font supports a very wide range of characters—Hebrew glyphs, for example–but is not as professional looking as (my still-standing recommendation) Gentium (or GentiumAlt).

If you are clueless regarding this discussion, but want to better understand fonts and right way to type in Greek, start with this post by yours truly.

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1. Type in Polytonic Greek in Linux
2. New Unicode Greek Font with Text-Critical Glyphs
3. SBL’s Unicode Greek Font Finally Released!

The full set of images and text from Codex Sinaiticus, the oldest complete copy of the entire NT, is now online. Check out their webpage. The interface is pretty slick, allowing you to change lighting options, zoom in and out, and bookmark and print pages. It also includes a transcription and translation. Anyone interested should definitely check this out.

Update: The always intriguing ReadWriteWeb has also posted a story on this, with a little analysis and some extra technical details. Read that here.

HT: NT Interpretation

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Every once-and-a-while I have an edifying experience in the course of grading. It’s rare, but it happens. In the course of reading over Luke 8:10, which my Greek students had to translate for their exam, I was forced to ask (and answer) a basic question. The question is begged by the Greek, but not by the English. Here is the verse:

Ὑμῖν δέδοται γνῶναι τὰ μυστήρια τῆς βασιλείας τοῦ θεοῦ, τοῖς δὲ λοιποῖς ἐν παραβολαῖς,

The question is: What has been left out of the second phrase, which is an incomplete idea? What has been elided from τοῖς δὲ λοιποῖς ἐν παραβολαῖς? Or, to put the same question another way: what are Jesus’s parable about? Are they morality tales? Proverbial remarks? Timeless truths?

The answer lies in the parallel between the two clauses, and, in particular, between their prominent datives (notice that the datives come first in each clause).

So the first phrase is “to you”, that is, to the disciples (and those who trust in the traditions they teach: Jude 20-23). The second phrase is about “the others.” The first phrase lacks a propositional phrase, the second a direct object. So the disciples are given something, but the others, though given the same thing, receive it through an indirect medium, the parable.

So what are Jesus’s parable about? If you had to put the central message of Jesus’s parable into a few words, what would those words be?

The answer lies in the question posed by the second clause of our Greek sentence. What is given to the others ἐν παραβολαῖς? The answer: τὰ μυστήρια τῆς βασιλείας τοῦ θεοῦ.

Mysteries about God’s Kingdom.

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Copies of Westcott/Hort and Tischendorf have long been available online in digital form. Tragelles’s Greek New Testament predates both of these and is now available as a digital (Unicode!) text. Even better: the text is open licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license, which means you can use it, modify it, and distribute it to your heart’s content; just don’t try to make money off it!

You can download the digital text here. More information is available here and here.

Michael Hanel already has a Bibleworks version ready for download here. And this is a great candidate for an eBook, so I will begin working on that soon (hopefully).

Related posts:

1. Which Greek Text?
2. How to Type in Greek Part II: Setting Up the Microsoft Greek Polytonic Keyboard
3. Greek Flash Cards

In the course of preparing for their Greek finals I have received a number of wonderful questions from students about this or that passage of Scripture. And since Nick Batzig has been hounding me for over a year to include some kind of Greek exegetical comment on my blog, I thought it might be appropriate to share one with you, though it is a significant departure from my usual posts (I really try to steer clear of theological stuff here).

The question revolves around translating 1 Cor 15:26:

ἔσχατος ἐχθρὸς καταργεῖται ὁ θάνατος

Don’t let the brevity fool you. I found it very difficult to bring out the force of this in sensible English. The Greek syntax actually made me teer up a little. Here are some considerations.

• The position of ὁ θάνατος makes it difficult to bring out the “surprise” of the passage. It is appositional with ἔσχατος ἐχθρὸς: “the last enemy… namely, death.” Translating as appositional in English seems overly formal to me, though. Paul makes his point with a bit of rhetorical flair, a flair that is removed in the “literal” English.
• The verb καταργεῖται is both passive and progressive. The combination makes translation difficult, but the big problem is the force of the progressive. Most English versions regard it as futuristic, which would indicate the surety of the outcome described. I think it better to regard it as having a durative or tendential force.
• Futuristic idea: either “the last enemy to be destroyed” (most translations) or “the last enemy that will surely be destroyed is death” (focuses on the surety of a future outcome). This is possible, but it is not the best explanation. Remember we are driving to a main point in all this discussion of resurrection: the (present!) stinglessness of death (1 Cor 15:55-6).
• Tendential idea: “the last enemy is being destroyed” (that is, Christ is currently in the business now of destroying this enemy). This is my preference. See Thiselton’s 1 Cor commentary, p1234. The difficulty here is the passive. It’s really difficult to get (1) the tendential idea, (2) the passive idea, and (3) the pithiness all in one go.
• Durative idea: “the last enemy has begun to be destroyed” (that is, Christ began destroying this enemy in the past and continues to do so. This is possible, but durative progressives are usually associated with a temporal adverbial clause, which we don’t have here.
• Paul is all over the temporal and aspectual map in this section (1 Cor 15:23-28); progressives are bracketed by Aorists, which in turn are bracketed by progressives again. The whole constitutes a redemptive-historical description of the resurrection. We start with the broadest eschatological orientation: ἀπαρχὴ Χριστός, ἔπειτα οἱ τοῦ Χριστοῦ (15:23). One resurrection harvest in two parts (see Gaffin). So Christ’s resurrection starts the process, and the whole thing will be completed when his many sons (Genitive of relationship) will be raised ἐν τῇ παρουσίᾳ αὐτοῦ (temporal prepositional phrase (“when”) with a subject Genitive (“when he comes”). Within these two bookends we have a whole slew of activity, described with whole slew of progressives and Aorists and related temporal conjunctions, all of which is then described under the umbrella of Jesus’ βασιλείν. Sorting when each activity occurs can be difficult, and goes beyond the abilities of what started out as a simple post.

So the question is: can we bring all this content out with the same economy and forcefulness of Paul’s original? Here are my attempts at a translation.

Respecting the passive, though adding an adverb to bring out the tendential/durative force:

“Death, the last enemy, is already being destroyed.”

Or, avoiding the passive for the sake of clarity (our little girl has made me appreciate the NLT more than I had in the past):

“Christ is already destroying death, the very last enemy.”

Or, alternatively:

“Christ has already begun to destroy the last enemy, death.”

All of these are significant syntactic departures from the original, though.

In any case, here is my (loose, preliminary) translation of the entire passage, 1 Cor 15:22-27a:

ὥσπερ γὰρ ἐν τῷ Ἀδὰμ πάντες ἀποθνῄσκουσιν, οὕτως καὶ ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ πάντες ζῳοποιηθήσονται. Ἕκαστος δὲ ἐν τῷ ἰδίῳ τάγματι· ἀπαρχὴ Χριστός, ἔπειτα οἱ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐν τῇ παρουσίᾳ αὐτοῦ, εἶτα τὸ τέλος, ὅταν παραδιδῷ τὴν βασιλείαν τῷ θεῷ καὶ πατρί, ὅταν καταργήσῃ πᾶσαν ἀρχὴν καὶ πᾶσαν ἐξουσίαν καὶ δύναμιν. δεῖ γὰρ αὐτὸν βασιλεύειν ἄχρι οὗ θῇ πάντας τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ. ἔσχατος ἐχθρὸς καταργεῖται ὁ θάνατος· πάντα γὰρ ὑπέταξεν ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ.

For just as all die in Adam, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in its own proper order. Christ as firstfruits, then those who are sons and daughters of Christ when he comes, then the end, when he will hand over the kingdom to His God and Father, after he has destroyed ever authority and power. For it is necessary for him to continue to rule until every enemy has been placed under his feet. The Last Enemy, Death, is already being destroyed, for all things have been placed under his feet.

What do y’all think?

Oh, and I have found Thiselton’s commentary on 1 Corinthians to be a very helpful handling of the Greek text. He consistently appeals to Paul’s overarching theology in its eschatological/redemptive-historical emphasis.

Related posts:

1. Exegetical Insight, Lost Edition
2. Lost (and Gained) in Translation
3. Preach your Greek

I have written a series of guides on best practices for typing in Greek. The trick is to use Unicode. Though it requires some initial struggle the payoff is enormous, and will save you frustration down the road.

There is a new guide out for Linux users, and it looks excellent (pretty pictures). Find that here.

For Windows setup follow this guide. For fonts, check out my review here. And if you need a font with text-critical glyphs, try this.

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1. How to Type in Greek Part IV: Polytonic Greek, Linux Edition (Ubuntu)
2. How to Type in Greek Part II: Setting Up the Microsoft Greek Polytonic Keyboard
3. New Polytonic Greek Font

I’ve mentioned BibleArc before. Apparently it has recently received a major upgrade with some new features, including automatic parsing of Greek words, the inclusion of the Hebrew OT, and enhanced sharing capabilities. Check it out.

Don’t know what arcing is? Check out this video from John Piper on how he uses this tool. If you are interested in arcing and other linguistic concepts as they apply to biblical studies, check out Cotterell’s Linguistics and Biblical Interpretation

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1. BibleArc Lets You Create Thought-Flow Diagrams
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Are you using Unicode to type in ancient Greek (if not, follow this guide)? Do your prefer OpenOffice to Microsoft Office? Well today is the day where it all pays off. There is only one Word Processor in the world that spell-checks ancient Greek, and that’s OpenOffice. You can set it up by installing this plugin for OpenOffice 2.4 or higher.

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1. How to Type in Greek Part II: Setting Up the Microsoft Greek Polytonic Keyboard
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Mourning the loss of Zhubert? Me too, and I will have an update on the copyright discussions soon, and a new eBook of the GNT as well.

In the mean time there is an excellent new reader’s Bible available that is based on Tischendorf’s Greek New Testament. Check that out here. It features handy footnotes and popups. You will need Google Gears for it to work, but that’s an easy install.

HT: Justin Taylor

Update:David Stark points out that the site also displays the OT, with notes for both Hebrew and Aramaic.

Related posts:

1. Use Ubiquity to Listen to the Bible Online
2. Subscribe to ESV Bible Reading Plans
3. The Open Scriptures Project

Update: The links to the ebook in question have been (preemptively) removed pending licensing discussions. See here. Perhaps I will have time in the future to provide a Tischendorf version, which is in the open domain.

Having Googled long and hard for a free, accented, open-source, Unicode eBook of the Greek New Testament, and to no avail, I decided to make one myself.

Getting the Book

You can download the NA26/UBS4 Greek New Testament eBook in the following formats (right-click and “Save File As”): Kindle, Palm, mobi, and xhtml. Follow the instructions for your device. The Kindle version is the best, so use that if your device supports it. You can convert eBook files using the free application Calibre.

iPhone and iPod Touch users can use the free application Stanza with this guide to get everything set up (it’s easy).

If you need another format for your reader, try Stanza’s Desktop Reader to convert one format to another.

I will post about new releases and improvements on this site, so if you like what you see you may want to subscribe. There are a couple of improvements I would like to make–like sub-chapters and a better Table of Contents–but that will have to wait for another time. Stay tuned!

Licensing

The source text is for this eBook came from the MorphGNT with UBS4 (ver. 5.08) by CCAT and James Tauber, as produced by the Work Viewer web-app created by the Open Scriptures project. It is the same Greek text you will find on the much more robust Resurgence Greek Project and was originally derived from NA26.

This eBook is distributed and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license, as allowed and required by the use of MorphGNT.

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