[B-Greek] RHMA should be PRAGMA, but what about XRHMA?

Randall Buth randallbuth at gmail.com
Sat Dec 20 15:09:18 EST 2008


Carl egrapse
> hRHMA does ordinarily mean "word" or "utterance" (grammarians use
it for "verb" as opposed to ONOMA, "noun"), but I think that in the present
context it represents the Hebrew DVR, which may mean "word" or "thing"
or "event." >

Yes, RHMA is a Hebraism and not really Greek.
which should bring up the question, "How then does one talk about 'thing'?"
this becomes important when beginning to use a language.

answer: it depends.
when talking about actions and situations, one should use 'PRAGMA'
πραγμα.
or πραξις PRAKSIS.
Cf.Shepherd 63:5
και λεγουσιν εαυτους μη ευοδουσθαι εν ταις πραξεσι αυτων.
they say that they are not succeeding in their 'affairs/things'.

However, when talking about physical or static things, then the
word of choice may be lowly XRHMA:
Jos Antiq. 11:56.
ἀθάνατον δὲ ἡ ἀλήθεια χρῆμα καὶ ἀίδιον
αθανατον δε η αληθεια χρημα και αιδιον
AQANATON DE H ALHQEIA XRHMA KAI AIDION
and truth is an immortal thing and eternal.

The problem here, of course, is that XRHMA and XRHMATA is also
idiomatic for 'money'. (for coin we have NOMISMA.)

I am disappointed in BDAG and Louw-Nida, because they don't discuss
thingy-ness for XRHMA. Louw-Nida suggest SKEYOS for generic
thing, though I would prefer to leave SKEYOS as 'implement, tool,
container.
So is 'water' a XRHMA or a SKEYOS? I would go with XRHMA in
generic contexts, and would only use SKEYOS when water is used
for a particular work.

whenever possible the Greeks seemed to avoid the need or use of a
word for 'thing' and just used an article, as in
TA TOY QEOY 'the things of God'

ERRWSQAI
IWANHS
--
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth at gmail.com
Biblical Language Center
Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life


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