Saturday, September 1, 2007

No Separation


For I have become persuaded that
OO-tuh THAHN-ah-toss OO-tuh zow-AY
(Neither death nor life)
OO-tuh AHNG-ell-oy Oh-tuh arCH-EYE
(Neither angels nor principalities)
OO-tuh en-es-TOW-tah OO-tuh MELL-on-tah
(Neither things present nor things to come)
OO-tuh dy-NA-mice
(Nor, yet, powers),
OO-tuh HYPS-oh-mah OO-tuh BATH-oss
(Neither height nor depth)
OO-tuh tiss KTISS-iss hett-AIR-ah
(Nor, yet, any other created thing)
Shall be able to separate us from the Love of God
Which is in Christ Jesus, Our Lord.

---St. Paul, Romans 8: 38-39

1 comment:

Ρωμανός ~ Romanós said...

Nice to quote the original Greek, but I notice you're using hypothetical (Erasmian) Greek pronunciation. Have you ever considered learning Kiní (Koiné) Greek using the Greek pronunciation? The pronunciation of modern Greek has its roots in the first Christian century, so with very few exceptions, the way we speak Greek today (in any of its dialects, kiní, katharévusa or dhimotiká) is very close to the way John the Evangelist, Paul, or even Jesus Christ Himself spoke it, except for the modern vocabulary substitutions. The Erasmian pronunciation may be closer to how Ancient Greek (Attic and Ionic dialect, 400 BC) was pronounced, but just like English, Greek pronunciation evolved in 400 years to the smooth, simple sounds we still speak today.

The alphabet letter names for example: álfa, víta, ghámma, dhélta, épsilon, zíta, íta, thíta, yóta, káppa, lámdha, mí, ní, ksí, ómikron, pí, and so on. If the antiquity of our Greek pronunciation weren't true, then when the Slavic alphabet was invented by derivation from Greek, they would not have had to invent a new Slavic letter shape for the hard "b" sound. Greek "B" has been pronounced as a "V" since early Christian times. This is just one example. The transliteration of Roman emperor's names into Greek letters on Greco-Roman coinage of Balkan cities also shows that our simple non-diphthong pronunciation of the vowels also goes back to the 1st century. Not AHN-thro-poy, but AHN-thro-pee (using English phonetics).

Anyway, it's good to see that you're studying Greek, Hebrew and German. Myself, I speak German fluently, and my Greek is almost as good (I learned it from Church services, by nationality I am a Polish-American), and I also study Hebrew (much easier than Greek for simplicity!).

Not overlooking the spiritual emphasis of your life in Christ, I only wanted to return the greeting, and write a little about language, which is probably my favorite earthly subject (besides history). And yes, the resurrection of the body is important. If you notice, only one other blogger is connected to me thru that "interest." It's my synergós (co-laborer) Brock "pilgrim" Smith, with whom I am linked in daily personal prayer and ministry, as God directs. You can read about some of our adventures in both our blogs.

Go with God, dear sister, and may God protect you.