Ammon U: Basic Training - Ancient Greek Lesson 3

Video:

Back alley.  The fairy tale.  God inspired people to write in Greek?  Really.  Hmmm.  Very big problem.  Romans conquered the Greeks, but Greeks conquered the Romans with their language.  The ideas that are conveyed in the Bible are Greek. Not Hebrew.

Classical Philology

1.5M Greek words, 8000 Hebrew.

Don’t speak in generalities

• Bible times - linguistically absurd.   Deceptive.  Monism does this.  Scholars hate this.  It’s why classicists won’t touch it.  Because of the guardians of the fairy tale
• Ancient times - ugh….  Which times…?!?

Snip Presented:   

Hebrew died, small tribal language that died.  Supplanted by Aramaic (possibly!?!!   No), around 3rd century BCE.  Fairy tale. 

If the old testament is not Hebrew. Everyone’s in trouble.  Because yahoo has a birthday!   It was in the 3rd century BCE.

Koine is from Attic Greek dialect, dumbed down.  Paid for absorbing people who were not born with Greek. So it simplified.  Which took away from the focus of the nature

Snip Presented:

Wait a minute?  How many biblical texts do we have from this period (up to 3rd cent BCE)??  None.   There’s nothing.  No evidence.  No remains of the language from that period.    That’s an Illusion.  Fairy tale. 

200CE 500 years later some Hebrew stuff was written (too late).  But that form of Hebrew was never used among the people.  “Gods tongue” took a dive.  (And New Testament was Greek, not Hebrew)

Revive the corpse.  6-13th century CE many Hebrew words borrowed from….  Spanish, German, Arabic … What???   

If you only followed the evidence you could avoid ever being led astray.  

The Hebrew of the Bible exhibits little dialectal variety:  as if one person wrote all the books.  By one person or one group at one time in the third century.  They had to use Greek.  Because that’s all they had.   

Snip Presented:

It's a non-spoken language

• "flourishing between c. 1000 BCE" - do we have a document to cap this time range? no we dont
• "several evolving and overlapping dialects" - they have no standards for their definitions.
• "named after important literary works" - like Mishnaic Hebrew, non spoken language.

Believed.   Proposed.  Lazy language scholars.

The Bible (Old Testament) is an English translation of the Masoretic text (invented 1000CE).  The Masoretic text is irregular.  “Competes with alternative explanations”, that the features are “Aramaic?!” (substitute for reality) - the reality is that this stuff didn’t exist in antiquity, what did?   Greek!

Hellenism gave birth to, democracy.  That comes through a language.  Language has the capacity to make you aware.

Deutoronomy 7:2

• aphanismoi (ἀφανισμῷ) aphanieis (ἀφανιεῖς)

Colloquial stylistically Greek.  Hebrew can’t keep up with this.  

• aphanismos - ἀφανισμός - annihilation, extermination, destruction, obliteration; the state of being made invisible or wiped out.  Wipe away entirely.  Hebrew “charam” to ban, devote, or exterminate (dedicate people to your god of death). 

It’s not about racism.  It’s about language.  

Greek has music in it.

Joshua 6:21

In Joshua 6:24, after the city is destroyed, it says, "And they burned the city with fire, and all that was in it. Only the silver and the gold, and the vessels of bronze and iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the Lord."

Joshua 6:24

Kill the monists.  The men, the children, the cattle….   Gold dedicated to the service of god.  Not Hellenic.  Mother Greek embraces everyone.   Democratic, accepts.  Non Hellenistic concept. 

Thing hostile to theocracy:   

The language carries action of the speakers.  What we have that survives?  Is a ton of Greek. 

Happy birthday yahoo. 3rd century BCE

The authority is in the language. And if you don’t have a language you don’t have authority.

Introduction.  Now. Shut up and listen

Start thinking in Greek letters.  Verb Noun Adjective.  Basic words.

The word in its nominative singular form – This is the base or dictionary form of the word, often used for identifying it. (E.g. person, book)
The genitive singular form – This form is used to express possession or relationships between nouns (e.g., "of the person" or "of the book").
The grammatical gender – Greek nouns have three genders: masculine "ho" (ὁ), feminine "he" (ἡ), and neuter "to" (τό).

Observe

• adelphouos, adelphou, o: "adelphos" means "brother", and its genitive form is "adelphou" (of the brother), with the masculine gender (o).
• anthroupos, anthroupon, o: "anthropos" means "person", and "anthroupon" is its genitive form (of the person), again masculine (o).
  • In a sentence like Ho anthropos esti kalos (Ο άνθρωπος είναι καλός) – "The man is good."
    • "Ho" is the masculine article, and "kalos" (good) is in the masculine form to agree with anthropos.
• biblion, bibliou, to: "biblion" means "book", "bibliou" is the genitive (of the book), and it is neuter (to).
  • In a sentence like To biblion estin megalo (Το βιβλίο είναι μεγάλο) – "The book is big."  
    • "to" is the neuter article agreeing with the neuter noun biblion, and the adjective megalo (big) is also in its neuter form to match the gender of biblion.

More Examples

• ἀγορά, ἀγορᾶς, ἡ - market, assembly place
• ἀδελφοῦς, ἀδελφοῦ, ὁ - brother 
• ἄνθρωπος, ἄνθρωπον, ὁ - person
• βιβλίον, βιβλίου, τό - book or scroll
• ἔργον, ἔργου, τό - a work
• θεὸς, θεοῦ, ὁ or ἡ - god or deity
• τέχνη, τέχνης, ἡ - skill
• χώρα, χώρας, ἡ - countryside
• ψυχή, ψυχῆς, ἡ - soul, it’s in your θυμός Cupid shoots his arrows into your psuche. Eros.  The mystery of the dawn bringer. Eros is a purifier.  You can’t offer a love cash and buy their love.  True love will cross oceans. That’s Eros. You can’t buy Eros. 
• δῶρον, δώρου, τό - gift or offering 

eis, ek, e= , ev. (Prepositions)

Contrast between logos (reckoning) and ergon (doing) - the Greeks 100-200CE loved this.  The difference between verb and noun.

The bacchic empire of the mind was everything.  Not even Latin could stand it. Romans spoke Greek. There was a movement of people who will meet the exception of the science and they will demonize it.  Simple brain can’t get to these detailed/nuanced places without Greek.  This language will bring it out.

If you haven’t learned that Dike (Δίκη - DeeKay) is a woman, that justice is a woman, then maybe Julian was right and the monists will destroy your very language and set up a fairy tale.

• The Greek word for Justice as a personified figure is Δίκη (Dike), spelled with Delta (Δ), iota (Ι), kappa (Κ), and epsilon (Ε). In Greek mythology, Dike was the goddess of justice and moral order, the daughter of Zeus and Themis. She was often depicted as a young woman holding scales and a sword, symbolizing the balance and enforcement of justice.

The furies said:  your greed stains your soul with the stench of ruin

faith is good for deception.  Don’t trust your fren.  

Foundation of Greek is use your mind

The serpent was the wisest of all creatures. 

Greed is not classical.  Making over what you need to survive is greed.  The muse hates greed.  We need esoteric knowleesge.  In order to acquire it you must purge your free. That’s one of the evil ideas of Hellenism.  It’s the idea that greed is a destroyer of democracy. You want to rule yourselves?  Get rid of your greed.

• paideuei - παιδεύει - teach
• pempei - πέμπει - send

o omhros (Homer) ton anthroupon paideuel

o omhrou (Homer) adelphos (brother) paideuei (educates) ton anthroupon (person)

ton Omhron paideuei o anthroupos.

omhros tous anthroupous paideuei.

o omhros bibliois paideuei ton adelphon thn technhn.

o theos loyous eis tas, toun anthroupoun psuchas pempei.

Word order doesn’t matter.  The grammatical roles (such as subject, object, etc.) are indicated by the case endings of the words.   Order is used for stylistic or emphasis or poetic style. 

Example:  ὁ ἀνὴρ λύει τὸν παῖδα (The man loosens the child) can also be written as τὸν παῖδα ὁ ἀνὴρ λύει (The child the man loosens), the meaning remains clear because of the case endings (ὁ ἀνὴρ is nominative and τὸν παῖδα is accusative).

Nominative, Vocative, Genitive, Datative, Accusative

Memorize these endings from Unit 1.

1st declension (feminine) - word examples

2nd declension (ignore the Voc) - word examples

1st declension nouns (feminine)

2nd declension nouns (masculine/feminine, neuter)

Repetition is the mother of learning.  Become that machine.

Definite article (The) - Declension (Masculine, feminine, neuter)

How can I tell the difference between neuter and the other?   You have to figure it out.

Greek is not English.  It is more demanding. If you’re overwhelmed, that’s right.  Repetitions, memorize, do exercises, unit 1 exercises in Hansen.  Etc…

Ancient Greek sentences are “concepts thrown up into the air”, and you have to “see” the connections all at once. 

Please do not listen to strangers who try to lure you into intellectual back alleys where they can take advantage of you.  You are the intellectual marines of the renaissance.