Masculine or Feminine?

[Singrkel]

Can anyone explain to me this whole masculine and feminine nouns and verbs in the Greek and Hebrew? Are there counterparts for each word? How do you know which one is the right one?

[A_PoMo]

I'll let you know in a year when I know. I'm taking Greek next year in school. Hold that thought.

[mama bear]

I don't know you, but you are so funny, I catch myself laughing out loud!!
You must be hysterical to live with.

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by Singrkel

Can anyone explain to me this whole masculine and feminine nouns and verbs in the Greek and Hebrew? Are there counterparts for each word? How do you know which one is the right one?

Greek has masculine, feminine and neuter nouns.

Generally context determines what should be used. Im not sure there are always m,F and N versions of each noun or not. For example church in greek is feminine....Now there is no reason in the context to determine the church is a she...unless in greek language all non personal bodies are "shes" then there might just be one gender word for church...for example we often refer to a ship as a she.

However I do know that nouns and pronouns most usually coincide...if the noun is masculine the pronoun must be masculine...if the noun is neuter the pronoun must be neuter.

So every time spirit is mentioned the noun is the neuter gender pnuema and so the pronoun grammatically MUST be a neuter pronoun "it".....and this IS the case in places like Romans where the Trinitarians have "himself" the pronoun is really "itself".

In John though they point out that there is a masculine pronoun with Spirit in Jn 14...however greek scholars like Daniel Wallace point out the antecedent is the masculine "comforter".

I always wondered why there seems to be only one gender for spirit...pneuma....so either they were trying to say spirit is neuter gender and OR there IS only one gender in the greek for Spirit.

[Praxeas]

If a person was male then a noun referring to him would be masculine so would a pronoun.

Also too often the gender might change the meaning a little or allow for slightly different meanings, though I have found this is not always consistant

For example the greek words for one are Hen, Heis and Mia....Neuter, Masculine and Feminine..

Trinitarians claim Hen means one in unity, which this is allowable it is not always true that Hen means a unity but can and has been used to mean one singularly....in our language we have the same thing..One can mean one in number but it can also express a unity.

Heis generally is one in number but it has also been used to mean one in unity if I remember right. This argument by the Trinitarians is blown out of the water when one realizes when Jesus quotes the Shema he uses Heis instead of Hen...so he would have the Shema as "Hear Oh Israel, the LORD our GOD, the LORD is One in number"

[Singrkel]

I guess for clarity I will explain myself. When I presented my Pastor with the hair/skirt issue, he told me that you can't use what the guy on actseighteen says because he uses the wrong translation, ie feminine and masculine. He says unless you understand the greek language, you shouldn't use strong's because you can twist things around to mean something that it's not. My husband and I are just more confused now than ever. Some people say one thing, and some people say another thing. How do I know who's got it right? If my mind can be changed from something that I once believed so strongly in, how do I know which side is right? When I used to pray or study this, it all just made sense. Now when I pray, I feel something totally different. I feel like I'm being torn in two. I just cried so hard all the way home from church last night. I keep trying not to think about this or talk about it, but I can't. I feel like I'm going to crack! My husband is a 5th generation pentecostal, and he's just as lost as I am....

[A_PoMo]

Originally Posted by Singrkel

I guess for clarity I will explain myself. When I presented my Pastor with the hair/skirt issue, he told me that you can't use what the guy on actseighteen says because he uses the wrong translation, ie feminine and masculine. He says unless you understand the greek language, you shouldn't use strong's because you can twist things around to mean something that it's not. My husband and I are just more confused now than ever. Some people say one thing, and some people say another thing. How do I know who's got it right? If my mind can be changed from something that I once believed so strongly in, how do I know which side is right? When I used to pray or study this, it all just made sense. Now when I pray, I feel something totally different. I feel like I'm being torn in two. I just cried so hard all the way home from church last night. I keep trying not to think about this or talk about it, but I can't. I feel like I'm going to crack! My husband is a 5th generation pentecostal, and he's just as lost as I am....

Shouldn't use Strong's unless you know the Greek? Really?

I'm sorry this has been so difficult for you.

[A_PoMo]

Originally Posted by mama bear

I don't know you, but you are so funny, I catch myself laughing out loud!!
You must be hysterical to live with.

U talkin' to me Mamma? If so, my wife is really good at rolling her eyes and says "Whatever!" alot. I get no respect.

[TRFrance]

Originally Posted by Singrkel

I guess for clarity I will explain myself. When I presented my Pastor with the hair/skirt issue, he told me that you can't use what the guy on actseighteen says because he uses the wrong translation, ie feminine and masculine. He says unless you understand the greek language, you shouldn't use strong's because you can twist things around to mean something that it's not. My husband and I are just more confused now than ever. Some people say one thing, and some people say another thing. How do I know who's got it right? If my mind can be changed from something that I once believed so strongly in, how do I know which side is right? When I used to pray or study this, it all just made sense. Now when I pray, I feel something totally different. I feel like I'm being torn in two. I just cried so hard all the way home from church last night. I keep trying not to think about this or talk about it, but I can't. I feel like I'm going to crack! My husband is a 5th generation pentecostal, and he's just as lost as I am....

I've studied Greek on and off for several years now, but am not an expert in Greek, certainly not to the point that I'd feel comfortable giving all the rules and breakdown of when to use masculine/feminine etc.

But I will say this. With all due respect to your pastor, I've studied enough of it to know to know that you dont need to "know the Greek language" as he pastor says, to do word studies in Greek and understand what the precise meaning of a word is. Pastors and preachers do it all the time, without "knowing the language", as do many laypeople.

If you choose to learn the Greek language, it'll takes years of study. But it doesn't take that long, with the right resources, to accurately study out and nail down the proper meaning of a word from the original language in their specific verse context.

If you'd like to assemble a mini-library of Greek/word-study tools, I'd recommend Strong's,Vine's expository dictionary og NT words, and a separate Greek-English concordance & Greek lexicon as a good starting point.

If you want to go heavy duty, I'd recommend to start with .. "Basic Greek in 30 minutes a day" by James Found; Interlinear Greek-English New Testament by George Ricker Berry, and New Linguistic and Exegetical Key to the New Testament by CL Rogers. (But start off slowly, though, before you go buying up a bunch of books. Its a mistake to buy too many books too soon.)

Also Greek Tutor is a great home-study software program that you might be able to get fairly cheap on Amazon, or Ebay as I did.

(these resources I've mentioned above are also on my Amazon.com review page, if you want to look into them more)

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But like I said, don't be intimidated or discouraged by what anyone has to say about the matter. Start with a good lexicon and you'll be well on your way. All the best.

[A_PoMo]

True all that. You can do word studies on your own.

Look up the Strong's number and see how the author of the passage you're studying uses that word. Then look at how other authors the same genre use that word. Then look at the Testament and how they use that word in that general time period. Then read the passage and the book surrounding the passage to make sure you understand the context and you can almost always figure out the correct meaning according to authorial intent. If there's a conflict then the you give more weight to how the author uses the same word in other places over other authors in the same genre, same genre over other places in the testament. The idea is to understand what the author originally meant when he wrote it to his original audience. So a little background study on the audience may be helpful too. And maybe read the same passage in 5-10 different translations in order to get a feel for how most translators interpreted that word. Don't base your interpretation on a single translator's opinion in a single version.

Clear as mud?