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I probably shouldn't be encouraging you (since a quick glance should have told you, frankly, this site has nothing to do with Greece, Greek culture, or speaking Greek), but since our school's spring break just started (YEAH!) and I'm in a really good mood, I'll help.
This is not coming from me (much to my father's dismay - I had no interest in learning Greek or Latin), but from my dad who taught Greek for many years (at a Bible college and then a seminary).
I read him your post. You listed a Greek word not 3 Greek words. They are simply different forms of the same word which always means some type of change (we get the word metamorphosis from it). A word in any language can have a range of meanings (some being narrow and some wide). The specific meaning of most words is determined by context.
This word happens to have a narrow range of meaning. It can mean any of the three things. English translators have chosen three different English words in each of those verses but they don't represent three different Greek words. They chose different English words in each verse because each came closest to capturing the meaning of that one Greek word in each context.
A common example in reverse is the word love in English. We have one word which can have slightly different meanings or relay slightly different ideas depending on the context. The Greeks had four (well, 3 or 4). If an ancient Greek translated a book from English to Greek, and it used love in four different ways, the translator would use four different Greek words in each of those passages to express our one word: love. I hope that helps and makes sense.
Last edited by AXOmom; 03-23-2012 at 02:40 AM.
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YO. Does anyone on here actually speak Greek???
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