Monday with Mounce

This is a rather technical blog on the nature of Greek appositional constructions. I imagine I lost many of you with that first sentence, but the distinction between the two forms is important exegetically. If you read "x of y," is "y" the same thing as "x" or is "y" explaining something about "x"?

Idioms can be difficult enough to translate; but when we don't know their background, we run the risk of serious mistranslation.

The present tense can describe anything from a single point in time to an imperfective action to an action devoid of any time significance. It is the difference between "I study" and "I am studying." In our passage, there is a significant difference, in fact a life and death significance, between the two.

Paul tells Timothy that the church and care for widows you are truly windows. A few verses later he says that the widow who the church should care for is the woman who is truly in need “and” (καί) is left all alone. The question is whether the καί is repeating the first requirement or adding a second.

It can be very disconcerting for people who do not know Greek to look at an interlinear Bible and not see any Greek word under an English word. Are the translators adding to God’s word? Case in point is 1 Timothy 3:11 and the question as to whether Paul is speaking of deacons’ wives or deaconesses.