Fired up! The noun πυρ (pur) means fire

The noun πυρ (pur) means fire and both these words, as well as English' many "pyro-" words, stem from the widely attested Proto-Indo-European root paewr- meaning fire (and our word "pure" doesn't, in case you were wondering). Up to the age of electricity, all artificial light came from fire, and since light has since deep antiquity represented wisdom, fire represented a means to get it.



In early human cultures, fire sat literally at the center of the tribal community. It literally kept people together and at night guided wayward members back home. A tribe's central fire rendered light and warmth, but also kept wild animals at bay. People prepared their food on fire and burned their wastes in it. Later people even learned to disinfect non-combustible items (combustible and living items were disinfected with water and soap; Numbers 31:23), which aligned fire-purification with water-washing and explains the "baptism with fire" mentioned in Matthew 3:11. Later still, people learned how to extract metals from stone and how to build hotter fires to make ever stronger metals.

The hotter a people could make their fire, the stronger these people could make their tools and weapons. That correlated the quality of a people's wisdom (that is: their practical skills and understanding of science and technology) both with their chances with the forces of nature and their international clout (Daniel 3:19).

The hotness of a fire in turn correlates to energy density, that is: how much energy you can pack into a unit of space, and thus how much work you can generate. This in turn translates to a general principle that also explains human fervor, enthusiasm and powers of persuasion. In our modern age we don't build actual fires anymore, but the nation that can pack the most energy in one device (such as an A-bomb) is still king of the hill. Fortunately for all of us, the Internet has enveloped the world in a lattice of blazing fire and it's becoming increasingly difficult for evil men to vest large amounts of energy in evil things. Mankind's central fire has never been this big and this hot, and never has so much waste and accumulated garbage been so festively consumed.

Keep reading:

http://www.abarim-publications.com/DictionaryG/p/p-u-r.html

The curious case of the name Golgotha

Golgotha is the name of the place where Jesus was crucified. The gospels of Matthew, Mark and John mention the name Golgotha, but add that this name means κρανιον τοπος (kranion topos; meaning: place of a skull, Matthew 27:33, Mark 15:22, John 19:17). Luke merely mentions that the place was called Skull, using the same wording (Luke 23:33; by some translations interpreted as Calvary). It's obviously very important that the reader realizes that the death of Jesus occurred on The Skull, but what's with that? Every detail of the gospels was carefully chosen and nostalgia was certainly not a concern. It must mean something.

Jesus dies "at the Skull" -- what's with that?

Driven by nostalgia and super-hero worship, early Christian relic-hunters scoured Jerusalem's immediate environs in search for a place that looked like a skull, and Jerusalem's lands being quite cavernous, it didn't take them long to find one. Quite conveniently, the place they identified as the Skull happened to already be enclosed by a Venusian temple from the time of emperor Hadrian. True to form they re-declared it holy, put a fence around it and began to charge admission.

Others believed that the place called Skull was in fact a place of execution or burial, assuming that there would be skulls all over the place. But a place like that would first of all violate Jewish law and would not exist (Numbers 19:16, Deuteronomy 21:23, also see Ezekiel 39:15 and Josephus, Apion.ii-29-30, "not to let anyone lie unburied"), secondly be known by a plural epithet (skulls), and thirdly more likely be known as a place of bones rather than just of skulls. Still, the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, in which Jesus was buried, was close to where He was crucified (John 19:41), and tombs usually existed in clusters or necropoleis (Matthew 8:28, 27:52). The second century document called Epistula Apostolorum explicitly states that not the place of Jesus' crucifixion but rather the place where he was buried was called Kranion, or Skull (verse 9). But still, there seems to be very little reason to refer to an entire graveyard as Place of the Skull, then or now.

Slightly more critical Bible critics realized that the ratio between the importance of Golgotha in the gospels and the importance of Golgotha in the rest of ancient writings was thoroughly askew. Why would the evangelists emphasize a place that no one else ever mentions? They surely were not tour guides pitching an important landmark for us to visit, because if they had been, they would certainly have also told us where that place precisely was. They don't.

Keep reading:

http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Golgotha.html

Why is there love?

Where does a phenomenon like love come from? How does the universe bring forth such a thing? Why is it such a universal thing that seems to work for all people, despite culture or position? The answer may be that the principle of self-similarity that spawned life upon matter and mind upon life, also generated the biological and mental equivalents of the four forces.

Sadly, our crude language fails to make a distinction between certain forms of love. But some older languages do. Probably the most famous poem regarding general love - called agape; which covers general appreciation and respect and is not directed at a certain individual (phileo) and is not celebrated in physical arousal (eros) - is a paragraph once entrusted to a small group of Corinthians, almost two millennia ago, and without having to subscribe to any possible religious validity of the text, we may recognize the amazing parallels between the agape described in 1 Corinthians 13 and the universal force we call gravity.

Gravity is a rather mild force on the individual-particle level. But considered on a larger scale, gravity is the force that literally runs and directs the universe. Every particle is subjected to gravity; the universe looks the way it does because of it. Gravity was the first force to break free from the Grand Unified force. As skillfully described by Kip Thorne in his book Black Holes and Time Warps, gravity was the creative force that brought forth the universe as we know it. Gravity is also the only force capable of getting so strong that all other forces fade away (in black holes). Gravity curves space and forms the very realm in which we live. It causes particles, planets, stars, even entire galaxies to seek common centers. And gravitational fields allow objects to believe that they are accelerating, while in fact they are stationary.

Now look at agape. Agape is the mild and general form of love, probably more accurately translated with 'respect' or 'kindness' and should certainly not be mistaken for the passionate feelings people may feel for a lover. Agape is the gentle baseline that carries the symphony; a foundation upon which all purposeful action is undertaken. What gravity is to the universe, agape is for the human mind; the total play of all minds combined, and that which they make. Culture, in one word. That from which all other things flow. Think about it. Culture the way we know it could not exist if we did not absolutely count on other people to behave in some way like ourselves. People obey the same traffic laws. They speak the same language and count the same currency (the Dollar, the Euro, the Yen; all faces of the same thing).



Agape makes people seek common centers, just like gravity does to the universe. Gravity also allows the universe to keep 'bank accounts of motion.' What is 'motion' in the mental realm? And what is it that moves? A material particle moves relatively to another particle when it absorbs at least one photon of energy. And energy is also the source from which all particles come. The mental equivalent of energy is knowledge in the broadest sense of the word; whatever the mind is acquainted with, no matter how deeply hidden in layers of subconsciousness. Knowledge, or awareness, is also the source - or rather cause - of the mental realm. When two particles exist side by side and only one absorbs a photon, the particles will diverge. When two minds exist 'side by side,' or in some kind of parallel state, and only one absorbs a bit of knowledge, the minds will diverge in their sense of reality. Motion in the mental realm is caused by awareness; 'motion' itself is perhaps the mental activity generally known as contemplation.

Keep going:

http://www.abarim-publications.com/AgapeGravity.html

Zeus

The name Ζευς (Zeus) belongs to the chief deity of the Greeks, who was known to the Romans as Jupiter. The genitive of Zeus is Dios (Διος), which corresponds to an ancient Proto-Indo-European root that expressed brightness of sky and secondarily clarity of vision. From that root come the familiar words dio and deus, meaning god, divine, meaning godly, and diva, meaning deified (feminine), as well as the name of the Vedic deity Dyaus Pitra (Bright-Sky Father).

Several New Testament names derive either from the name Zeus, or from its parent root and one peculiar adjective: διοπετης (diopetes), which combines διος (dios) and either the verb πετομαι (petomai), meaning to fly, or the verb πιπτω (pipto), meaning to fall. It denotes something both divine and falling or having fallen, and appears to have been used for sacred objects that apparently had come falling out of the sky.

This word is used only once in the New Testament, namely in Acts 19:35, which reads: "the city of the Ephesians is guardian of the temple of the great Artemis and of the [or: that being the] διοπετης (diopetes)." Also note the obvious similarities with the qualities of both Jesus (Colossians 1:15, John 3:13 and 6:38), satan (Luke 10:18, Revelation 12:9) and Lucifer (Isaiah 14:12).

Keep reading:

http://www.abarim-publications.com/DictionaryG/z/z-e-u-sfin.html

Blastus

The name Blastus occurs only once in the Bible. Acts 12:20 tells us how Herod Agrippa I had grown vexed about the people of Tyre and Sidon. What he was so upset about isn't told but the people of Tyre and Sidon were fearing his intervention and managed to entice Herod's chamberlain Blastus to plead for peace. During this meeting Herod met his untimely demise but what became of Blastus, the story doesn't tell.

The name Blastus is the same as the noun βλαστος (blastos), meaning shoot, bud, embryo, germ or even blossom. The phrase ο του βλαστος καιρος literally means "the season of (its) blastos" and denotes Spring.

Keep reading:

http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Blastus.html

Why the word Agape does NOT describe a mushy feeling but rather a measurable force

The familiar noun αγαπη (agape) is commonly translated with "love" but it's not that simple, or perhaps simpler than that. Agape does not describe a feeling, and certainly not a mushy feeling. In stead it describes a natural force that is felt in some way or form by every entity in the universe from atoms up to entire societies. Einstein once quipped that gravity is not responsible for people falling in love, but it appears that it might indeed.

In the material universe there are four natural forces. Two of these are small scale and operate only within the atomic nucleus, but the other two are large scale and those are the two forces from which all goings on in the universe derive. These two large scale forces are electromagnetism and gravity.

Electromagnetism is carried by photons and when photons are absorbed by a material particle, this particle obtains private motion, or motion relative to (usually away from) neighboring particles. This is where heat comes from. Heat is the same thing as particles going their own way, and the more energy particles privately absorb, the harder they bounce against their neighboring particles. Heating up a liquid like water causes individual water molecules to go wild, until they eventually get so excited that they jump out of the pool and become steam.

Since the universe is a giant fractal and everything complicated derives from something less complicated which is still essentially the same (this is called self-similarity), the mental equivalent of photonic absorption is getting mentally excited. The mind is constituted by what it knows, which in turn determines what it observes, which in turn determines its level of excitement. Excitement doesn't lead to more knowledge, but knowledge leads to observation, which in turn leads to the excitement of what one already knows. Excitement of what one knows sets one on a path that differs from someone who has not the identical knowledge plus excitement.

The signature autonomy of all living things comes from the private motion obtained by the absorption and conversion of photonic energy. The amount of photonic energy a particle can absorb is effectively limitless, and so is the degree of private excitement and thus the separation from other individuals. Fortunately for all particles and minds alike: absorbing energy increases one's mass and that in turn increases one's gravity.

Gravity is a force that is inherent to the mass of individual particles, and this force drives particles toward each other. On the individual scale, gravity is truly minute, and when a particle is even the least bit excited, its energy of motion totally overwhelms its gravity. But the magic of gravity is that it works collectively, and is in that regard the polar opposite of electromagnetism, which works individually.



In any widely dissipated cloud of particles, all particles go their own way due to their levels of electromagnetic excitement. But all their tiny bits of gravity work together and form a common center. The particles fly all over the place but the final sum of all their movements is a very small resultant movement toward that center. It's like playing roulette, in which nearly half of the throws end on red numbers (particle moves one way; the player wins) and nearly half of the throws end on black numbers (particle moves the other way and is back to where it started; the player loses and is back to where he or she started). But a very small amount of throws ends on the green zero. The little green zero is why the house always wins, and it's also the reason why a huge cloud of excited particles slowly contracts.

When particles interact, and this is what they do in clouds, they emit photonic energy. This energy gets picked up by particles they bounce with, which is why particles in a cloud end up having the same temperature. At the edge of the cloud this energy of motion gets beamed into space. That means that the cloud as a whole cools off. The more the particles move toward their common center, the more they cool off and the more they cool off the more they move toward their common center. If the cloud is big enough, the gravity at the core can become so incredibly strong that atomic nuclei merge. This creates heavier elements and it also turns the previously glowing cloud into a blazing star. If the star is big enough, it can ultimately become a black hole, and that's a special thing all together.

Keep reading:

http://www.abarim-publications.com/DictionaryG/a/a-g-a-p-et.html

How memories relate to tombs

The verb μναομαι (mnaomai) means to remember, to recollect or to be mindful (hence our English adjective "mnemonic"). It's used in the New Testament with pretty much the same nuances and applications as our English verb, from abruptly recalling something out of one's own memory (Matthew 5:23, 26:75, John 2:22), to reviewing one's memory in a controlled way (Acts 11:16, 2 Timothy 1:4, 2 Peter 3:2), to keeping continuously in one's conscious mind (1 Corinthians 11:2, Luke 24:6).

A first century tomb: not exactly a memorial but still known as one -- why?

The derived noun μνημα (mnema) denotes a memorial or monument. In the New Testament this word is used 8 times, see full concordance, and solely to describe a tomb. Since Jewish tradition didn't really sport tomb stones, this word seems to demonstrate that a slowly decaying body in a tomb was seen as something closely similar to a fixed memory in one's mind (how the English language acquired its phrase "skeleton in the closet" is not clear but it's doubtlessly a Jewish contribution; also see Ezekiel 37:1-14).

Note that the demoniac called Legion lived among these "items of remembrance" according to the Lucan evangelist (Luke 8:27), and this may indicate that this man was not only suffering from a demonic infestation, he was also living among the memories of a painful past and doubtlessly burdened by severe psychological trauma. Also note that a similar double meaning exists in the verb κατατιθημι (katatithemi), which means both to inter and to be remembered (favorably).

Keep reading:

http://www.abarim-publications.com/DictionaryG/m/m-n-a-o-m-a-i.html

Monogenes

Everybody knows that Jesus is the "monogenes" Son of God but what few people realize is that there are many "sons of God" mentioned in the Bible, and that the word "monogenes" is applied to three other men in the Bile and even one girl!

Read our article on this mysterious and much misunderstood word:

http://www.abarim-publications.com/Bible_Commentary/Monogenes.html

How left and right became good and bad

The adjective δεξιος (dexios) means right (the opposite of left) and is used 54 times in the New Testament; see full concordance. Particularly compared to the "left," the "right" has a decidedly positive connotation. In English we use the word "right" for things that are proper and just, whereas our word "left" hails from an ancient word that means "foolish." "Left" is also the homograph of the past tense and participle of the verb to leave, which is why it's not right to be left.




The Latins called the left sinister (hence our negative English word "sinister") and the right they called dexter (hence our positive word "dexterity," and of course the name Dexter). The Hebrews associated the right both with the south and with strength and alliance (hence the name Benjamin, or Son of the Right Hand), and thus the left with the north and weakness and hostility. The word for "right" in French is the same as our English word "adroit," meaning resourceful, whereas the French word for left also means clumsy or awkward. In English a clumsy person has two left hands.

But while the curious distinction between right and left can not be denied, it's hardly a simple matter of good versus bad. In fact, the modern folkloristic distinction between right and left is rather clearly rooted in a very sensible ancient one. And it's that venerable ancient usage that is reflected in the Bible.

Read on:

http://www.abarim-publications.com/DictionaryG/d/d-e-x-i-o-sfin.html

The noun φοβος (phobos) means fear

The noun φοβος (phobos) means fear (hence our English word phobia). It comes from the verb φεβομαι (phebomai), meaning to flee in terror or be put to flight. This verb isn't used in the New Testament, and in turn stems from the Proto-Indo-European root bhegw-, meaning to run.




The issue of fear in the Bible is curious. The prohibition (fear not) is the most repeated command in the Bible, yet fear also describes man's proper and prescribed attitude toward the deity (Deuteronomy 6:13). In our article on the Hebrew equivalent of our Greek noun, namely ירא (yara'), we propose that fear is a natural reaction to the unknown and uncontrollable. Man was commanded to rule the beasts (Genesis 1:26) and God instilled the fear of man in them (Genesis 9:2), which means that if man feared beast, the natural order was reversed.

Mankind was endowed with the gift of convention (and not intelligence, as the myth dictates), which allowed him to agree with others to the point in which he could devise speech and script and other technology that would help him understand creation and be safe in it. Knowledge allowed very little to be beyond man's control and man's natural reaction to the unknown and unexpected became humor and laughter (on a physical level, laughing and screaming with fear are pretty much the same thing). This is possibly why the "son of the promise" was called Isaac, which means He Will Laugh.

Here at Abarim Publications we suspect that the term "the fear of the Lord" is a trick-phrase like "the love of money"; it consists of two mutually exclusive elements, and that's how the issue is explained. The love of money — which in addition to all confusion, is often misinterpreted as the love for money, but no, it's the love of money — is a force that works between people just like love, which causes them to exchange goods and services, just like love. But money-love is entropy based and will always seek balance without creating anything new. Real love gives without wanting anything in return and thus propels the very realm it exist in onto a whole new existence.

To a human who is fully aware and in control of the whole of creation, the only thing that remains unknown is God. By that time, man's reaction to the unknown will have evolved from a basic fight or flight reaction to a super-collective sense of adoration and great joy (Jude 1:24).

Read on:

http://www.abarim-publications.com/DictionaryG/ph/ph-o-b-o-sfin.html

Lucifer, pleased to meet you

Doubtlessly much to the chagrin of fans, Lucifer is not a personal name and it certainly is not the personal name of the devil.

Pleased to meet you -- hope you know my name!

The word lucifer is a common Latin word and occurs in the Old Testament in Job 11:17 (= the dawn) and Job 38:32 (= some constellation), Psalm 110:3 (= the dawn), Isaiah 14:12 (see below), and once in the New Testament, in 2 Peter 1:19 (= φωσφορος, phosphoros, the Morning Star or Venus, see below).

Of all English, German and Dutch translations of the Bible, only the King James Version and the Darby Translation mention Lucifer and that only in Isaiah 14:12. All other occurrences of the word lucifer are translated as "morning star," "shining one" or "day star" or something to that extent in all European translations over the last four centuries.

Revelation 2:28 and 22:16 also speak of the morning star, but the Latin Vulgate uses stella matutina; literally star of the morning.

The only time that Lucifer could possibly be perceived as a personal name is in Isaiah 14:12, where the Lord makes the observation: "How you have fallen from heaven, lucifer, son of the dawn!". This observation is part of a larger statement addressed to the king of Babylon (14:4), in which Babylon's fall from grace is discussed. Babylon's prior rise to grace isn't mentioned in this chapter, but is part of the general rule that everything belongs to God and whatever grows, grows because the Lord makes it grow (see for instance Isaiah 45:1-7). Hence Babylon could not have risen to prominence without the blessing of YHWH, and its fall is due to Babylon's desire for wealth and power.

A similar sentiment is recorded in the Book of Ezekiel, where the prophet speaks of the king of Tyre, "You had the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty; you were in Eden, the garden of God" (Ezekiel 28:12-13). The Tyrians and the Phoenicians in general had built a highly successful empire on the basis of respect and free trade, and had achieved such great levels of skills and wisdom that Solomon had asked them to build the Temple of YHWH in Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 2). Sadly, even the Phoenicians became corrupt and were wiped out by the Romans (read our article on the name Hannibal for more details).

Because the archangel Michael kicked satan out of heaven (Revelation 12:9), and satan was present in Eden (Genesis 3), there is some similarity between satan and the kings of Babylon and Tyre in the words of Isaiah and Ezekiel, but similarity is not the same as equality, and they are really three different entities.

Keep reading:

http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Lucifer.html

The Cosmos, the Antichrist and the Second Law of Thermodynamics

The noun κοσμος (kosmos) means order. It probably stems from the verb κομεω (komeo), meaning to take care of or to tend, but apparently mostly in the sense of guiding young or untrained things to a properly behaving adult state. On rare occasions, the form κομεω (komeo) shows up as variant of the verb κοσμαω (kosmao), which means "to let hair grow long." In the classics this verb occurs much more frequently than one would expect in texts that don't necessarily tell of a tribe of hairstylists, which is because this verb also carries many a metaphor — to stick a feather in one's hair, to let one's hair down, to flaunt one's wicked do — or tells of plants and trees that wave in the breeze or grow into fruit-bearing maturity.

When we westerners hear the word "cosmos" we think of space, but that's because Pythagoras and later philosophers used our word to describe the universe as an orderly affair rather than a messy joint ran by whimsical deities. This was of course highly advanced, but what is not often recognized is that Pythagoras' choice of word implies that he imaged an evolving universe rather than a stead state one.

The Greek word kosmos means order and speaks of the Logos versus polytheism

In the universe entropy must always increase, which is why straight lines never stay straight for long and every neat pile of whatever will inevitably turn into a floating cloud of chaotic dust. The Creator created hyper-complex rainforests, vast systems of unpredictable stormy weather and the Second Law of Thermodynamics and deemed that good (Genesis 1:4, 1:10, 1:12, 1:18, 1:21, 1:25) and some of it even very good (1:31). Mankind came along and for some bizarre reason began to favor static straight lines and flat surfaces over the dynamic world of eternal change that God had taken such a shine to.

Rich people discovered that they could get richer by enslaving people who didn't think so. And that's how modern governments were invented. They set themselves in palaces and surrounded themselves with police and military, and proceeded to extract all natural energy from society and transmute that into things like infinity pools and Maseratis. That went a whole lot better if they knew where everybody was, which led to censuses (απογραφη, apograph), last names, addresses, postal codes — in short, societies that were organized like legions: people forced to stand still in rows and tiers whilst taking their instructions from a single boss, who is boss not because he is better at anything but because he was made boss by a bigger boss.

This idea of order is wonderful for the happy few who sit atop the heap, but not so for he heap. In the past it was often thought that natural evolution requires nothing but fortunate typo's and lots of time to progress, but today we know that diversity is the key. The more diverse a set is, the wider the span between the elements, and thus the more varied the combined result, which leads to a more diverse set of next generation sets. In order for humanity to go anywhere, all human individuals need to be free to do whatever they want — and 'all' means 'all'; your freedom can't limit someone else's freedom.

The order that's ordained by God (Isaiah 28:10) is one in which every human being is a christos or anointed king; sovereign, autonomous, wholly free and thus wholly responsible for their own actions. Any sort of tyranny that limits the freedom of people is precisely the opposite: antichristos, which is doomed to be ended by the very laws upon which the entire universe operates (Revelation 20:10).

Keep reading:

http://www.abarim-publications.com/DictionaryG/k/k-o-s-m-o-sfin.html

The important noun ημερα (emera) means day

The important noun ημερα (emera) means day, and survives in modern English in such useful words as hemeralopia (day blindness), hemerobaptist, (someone from a Jewish sect which practiced daily ritual bathing) and hemerocallis (a lily that flowers for one mere day).

Where our word comes from isn't immediately clear but the word ημι (hemi), meaning half (hence our word hemisphere) certainly jumps to mind, specifically when we remember Jesus saying that there are twelve hours in a day (John 11:9), which is obviously half of the twenty-four we moderns are used to. That's because, unlike our English word "day", the Greek word ημερα (emera) is solely reserved for the lit half of earth's solar day, and particularly the goings on of a day (Matthew 6:34, Luke 1:23, Romans 14:5). Our word ημερα (emera) is often used juxtaposed to νυξ (nux), meaning night, or the period without legitimate activity (hence our word nocturnal; Matthew 4:2), and the two are creatively combined into the word νυχθημερον (nuchthemeron), or "night 'n-day", which covers the whole twenty-four hour cycle (see below).

Rather than exclusively denoting a stretch of clock-time of fixed length, our word ημερα (emera) may in a poetic sense denote any continual period during which legitimate activity is performed without interruption. As such our word ημερα (emera) means "uninterrupted procedure" or "routine" and may be used synonymously with "trial/hearing/test" (Acts 17:31, 1 Corinthians 4:3, 3:13). Hence Jesus submitted that he had been in the temple daily, or the whole time, while the evil of darkness continued nightly, also the whole time (Luke 22:53).

On the "the day of John's public appearance to Israel" (Luke 1:80), John may have showed up first but his initial showing up was the beginning of continued public activity. The "day of slaughter" (James 5:5), likewise, may not be associated with one particular calendar day and will probably also not last precisely twelve hours, but denotes an indefinite period of uninterrupted carnage. The same goes for the "day of judgment" (Matthew 10:5), the "day of redemption" (Ephesians 4:30), the "day of wrath and revelation" (Romans 2:5), and the "day of the Lord" (Matthew 7:22, Luke 17:24, Acts 2:20, 2 Peter 3:12). Likewise the "last day", upon which all mankind resurrects, is probably not a calendar day after which the earth stops spinning, but the final procedure before the new creation can commence (John 6:39-40).

Read on:

http://www.abarim-publications.com/DictionaryG/et/et-m-e-r-a.html

The noun καρπος (karpos) means fruit

What has a banana in common with a carpet?

The noun καρπος (karpos) means fruit, but has a slightly broader compass than the word fruit does in English. It derives from a very old root that also gave rise to our English words "carpet", "excerpt" and the verbal element "carp" in words such as "carpology" (the biology of fruits and seeds) and "mericarp" (a particular portion of a fruit). Our noun also resulted in the name of the abundantly fruitful fish, the carp, and corresponds to the Latin verb carpo, from whence we have the familiar aphorism carpe diem, or pluck the day.

The ultimate meaning of the word καρπος (karpos) does not appear to emphasize the mere production of fruits ex nihilo, but rather the return on an investment (namely seeds and labor). In Greek the word for wrist is also καρπος (karpos), and although it is probably a whole different word, it was probably derived from a root that means to turn around (Liddell and Scott, An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon).

In the Bible our noun καρπος (karpos) describes the fruit of trees and plants (Matthew 3:10, Luke 12:17, John 12:24) but also the harvest of a field (2 Timothy 2:6). Our word may describe the whole produce of a project such as a vineyard (Matthew 21:41) and even one's children (Luke 1:42, Acts 2:30).

Dictionaries will state that the latter usage and the following are metaphors, but that's an auto-centric mistake. Our word is an economic term that denotes the return of an endeavor: anything that comes about after an initial investment and subsequent effort (Romans 1:13, 7:4), and that includes apples, corn, children and: deeds or works (Matthew 3:8, Luke 3:8), results or effects (hence the "fruit of the Spirit": Galatians 5:22, Ephesians 5:9, but also see Romans 15:28, Hebrews 12:11 and James 3:17), and verbal praise and thanks (Hebrews 13:15). As such, in many contexts a more proper translation of our word would be "yield" (hence the "yield" of the Spirit).

Read on:

http://www.abarim-publications.com/DictionaryG/k/k-a-r-p-o-sfin.html

The verb διδωμι (didomi) means to give

The verb διδωμι (didomi) means to give and is used largely on a par with the English verb "to give". It describes the willingly handing over of items (Matthew 4:9) or services (Matthew 10:8), giving in response to being asked for something (Matthew 7:7), bestowing on people certain powers (Matthew 10:1), wages (Matthew 20:4), legislation (John 7:19), conditions (John 10:28), answers (John 1:22), knowledge (Matthew 13:11), glory (Revelation 4:9), or breakthroughs of a socio-technological nature: a well (John 4:12), an open door (Revelation 3:8).

Our verb may be used in the sense of to offer sacrifices (Luke 2:24) or praise (Luke 18:43). It may describe a logical or procedural result or progression and as such appear where in English a verb other than "to give" is preferred: the moon gives light (Matthew 24:29), false prophets give signs (Matthew 24:24), heaven gives rain (James 5:18), the earth gives produce (Matthew 13:8).

Our verb may be used in the sense of giving up someone (Luke 7:15, John 10:29) or something (Luke 15:22, Matthew 7:6, Revelation 20:13), to commit oneself to something (2 Corinthians 8:5, Galatians 1:4), or to charge someone with certain tasks (John 5:36, Ephesians 1:22).

The verb διδωμι (didomi) is used 414 times in the New Testament, see full concordance, and comes with more than a dozen derivations such as the familiar noun δοσις (dosis, meaning a giving (hence our English word "dose") and the names Dorothy and Dorean.

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The Greek verb didomi means to give

The Greek verb εγειρω (egeiro) means to awaken

The verb εγειρω (egeiro) means to awaken, incite, rouse or rise. There's no proper English equivalent of this verb but it indicates the opposite of being inactive and inattentive (or asleep) and is as such used figuratively to describe a becoming alert or focused, or getting underway on a journey or perhaps en route to an understanding.

Our verb is often translated with terms like "rise" or "awaken" but the emphasis lies on the gathering up of one's scattered thoughts or unconscious attentions and bundling these into a unified purpose.

It's used 139 times in the New Testament, see full concordance and comes with a bunch of derivatives.

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Get Wow-Wow-Woke Already!!!

Free online concordance of Hallelujah in the New Testament

Check out our free online concordance of New Testament Greek. It lists all words that occur more than 3 times, and offers links to their respective dictionary pages and analyses of the grammar.

Guess how many times the familiar word Hallelujah occurs in the New Testament. A mere 4 times:

Check out of free online concordance of Hallelujah in the New Testament ...

The Greek noun πνευμα (pneuma) means exhalation not "spirit"

Contrary to pagan musings, when a person's breathing departs from him/her, it doesn't go anywhere, it just stops. But at the promised resurrection of the body (Mark 12:8-27, John 5:28-29, John 11:25, 1 Corinthians 15:1-58, Philippians 3:10) it returns — that is to say, the person starts to breathe again and becomes a living soul once again (see Genesis 2:7: "and Adam became a living soul"; he didn't get one).

The noun πνευμα (pneuma), which is often translated with "spirit," likewise comes from a verb that has to do with breathing (namely πνεω, pneo; and see our article on this verb to meet our noun's siblings), but this time the verb emphasizes a breathing out rather than in. The difference is colossal, because even though both inhaling and exhaling are part of the same process (namely breathing) and this very process demonstrates that a person is alive, the inhaling part is all about deeply needing something that you can get all around, whereas the exhaling part is about releasing waste products and the excess of stuff that you took for yourself but in the end had no need for.

And of course, onto our breathing-out we can piggyback a wonderful array of signals, from whistles and shouts to Psalms and Shakespeare and even scent-signals that tell our neighbors whether we are healthy or not. And that's the key idea of the spirit: the ability to bond with other beings (including God) and create the larger structures we call societies and cultures (see for instance Daniel 10:20). Likewise the Holy Spirit is not a part of God but God doing something, predominantly uniting people into what's called the Body of Christ.

Spirit is a word like electricity; it doesn't sit at some specific location and does not take on the personality of the one it moves. Spirit leads elements into a common direction, just like the wind that waves through a field of standing grain or scoops up piles of leaves and makes them dance like birds in the air. Flocks of starlings or schools of fish operate on the spiritual principle, and so do bees and ants.

It may be a bit of a let down for people who believe that incense, rainbows and healing crystals are "spiritual things", but no, there are no "spiritual things" and all spirit is willful interaction and cooperation. Our cities are highly spiritual, but so of course is our language. It's taking eons of interaction and forming agreements to produce the language we use today, and there is very little on earth that is more spiritual than language (apart perhaps from the Internet).

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The Greek verb ακουω (akouo) means to hear

The verb ακουω (akouo) means to hear (hence our English word "acoustic"). It probably comes from a combination of the prefix α (a), which in this case means "together with," and a word that probably stemmed from a hugely old Proto-Indo-European root kous-, from whence also our English verb "to hear" comes.

In the New Testament this verb is used pretty much in parallel with our English verb. It may denote the mere perception of sound (Matthew 2:18, 11:15) or the physical ability to do so (Matthew 11:5). But more often describes the receiving of certain news (Matthew 2:3, Mark 2:1) or handed down traditions (Matthew 5:21). It may describe attending a verbal presentation (Matthew 12:42), or the mental capacity to understand what was said (Romans 11:8).

Our verb may imply compliance (Luke 10:16), cooperation (Matthew 10:14), or examination (a hearing; Acts 25:22), but most often it describes the understanding and comprehension of information, which is where faith begins. Or as Paul says, "Faith is by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17, also see Galatians 3:2-5).

Our verb occurs a total of 436 times, see full concordance.

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The noun πετρα (petra) means rock but Peter means pebble

The feminine noun πετρα (petra) means rock or rather: mountain of a rock. A petra is used to build houses in and on (Matthew 7:24, Luke 6:48) or hew sepulchers in (Matthew 27:51, Mark 15:46). It's also used to metaphorize someone's firmness or strength; the Septuagint uses it in 2 Samuel 22:2 in the familiar phrase "The Lord is my petra and my fortress." Paul refers to the Meribah event in 1 Corinthians 10:4, and compares Christ to the petra from which the waters flowed (Exodus 17:6).

Petra denotes a firm foundation and as such it serves as a metaphor for faith in Jesus Christ (see our article on the word πιστις, pistis, meaning faith, for more on this).

The masculine counterpart of petra is πετρος (petros), which denotes a wobbly flint that won't supply any footing and can be tossed away at will.

Not on some innately strong rock but on these small pebbles will I build my church  ...

All this indicates that the Peter (petros) upon which Jesus would build his church was not one of strength but of ostentatious weakness and collectivity.

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