11 replies to this topic

[Bill Combs]

Is there an error in the parsing of ISA in Phil 2:6? The parsing says it is an adverb, but it appears to be an adjective.

[Ron Webber]

Although the word isos declines according to the normal adjective pattern, as Thayer's Lexicon states "the neuters ison and isa are often used adverbially from Homer down." Although rare, the adjective form can be used adverbally. Therefore, no parsing error.

Best regards,

Ron Webber
Professor of Biblical Languages
Heart of America Seminary

[Bill Combs]

I agree that ISOS can be used adverbally, but that does not appear to be the case here. Wallace's grammar calls it an adjective in Phil 2:6 (p. 174).

Bill Combs
Professor of New Testament and Greek
Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary

[Ron Webber]

Greetings Bill,

Glad to meet a fellow laborer, colleague, and Mac user. We here at Heart of America know of your ministry and appreciate you folks at Detroit Seminary. I understand your struggle with the identification of ISA as an adverb; it does look like an adjective, but it’s not. As an adjective it would have to agree in gender, number, and case with some noun it is modifying. Since it is a neuter-accusative-plural, it can not be describing HARPAGMON, a masculine-accusative-singular. Nor can it be implicitly describing Christ, as this would also be a masculine-accusative-singular. The fact that it is the neuter-accusative-plural tips us off to the adverbial identification here.

I mentioned Thayer’s Lexicon because I was away from my office and had it at hand, but Bauer, Danker, Arndt, and Gingrich’s Greek-English Lexicon also states “the neut. pl. ISA (like the neut. sg. ISON) is used as an adv … w. dat.” in the Philippians 2:6 passage (pp. 381-82). In addition Nigel Turner in his excellent volume on Greek Syntax in Moulton’s comprehensive four volume Grammar of the Greek NT identifies this word in Philippians 2:6 specifically as an adverb (p. 226). A. T. Robertson in his Word Pictures in the NT says that in the passage “ISA is adverbial use of neuter plural with EINAI as in Rev. 21:16.” (IV, 444). The commentary literature also sides with this view (Müller, NICNT, Philippians, n. 4, p. 79). While Wallace has a fine introductory volume on Greek, it is an introduction to Greek and is somewhat dwarfed by the standards I have mentioned above. Possibly he will correct his next edition.

And all that to say, the folks at Accordance got it right (as usual)

God bless, Bill. And give my greetings to Dr. Doran. We were classmates at BJU some twenty odd years ago.

Ron Webber
Professor of Biblical Languages
Heart of America Theological Seminary

[Bill Combs]

Thanks, Ron. I guess old Dan is not always right. Maybe I will try to email him and see if he has a reason for his classification. But more probably just an accidential mistake on his part.

Bill Combs
DBTS

[David Lang]

Bill and Ron,

Now that you two have hashed out what isa is, perhaps it would be helpful to give some examples of how you can use Accordance to get the kind of information Ron cited.

First, if you have BDAG, you can select the word isa in Philippians 2:6 and then choose BDAG from the Greek Tools pop-up of the Resource palette. The article on isa is relatively short for BDAG, so finding the citation of Philippians 2:6 isn't too terribly difficult. But if you're lazy like me, you can have Accordance find it for you by opening the More Options section of the Tool window, selecting 1 in the Extra fields pop-up menu, selecting Scripture from the field pop-up menu of this additional field, and entering Phil 2:6. When you click OK, the citation will be highlighted so that you don't have to strain your eyes trying to find it. You can do the same thing with Thayer or any other Greek tool, or with NIDNTT, which is technically an English tool.

Ron also cited Robertson's Word Pictures. To look this up, simply select the verse reference in the Search window and choose Word Pictures from the Reference tools pop-up.

Hope this is helpful.

[jpkang]

First, if you have BDAG, you can select the word isa in Philippians 2:6 and then choose BDAG from the Greek Tools pop-up of the Resource palette. The article on isa is relatively short for BDAG, so finding the citation of Philippians 2:6 isn't too terribly difficult. But if you're lazy like me, you can have Accordance find it for you by opening the More Options section of the Tool window, selecting 1 in the Extra fields pop-up menu, selecting Scripture from the field pop-up menu of this additional field, and entering Phil 2:6. When you click OK, the citation will be highlighted so that you don't have to strain your eyes trying to find it. You can do the same thing with Thayer or any other Greek tool, or with NIDNTT, which is technically an English tool.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I just tried this for a Hebrew lexeme and a scripture citation in HALOT... very nice!

J. P.

[Ron Webber]

You can have Accordance find it for you by opening the More Options section of the Tool window, selecting 1 in the Extra fields pop-up menu, selecting Scripture from the field pop-up menu of this additional field, and entering Phil 2:6. When you click OK, the citation will be highlighted so that you don't have to strain your eyes trying to find it. You can do the same thing with Thayer or any other Greek tool, or with NIDNTT, which is technically an English tool.Hope this is helpful.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm impressed! I thought I knew Accordance fairly well, but I'd never seen this feature before. Now I'm off to buy BDAG and HALOT.

Ron

[ajohnson]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this discussion. I'm fairly new to Accordance and was wondering what Greek text module you are both using to get your parsings. I noticed when scrolling over "isa" in the GNT-TR it parses it as an ADJECTIVE, although your above explanations as to it being an ADVERB do make sense. I checked Moulton's "Analytical Greek Lexicon Revised" and Thayer's and all that was mentioned above appears to be right on. Why does the GNT-TR still render this as an ADJECTIVE?

This may or may not be related, but I checked the printed version of the "Interlinear Greek-English New Testament" (the edition with George Ricker Berry's lexicon attached) and noticed that the diacritical marks on "isa" are different than those shown in the digital version of the GNT-TR, the same Greek text according to the printed version's introduction. But there is a foot note in the printed version referencing Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, and Wordsworth's editions which render "isa" with the same diacritical marks that are used in the digital version of the GNT-TR. What standard was used in the digital version of the GNT-TR to determine when another editor or group of editors' "version" of a word or phrase would be used instead? And when those words or phrases are replaced in the digital version and they affect the parsing do the parsing definitions reflect this, or do the definitions still reflect the parsing of the original words or phrases before they were replaced?

I hope this makes sense. Perhaps this is a question for David? Thanks all!

[Helen Brown]

The earlier posts were referring to the GNT-T which is our current release and conforms to the NA27 (although we have just found a few discrepancies and will release an update in November). The GNT-T parses isa as an adverb. Both the GRAMCORD GNT (which is no longer available with Accordance but still widely used) and the GNT-TR (tagged Textus Receptus) parse it as an adjective* in this verse. In its two other occurrences, in Luke 6:34 and Rev. 21:16, all three tagged texts parse it as an adjective.

The parsing tags for each text have a different history. The GRAMCORD GNT was done under the supervision of (or by) Prof. Paul Miller. The GNT-TR tagging was done by Dr. Maurice A. Robinson, and has been edited for Accordance by Dr. Rex Koivisto. The GNT-T tagging was done by Dr. William Mounce, and edited by Dr. Koivisto who is continuing to improve upon the details of the tagging.

In doubtful cases like this, each editor makes his own decision. I see no difference in the diacritical marks (but I am looking at pre-release updates to the texts). In this case there is no textual variant between the texts, just a difference of how the word is parsed. I will ask Dr. Koivisto whether he wishes to comment on the issue.

*My mistake, see posts below!

Edited by Helen Brown, 18 September 2005 - 03:52 PM.

[Ron Webber]

Hello Helen:

I have version 3.6 of the GRAMCORD GNT and it parses isa as an adverb in Phil. 2:6, not as an adjective. Are there conflicting editions of the GRAMCORD database?

Ron Webber

Edited by Helen Brown, 18 September 2005 - 03:43 PM.

[Helen Brown]

Oops! No it was my mistake, GRAMCORD GNT parses it as an adverb, only the GNT-TR has adjective. Although there were very minor changes in the GNT, it was a pretty stable database since, unlike the HMT and LXX, it had been in use for many years before Accordance arrived.