It's All Greek to Me
compiled by Dee Dee Warren

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If you spend any time at all debating this matter with laypersons, you will find a tremendous amount of practising Greek without a license proving that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Greek Error 1: Matthew 23:36 and Matthew 24:34 have two entirely different words for "this" in the phrase "this" generation.

This was a recent assertion by a Strong's exegete (Ty Rockwell) at the TheologyWeb forum. Our resident Greek expert John Reece handily took Ty out behind the woodshed and educated him. The material I present below is entirely his work and doing and his words. I will try to present it as a point by point between Ty and John as much as I can, quoting them directly when possible in this format http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?t=104684. To make it clear, the Greek work presented here is the work of John Reece, not I.

Ty Rockwell: It must be noted that the "this generation" in Matthew 24:34 are different words than the "this generation" in Matthew 23:36. The "this" in 23:36 refers to the present generation to whom Jesus was speaking. The "this" in 24:34 speaks to "that" generation, as the word "this" is outside of the time speaking. The greek word for 'this' being, 'autos' in a third person, other, or 'that same' same.

I just love when futurists assert that "this" really means "that." My friend Ty here asserts that "this" means "that" because allegedly two different Greek words for "this" are used - ironically the Greek for "that" isn't used. LOL.

John Reece: No, not different words; rather, different grammatical inflections of the same words.

The grammatical inflections noted above differ in the respective verses because:

pwned!

Ty Rockwell: I know that the word "this" is essentially the same, with a slight difference. The aspect in the definition that is called a "reflexive, baffling wind" also has a sense of "backward" to it. That same "reflexive, baffling wind" is also found in Revelation 4:1 in the phrase "after this," which in the Greek is "hereafter, hereafter" (the double not a typo) suggesting a traversing of time. Strong's also calls the "reflexive, baffling wind" root 'seldom used.' My point is that the 'this' of Matthew 23:36 has an immediacy, an accusative case, and the object of the verb emphasis to that specific generation, while the Matthew 24:34 sense is for a nominative case, beginning in the same specific generation but continuing, traversing time, not only in 'this' generation.
John Reece: There is absolutely no difference in the sense of the word in 23:36 and 24:34. In terms of the definition of ουτος (houtos = "this"), there is no aspect in the definition that is called "a relexive, baffling wind." The fact that the term is in the accusative case in 23:36 and is in the nominative case in 24:34 makes absolutely no difference in the meaning of the term in the respective contexts.

Out comes the Strong's.....

Ty Rockwell: 3778 houtos (hoo'-tos);

including nominative masculine plural houtoi (hoo'-toy); nominative feminine singular haute (how'-tay); and nominative feminine plural hautai (how'-tahee); from the article 3588 and 846; the he (she or it), i.e. this or that (often with article repeated):

KJV-- he (it was that), hereof, it, she, such as, the same, these, they, this (man, same, woman), which, who.

846 autos (ow-tos');

from the particle au [perhaps akin to the base of 109 through the idea of a baffling wind] (backward); the reflexive pronounself, used (alone or in the comparative 1438) of the third person and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other persons:

KJV-- her, it (-self), one, the other, (mine) own, said, ([self-], the) same, ([him-, my-, thyself, [your-] selves, she, that, their (-s), them ([-selves]), there [-at, -by, -in, -into, -of, -on, -with], they, (these) things, this (man), those, together, very, which. Compare 848.

Strong's is not wrong, there is a difference for the words. Its like in English grammar. Matthew 23:36 is the present tense "this generation," while the Matthew 24:34 "this generation" is the present perfect tense.
John Reece: You have cited two entirely different words:

Of the two, only the first occurs in 23:36 and 24:34. You are projecting into the respective verses distinctions that are not present in the text. It's not as though the term were a verb.
Ty Rockwell: Didn't we already establish that the word for "this" in 23:36 is slightly different than the "this" in 24:34, and that you said there was a difference in 'inflection, while into english they are both still translated 'this'?

Matt.23:36 "this"= 5026 taute (tow'-tay);

and tauten (tow'-tane); and tautes (tow'-tace); dative case, accusative case and genitive case respectively of the feminine singular of 3778; (towards or of) this:

KJV-- her, + hereof, it, that, + thereby, the (same), this (same).

I only brought out strong's 846 to show that it came out of 3778. So, 23:36 could be stated, "this same generation." But 24:34's 'this' is 3778 By implication, if 23:36 is the dative case, then 24:34 is the non-dative case, allowing for a wider time, or a starting time.
John Reece: No we didn't already establish that the word for "this" is slightly different in each verse. You merely made an assertion - contrary to fact - that there is a difference. I have demonstrated that in terms of meaning there is no difference at all in the sense of the word rendered "this" in the respective verses. Your use of Strong's 846 to show that it came out of 3778 is an example of the the word-study fallacy known to exegetical scholars as the root fallacy. "This generation" absolutely cannot be translated "this same generation." You are substituting the reflexive pronoun for the demonstrative pronoun with no linguistic or contextual warrant for doing so. The only dative case occurrence in 23:36 and 24:34 is the single word υμιν (humin = "you" plural), which is exactly the same in both verses.
Ty Rockwell: So, you are saying that the Strong's #5026 means absolutely the exact same thing as Strong's #3778. without any shadow of a hint of a differing application, even present tense or present perfect tense? Why, then would another word be used?
John Reece: What you refer to as "two distinct words" is in fact not "two distinct words". If only you knew enough Greek to look up the word (there's only one, not two) in a Greek lexicon you would find the word listed under a single heading irrespective of it's varying inflections in different contexts. By the way, when I say "a Greek lexicon", Strong's does not count, as it is essentially a concordance with definitions that are all too often erroneous and even more often misinterpreted by people who can only look up words by numbers and then misunderstand what they find. The word rendered "this" in 23:36 and the word rendered "this" in 24:34 is the exact same word. In the Greek text, the difference in case (accusative in 23:36; nominative in 24:34) does not involve any difference in meaning. Note that the word identified by the number 3778 is represented in Strong's as have four different spellings (houtos, houtoi, haute, and hautai): one word, four spellings (and there are quite a number of other spellings for this one word, representing differences not only in syntax but also differences in the person, number, and gender of whatever word in any given context that the pronoun may modify).

Note also that you presented the reflexive pronoun (identified by the number 846) as though it were a word that occurs in 23:36 or 24:34, when in fact the reflexive pronoun does not occur in either 23:36 or 24:34.

With regard to the word rendered "this" in both 23:36 and 24:34, there is a difference in spelling because that's the way Greek distinguishes the difference between the use of the word as a part of the predicate of the sentence and the use of the word as a part of the subject of the sentence, as your quote of Strong's above clearly demonstrates.

It's like a bad carwreck. It's awful, but you just can't turn your eyes away from the carnage. If you want to see more of Ty self-destructing here is the complete TheologyWeb debate we had on the subject.

The next Greek error is not at all a "train wreck" type encounter as it was with Ty Rockwell who was at his best completely incoherent, but one that is raised by many sober minded individuals in various forms.

Greek Error 2: The phrase "until all these things take place" is better understood as "until all these things begin to take place" since the Greek verb 'genetai' is an ingressive aorist.

My first objection is practical. It amounts to "so what?" There are always wars, famines, pestilences, persecutios, and the like. The only distinct and non-repeatable event, the destruction of the Temple then-standing, didn't "begin" to take place in that generation - it took place. The "coming of Christ" (in a futurist bodily sense which I reject for that passage) didn't "begin" to take place? So this is really spitting into the wind. But on the level of Greek, it is just downright wrong. Greek scholar John Reece supplied me with this answer to this assertion:
Here are criteria which indicate that a verb may perhaps be an ingressive aorist: The aorist subjunctive (genetai) of the verb ginomai in Matthew 24:34meets none of those criteria; rather, It would be a rather significant and noteworthy grammatical phenomenon if it were true, none of the advanced Greek grammars that I have at hand (Robertson, Blass-Debrunner-Funk, Dana & Mantey, Wallace, Smyth) mention any possibility of such a take on the occurrence of genetai in Matthew 24:34. (or Mark 13:30. or Luke 21:32). [personal correspondences with John Reece May 2008]