Re: Matt. 5 - porneia
Tony Prete (tonyp@waterw.com)
Thu, 02 Oct 1997 11:23:40 -0400
At 01:15 AM 10/2/97 -0700, Julio Dam, referring to earlier posts, wrote:
> I have researched "porneia" and it comes from the Hebrew in the Tanak
>("O.T.") word: ervar davar, literally, "genital matters" occuring in
>Dvarim/Words/"Dt." 24:1-2. What ervat davar means is simply ANY genital
>problem, such as those mentioned by Wes and others.
[snip]
>
>
I'm curious as to how you arrived at "genital" (I understand "davar"
meaning "matters") when "ervat" in Deut 24:1 seems to refer, according to
Brown-Driver-Briggs, primarily to nakedness/shame, from the verb "'ara(h)."
What's more, the LXX translates this word not with "porneia" but with
"asxhmwn" which Louw-Nida associate with unattractiveness but also seems
related to "asxhmonew" (again, the notion of nakedness/shame). Kittel
traces the "porneuw" group to the Hebrew root "znh" and defines it as "to
be unfaithful" or "to play the harlot." and defines "porneia" as
"fornication" which can be literal (and include adultery) or figurative as
a term for unfaithfulness to God.
Because I'm fairly new to these languages, I may have overlooked something.
Would you provide more detail on how you determined that "porneia" comes
from "ervar davar"? Thanks.
Tony Prete
Anthony Prete
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Haddonfield NJ 08033-1444
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tonyp@waterw.com