From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Thu Dec 23 1999 - 06:52:45 EST
<x-rich>At 11:43 PM -0600 12/22/99, Grant wrote:
<excerpt>B-Greek:
Very interesting indeed! As a matter of fact, I went to the
Liddell-Scott-Jones on-line lexicon (if there's a better one, then
<bold><underline>please let me know!!</underline></bold>) at the
address of
<<http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/lexica.html>http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/lexica.html
I find this extremely interesting about the word "stauros." Look at
what I found:
<bold>stauros</bold>, ho, <italic>upright pale</italic> or
<italic>stake
<bold>staur-o</bold>, (stauros) fence with pales
<bold>staur-ikos</bold>, , on, of or by a cross,
</italic>So I see two <bold><italic>possible </italic></bold>meanings
here.
Did it mean two different things or did one meaning possibly "evolve"
after another?
Do translators translate it "cross" every time or is there a case where
it is rendered "stake?"
</excerpt>
For our purposes the important point is that it is the Greek word used
for a post with a crossbar at the top used for executions, particularly
by the Romans, and equivalent in meaning to the Latin word CRUX, whence
comes our English word "cross."
<excerpt>I've also notice that "xylon" (<bold>xi; </bold>x is not "ch";
I didn't know how to transliterate <bold>Xi </bold>since X and Z are
used) is used at Acts 5:30 (and other places) or at least the form
XYLOU is. Does XYLOU have a relation to stauros as far as meaning is
concerned?
</excerpt>
XULOS is the ordinary Greek word for wood; it can be used by metonymy
for something made out of wood, and that's the way it comes to be used
for "cross." Its essential meaning is NOT "cross."
We don't insist upon any single authoritative transliteration scheme on
B-Greek, but in the one most commonly used, what I'd call our
"standard" scheme, we use "X" for Xi and "C" for "Chi." Yet we're often
reading transliterations here that evidently do intend for an "X" to be
read as a Chi. Transliteration gets to be pretty arbitrary in those
letters that don't have an exact Roman-letter equivalent. My own
experience is probably not very different from others: it was a matter
of adjustment from what seemed more natural to me, namely the keyboard
equivalents that I use for typing in a Greek font for academic
purposes. But there are now several different Greek fonts and there are
at least three--but I think even more--different keyboard layouts used
for them. Whatever one chooses to use, one has to make an adjustment
which requires some time for getting used to it.
The standard B-Greek transliteration tables may be read at the home
page for B-Greek at the URL indicated at the end of every message
distributed by the list: <<http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek> -- actually
"sunsite" has been changed to "metalab", but the URL with "sunsite" in
it will still take you to the site.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
</x-rich>
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