A Short Lesson in Greek

 

Apokolupsis and Apokalupto

 

“You see, Revelation is "apocalyptic" literature and as such is characterized by symbolic language, terrifying visions, dreadful judgments. Everything is of titanic proportions.”

 

Brother I fully realize you are using a word out of the English dictionary -- but I will use this as an opportunity to speak some things -- that should be helpful to all believers                                  on this website.

 

Actually The Book of Revelation uses the word Apok-O-Lu-PSI-Is in its title and in verse one.

 

This word is similar to Apok-A-Lu-PI-To but there are differences

 

A Greek letter O is not an A and nor is a Greek letter PI is not a letter PSI.

 

Strongs Concordance, Greek Lexicons, and other familiar biblical Language tools are a "quick and dirty" (A little computer lingo) method of interpreting words -- Originally the majority of these study aides were made in the 1800's for people that knew no Greek and Hebrew. The accuracy of these works is about 85%. This may be good enough for horseshoes or hand grenades -- but for brain surgery or in teaching the word of God there is a greater exactness required. (As is declared in scripture)

 

One of the problems in these works is that the writers of these books all use each other as their sources so that the errors and mistakes are compounded so it appears that Bible scholar: Joe Bob and Bible scholar Mike have both independently come up with the same conclusions. (The reality is they are all quoting from one another and using the same sources written in the middle ages or later.

 

The Greek in the New Testament is a very large subject so that many of these writers do have some expertise in a given area. For example Bullinger -- has a grasp on small Greek particles in the Dative Gentive and Accusative tenses and this greatly alters the meaning of many larger compound words.

 

Kittle opened up the idea that the word use in the Greek Septuagint had bearing on the Greek words in the New Testament -- but he and his disciples dealt with this only as a bit of information along with their using ancient Greek and contemporary writings as well to help define the words in the New Testament.

 

Tyndale and a few others wrote partial Lexicons which are used as the basis or foundation of Modern Lexicons like Thayers, and the Analytical Greek Lexicon.

 

I have a lengthy article on these and other issues that is far two long to post here. 

 

There are also many words in the New Testament and in the English language that are untranslated Greek words and untranslated Latin words. -- There are reasons for that which we will not go into here.

 

The word "Apocalyptic" that you used is such a word. And the English language meaning of this word is not the Greek meaning of the word. The differencing in the meaning of this word and others foreign word inserts in the bible unfortunately have some real bearing on how we interpret what we read in the bible.

 

For example the word Anti in English means Against however in the Greek Anti means: In place of, or One who stands in place of.  The word Anti-Christ is an untranslated Greek Compound word. So that Anti-Christ does not mean one who is or speaks against Christ (Though they indeed may) it means: One who stands in the place of Christ.

 

In understanding the Greek Language one must be able to see within these larger words that they are generally compound words made up of from two to six smaller words -- words which in many cases for pronunciation purposes have been hyphenated (The dropping out of letters at the beginning and the end of these smaller particle words) In effect Greek words are descriptions or sentences in themselves as opposed to a single word.  -- It takes some knowledge of the Greek to begin to see and understand these hyphenated word particles that larger Greek words are composed of. This in particular is one of the main area's that the Lexicons and Word Studies fall short – in that they generally give the meaning of only one or two of the particle words and omit the other word particles – so that the word translation is “dumbed down”.

 

The second area is that the words usage in the New Testament does not dogmatically follow the classical Greek meaning of these words -- for Christ and the Apostles are not quoting Plato or Socrates their are quoting and using the Greek from the Greek Septuagint. What we are saying here is we need to know the Classical Greek definitions of a given word or a group of particle words, but then if one is to be accurate, scholarly, one must then go and do a word study in the Greek Septuagint to fully ascertain the biblical usage of a given Greek word in the New Testament.

 

In a letter a woman quoted flawless the Classical Greek definition of the word Apostle "Apostolos"

 

But the meaning of the word "Apostolos" that Christ and the Apostles use is from the Greek Septuagint in which Moses is called an Apostolos by God and God says in Isaiah 6 Whom shall I Apostolos? To which Isaiah responds Here am I send me.

 

So that the meaning of Apostolos is not “One that is sent” but rather “One who is sent by God” or “One who is sent forth from the throne of God.”

 

Not understanding this alters our view of Christ sending forth the twelve Apostolos -- for in actuality none could do this act except for God. So Christ’s naming and sending forth the twelve Apostolos is a statement of His deity. And His giving them the ability to perform signs and wonders is a further statement of His deity as well.

 

So here we have two words that we are told are the same

 

Apokolupsis and Apokalupto

 

Apo-Kolu-Psis
Apo- Is a moving away from the surface   Kolu - Koluo - To cut off, To shorten, Psyis - Psyiso - To feed on the pap. [This is a stripping away and cutting off those feeding on the pap. – {The end of the world} Christ Prophesied: Woe unto those that feed on the paps in those days.]

 

Apo-Kal-Upto
Apo- A moving away from the surface, Kal- Kalos Beauty, UptoUpo That which is under or hidden [This is a stripping away from the surface revealing the hidden beauty {Of Christ and the bride} Which indeed is revealed at the end of the book of Revelation.]

 

When passages and words are properly translated they immediately line up with other passages in the bible giving conformation and attestation to the meaning of these words and biblical passages.

 

There is a very important principal set forth by God Himself in Scripture: For out of the mouth of two and three witnesses shall every word be established.  God has done this for the safety of His children so that even with the bible translations of the word of God that we have being “quick and dirty” translations because God speaks the same things over and over in many different ways the truth can not be and is not lost through faulty translators or even intentional mistranslation in places.

 

None the less it behooves those who would be preachers and teachers of the word of God, as well as those who desire to truly walk in the Spirit to become acquainted with both Greek and Hebrew in their studies.  And what we mean by acquainted is to know more about these languages than just being able to open up a Strongs Concordance, Vines Expository Dictionary, Word Pictures by A.T. Roberts, Weust Word Studies or Bullinger’s Figures of Speech and read these cookie cutter word studies, we are speaking of learning enough to begin to look up and study Greek and Hebrew from the original texts and to be able to look up these words in their full meanings in Greek and Hebrew lexicons.

 

This is the way of the Bereans that searched the scriptures in their original languages nightly to see if the things that Paul the Apostle taught were indeed so. And if these Bereans could not find the texts and the words in the Hebrew Old Testament did not mean what Paul the Apostle declared them to mean, the Bereans summarily rejected what Paul taught in regards to that passage. And of this the Bereans were declared to be more honorable that any other people Paul preached to.

 

What a standard to hold preachers and teachers to. What a standard regarding church doctrine and theology.

 

Probably 30% of the populist teaching of our day would evaporate overnight if the parishioners would just open their bibles and say “Where is what you’re teaching written?” And another 45% of the populist teaching of our day would die the death if preachers, teachers and parishioners would begin to look up the original Greek and Hebrew and vigorously defend the flock of God from those who preach and teach fables and fantasy from Predestination, to Eternal Security, to the Rapture, to Ultimate Reconciliation, to the Restoration Gospel, to the Prosperity Gospel to name just a few.