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Words for Granted - An etymology and linguistics podcast

Words for Granted is a podcast that looks at how words change over time. Host Ray Belli uses etymology as a way of examining broader changes in history, culture, religion, and more.
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Words for Granted - An etymology and linguistics podcast
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Now displaying: January, 2018
Jan 26, 2018

On average, the word ‘church’ appears in English bibles 115 times. However, kuriakon, the word from which ‘church’ derives, only appears in the original Greek text twice, and its usage has nothing to do with a place of worship. The word ‘church’ is a translation of ekklesia, a different Greek word meaning ‘assembly.’ In this episode, we examine the long and complex history of how the translation of how ekklesia was codified as ‘church’ and how this translation probably isn't correct.

Jan 14, 2018

Up until Modern English, the English language distinguished between its singular and plural second-person pronouns. Thou was the singular, and ye was the plural. Today, these have been replaced by a single pronoun, ‘you.’ Thou and ye are common Biblical pronouns in English, but there's more to their usage in the Bible than just preserving an old linguistic tradition. In today's episode, we examine the semantic implications of these archaic pronouns in English translations of the Bible.

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