FOBEISQAI φοβεισθαι was spelled φοβισθαι because both EI and I, that is ει and ι , were pronounced as [i] (like English 'ee' in feet) in the post Alexander the Great era and throught the christian millenia. for more on the spelling, see www.biblicalulpan.org and the PDF under 'greek materials'.
Why the quote? It was in the government office for public accounts and taxes and was an encouragement to pay in full. :-).
Isaac, I don't know the answer to your question about the sigma. All I know is that it often looks like a C in ancient inscriptions. Mr. Buth's explanation of the missing epsilon makes sense to me. He is describing a process called itacism.
Romans 13.3
ReplyDeleteIt's Rom. 13:3, roughly translated, " Do you wish you have no fear of authority? Do good."
ReplyDeleteOk, so why am I seeing a C shape where the sigma is? That was my guess, for theis and the sthai ending, but where is the epsilon in phobeisthai?
ReplyDeleteI claim a later editor. Proof? Irrelevant. My hypothesis is backed up by other tentative, though of course, highly probable proposals.
You should do more of these. This was fun.
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ReplyDelete*theleis
ReplyDeleteShoot, I was beat.
ReplyDeleteθέλεις μὴ φοβεῖσθαι τὴν ἐξουσίαν· τὸ ἀγαθὸν ποίει
(Rom 13:3)
What a fascinating quote to engrave on the ground! What else do we know about this?
I guess my Greek is not as rusty as I thought. Of course, I'm too late.
ReplyDeleteBlessings,
David
Isaac, ancient sigmas did look like C's. The missing epsilon in phobeisthai looks like an error.
ReplyDeleteQuite an interesting find!
ReplyDeleteThat's kind of cool. So does this version of the capital sigma help date the inscription? And when does the capital sigma come in that we use now?
ReplyDeleteFOBEISQAI φοβεισθαι was
ReplyDeletespelled φοβισθαι because both EI and I, that is ει and ι , were pronounced as [i] (like English 'ee' in feet) in the post Alexander the Great era and throught the christian millenia.
for more on the spelling, see www.biblicalulpan.org and the PDF under 'greek materials'.
Why the quote? It was in the government office for public accounts and taxes and was an encouragement to pay in full. :-).
Where can we find out more info about this mosaic?
ReplyDeleteThat was fast! John and Ryan, coffee's on me.
ReplyDeleteI've posted a follow-up with more information on the inscription here.
Isaac, I don't know the answer to your question about the sigma. All I know is that it often looks like a C in ancient inscriptions. Mr. Buth's explanation of the missing epsilon makes sense to me. He is describing a process called itacism.
ReplyDelete