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Make sure you understand the two ways of expressive a comparison in Croy section 226.
Sometimes you can have a statement using a comparative adjective that does not express a stated comparison. For example, "I want to build a better mousetrap!" The comparative adjective "better" is not stated in terms of a formal comparison.
When a formal comparison is stated, there are two ways to express this in Greek:
genitive of comparison: the item being compared is put into the genitive case.
ἐκεῖνος κρείττων ἐστι τούτου: that man is better than this man
genitive with ἤ: the conjunction ἤ, which normally means "or," can be used to express a comparison, leaving the object compared in the nominative case.
ὁ διώκων εἰρήνην ἐστὶν κρείττων ἢ ὁ διώκων πόλεμον: the man seeking peace is better than the man seeking war
You will see both of these constructions commonly used to express a comparison.
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Biblical Greek Online. Laura Gibbs, Ph.D. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. You must give the original author credit. You may not use this work for commercial purposes. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one. Page last updated: December 4, 2005 7:40 PM |
