Koine Greek/Exercise in Pronunciation: John 1:1-5

Try reading this out loud and check your pronunciation with the recording provided below. 1Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. 2οὗτος ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν θεόν. 3πάντα δι' αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν ὃ γέγονεν. 4ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν, καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων 5καὶ τὸ φῶς ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ φαίνει, καὶ ἡ σκοτία αὐτὸ οὐ κατέλαβεν. A Reading of John 1 1-5.ogg 1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2The same was in the beginning with God. 3All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4In him was life; and the life was the light of men. 5And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. Congratulations on reciting your first few sentences in Koine Greek! Quoting Scripture Authors can accidentally misquote the words of a verse, miss punctuation, or give the wrong reference; some can quote from different versions of the Bible in their works due to how the texts render a passage, though they must state what version they're quoting: [Book Name] [Chapter]:[Verse(s)] [Translation Author] An author who quoted from only one Bible version doesn't need to restate it after all references (e.g., the line on the copyright page can simply state that "All Scripture quotations are taken from…"), though even just one verse from another version needs to be noted. Publishers have varying quoting guidelines: some use the Chicago Manual of Style, others the Christian Writer's Manual of Style. Moreover, they write references (hyphen, comma, or en-dash between verse spans), Biblical book names (Deut., Deu., or Dt.), and the capitalizations of various scriptural words (temple or Temple; rapture or Rapture) differently. Some publishers use the lowercase letters a or b to indicate in the reference that the author is using the first or second part of a verse (Psalm 139:14a). Quote the version correctly. “Be careful, for writing books is endless” (Ecclesiastes 12:12, NLT). “Of making many books there is no end” (Ecclesiastes 12:12, NIV). “There’s no end to the publishing of books” (Ecclesiastes 12:12 MSG). Be consistent with the various style guides of your publisher. Use your style sheet to make note of how you write the references (1:3, 4 vs. 1:3-4) and whether you’re writing Bible book names out in full or abbreviating them (and how you abbreviate them). By far, the biggest key to quoting Scripture is quoting it accurately. Read the verses carefully, word by word. If the author has copied verses from an electronic Bible like Bible Gateway, still recheck it. Read each verse aloud, comparing punctuation too. With an electronic Bible, minimize the document and the electronic quotes to avoid flipping between screens. Be sure that "LORD" or "GOD" is in small caps where appropriate. Old Testament references to "LORD" or "GOD" are in small caps, as this formatting shows that the translated word was Hebrew יהוה (Yahweh), contrary to other names of God like Elohim or Adonai. Italicize correctly. Some OT texts, but often not electronic bibles, italicize words that have been added for readability in English but are absent from source texts: "And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called the Seas: and God saw that it was good" (Genesis 1:10 KJV). Foreign language must also be italicized: "About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, 'Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?' (which means 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?')" (Matthew 27:46 NIV). Use quotation marks accurately. Quotes less than five lines long are in quotation marks: “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:8 NLT); otherwise, they are put in a block: We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. (Romans 5:3–6 NLT) Nested quotations marks become single quotes: “Jesus told him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life’” (John 14:6 NLT); however, this rule does not apply to block quotes, as there are no open or close quotes around it. Also, capitalize letters at the beginning or lowercase letters that you incorporated into a sentence you wrote. Omit verse numbers. When quoting more than one verse, whether running into your text or in a block quote, you can exclude the verse numbers of each one. “Versification” refers to Bibles where each verse starts in a new paragraph (i.e., the verses aren't run together to create paragraphs) due to a stylistic decision by the publisher. When copying from such Bibles, you don't need to keep the verses separate. The same rule applies to quoting poetry in Scripture: You can preserve the poetic lines or type the poetry into a paragraph. Also note that when presenting poetry together in paragraph lines, you may need to lowercase some letters that were originally capitalized at the beginning of each new line.