# NT Greek: ανακεφαλαιωσασθαι



## Nunty

Ηello everyone,

I have a couple of questions about *ανακεφαλαιωσασθαι*, which appears in Ephesians 1:10. In French it is very literally translated as _récapituler_  and in English, a little awkwardly as _to head up_ or _to bring all things... together under one head_.

My questions:

1. Is it true that this is a neologism invented by Paul, i.e. a word not known in classical or contemporary (to Paul) Greek?

2. Is the word used in modern Greek? If so, in what sense? (I know that in English one can say "recap" from "recapitulate", but the sense is distorted to mean "pass quickly in review over known facts".

3. Do you have anything else interesting to say about the word? 

Don't worry; I'm long out of school. This is for my personal interest and growth. 

Thank you very much!


----------



## parakseno

Hello,

By my little Classical Greek knowledge, it seems to be the verb "ἀνακεφαλαιοῦμαι"... (I found the verb in the dictionary too).

My Modern Greek dictionary has "ανακεφαλαιώνω" with the meaning of "to recapitulate, to perorate, to summarize". Or as a noun "ανακεφαλαίωση" with the meaning of "summary, recapitulation".

As for the other questions... we'll have to wait for someone more knowledgeable...


----------



## Nunty

Thank you, parakseno. What a good reply to start the ball rolling! I only have  a NT Greek dictionary available, so your post gives me important new information.


----------



## anthodocheio

Hello from Greece!
I don't know if NT Greek dictionary is modern Greek or acient Greek but I can assure you that the word ανακεφαλαιώνω is part of our everyday vocabulary.

Also I'm just a native speaker and my english is poor, although the translation paraxeno gave you, and this of yours ("pass quickly in review over known facts") seem OK to me.

I hope that helps!


----------



## Nunty

Thank you, Anthodocheio. That is very helpful. 

I'm still wondering if anyone knows if this word existed well before the Pauline letters were written. A local biblicist holds that it was invented by Paul, and I am not sure that Paul, who was educated in Aramaic and Hebrew, would have actually had the linguistic ability to do so. Does anyone know how I could check that?

(By the way, by NT Greek, I mean the Greek text of the New Testament, not any particular dictionary. I'm not sure that I was clear about that.)


----------



## J.F. de TROYES

My old Greek dictionary  gives the verb and mentions that  Aristotle uses this word with the same meaning of "recapitulating"; so it seems that it was used a long time before the N.T.


----------



## ireney

Although the previous posters have already answered, I opened up my favourite Greek dictionary which also has examples with ref.  
Two examples of its use are  (we're talking about classical and NT Greek here; in modern Greek you can find it just about everywhere  ) in Aristotle frag 133 *ανακεφαλαιουν προς ανάμνησιν* (recap to remember/remind), and Romans 13,9 .

It's one of these words we usually call Greek without an adjective (ancient, medeaval, modern) since they seem to have change little or not at all.

I guess the tranlations are quite literal and exact since "ana" means again . 
Κεφαλαιόω -ῶ, meant, among other things,  report, say shortly (Thuk 3,76, Arsitotle Great Ethics (Magna Moralia) 1207b, 22 (yeap, got a new tome of my dictionary down).


----------



## Nunty

Thank you very, very much everyone. I just _love_ it when my intuitions are born out by fact. Irene, special thanks to you for the references.

Once again, the forer@s come through!


----------

