Lesson 2 | Greek Nouns: The First Noun Pattern
Grammar Point 2: The Five Noun Cases
Do you remember the four things that each Greek noun has? Stem, case, gender, and number. Now, let’s take a closer look at the Greek cases. What does a noun’s case tell us? It tells us the noun’s role in the sentence.
There are five noun cases in Koine Greek.
- The Nominative Case
- The Genitive Case
- The Dative Case
- The Accusative Case
- The Vocative Case
This is really important. Each case serves different roles. We will not look at all the roles now, but here is the main role that each case plays.
Nominative: The verb’s subject
Genitive: A noun’s possessor (key word: “of”)
Dative: The verb’s indirect object (use “to” or “for” when translating)
Accusative: The verb’s direct object
Vocative: Direct address (when the speaker speaks directly to someone)
Here’s a visual diagram of the noun cases.
Remember, case–not word order–determines a noun’s role in the sentence. Go through the flashcards below until you can match each case with the role it plays in the sentence.
A Note on Translating
When we translate dative and genitive nouns into English, certain key words help us communicate the role that those cases play. For now, “of”can help us communicate the genitive case. So, we could translate ἀγάπης as “of love” or “love’s” depending on the context. And “to” or “for” can help us communicate the dative case. So, we could translate ἀγάπῃ as “to love” or “for love” depending on the context. But Richard Gibson and Con Campbell give us a helpful warning about translating in their book Reading Biblical Greek (page 17):
Reading Greek involves more than substituting Greek words with equivalent meanings in English. There is much more to meaning than simply adding individual words together. Think back...to the sentence, The old man just said, “You missed the boat.” It is possible to paraphrase this sentence: The geriatric male recently explained, “You’re late for the ferry. However, since the meaning of a sentence is more than simply the sum of the words, this could be a complete misunderstanding. The sentence could consist of two idiomatic expressions. The old man is a common colloquial expression for my father. You missed the boat could be slang for you wasted the opportunity. In that case: My dad just said, “You blew your chance,” would be a much more accurate rendering of the intended meaning.
