"the" (3)

[Salinas17 at aol.com]

In a message dated 8/30/04 1:32:51 PM, hstahlke at bsu.edu writes:
<< But I don't have a Classical Greek concordance handy, so I don't know how
it would have been used in that body of literature where a notion of messiah
didn't exist. >>

In Lidell-Scott, the first Greek references to "anoint as a consecration" are
Christian. And I don't see it as a epithet in Greek before Christ.  Before
that it's mainly about smearing oil on the body or white-washing a house or
stucco -- nothing particularly religious.  The meaning of "anointing" in Greek
seems pretty concrete and mundane at an earlier time.

So here it seems is a Greek word that changed drastically in its main meaning
when it was used to translate a foreign word.  A small lesson perhaps in how
new ideas travel as a change in words.

Steve