Mark, και, και ευθεως, and my week.

The gospel of Mark has an interesting little structure. A whole bunch of the verses start with και, which is often translated “and” but can be, and often is, left untranslated since it’s just there to keep the story going from point to point. So, it’s something like “…and then they did this, and then they did that, and then they did the next thing…” Occasionally you’ll see και ευθεως, which is “and immediately”. Overall, in Mark you get the sense of a very fast moving narrative.

Well, I thought I’d give my week’s highlights in Markian prose:

Last week I went out of town
και I needed to get back for a funeral
και the winds were high so taking a small plane back began to look iffy
και ευθεως we decided I should fly commercial
και there was a flurry activity getting me on the flight
και I got back that evening
και I showed up at church in the nick of time to set up for the funeral
και I went home and slept
και ευθεως in the morning I was back at church doing sound checks
και the funeral was lovely
και so was the rest of the afternoon
και we were all getting hungry so we grabbed a bite to eat
και, despite reassurances, my Spidey-Sense noted peanut oil, so I didn’t eat the fried food
και we took the kids to get our Christmas tree (a week later than usual)
και I lost my company iPhone somewhere
και ευθεως we called the restaurant and they found nothing
και ευθεως I searched in the dark tree lot and I found nothing
και I reconciled myself to buying a replacement
και we left the tree lot
και we realized that in our distraction we’d not paid for our Christmas tree
και ευθεως we went back to the tree farm
και taking one more look for my iPhone, a teen came up and asked “Is this yours?”
και I could tell it pained him to return it
και ευθεως we went home
και after a jam-packed Friday at work, the weekend came
και we awoke to snow
και the yard wasn’t ready for snow, so I got the yard ready
και one then another kid got something like the stomach flu
και ευθεως I did, too
και I spent 18 hours in bed
και I missed church (which is rare)
και Helen got it later on Sunday
και I’m tired

It’s been a fast moving narrative.

2 thoughts on “Mark, και, και ευθεως, and my week.”

  1. “kai” is actually important. Greek has a number of conjunctions that function specifically. “Kai” is not just “and” it is “also” depending on the context. “Kai” links similiar or related ideas so that they are seen as one continuous thought. “Te” (tau epsilon) is also translated “and” but connects unrelated thoughts such as, “I went to the store and by the way did you see that movie last night?” “De” (delta epsilon) is the absolute “but” meaning that it transitions from one thought to a completely opposing thought. “Alla” the relative “but” is a superaddition meaning that it adds to the sentence, “He was tired and went to sleep but before he went to sleep he turned out the light.” “Kai” connects things like Col. 1:2, Theou patros hemonkai Kupriou Iesou Christou, God our Father and Lord Jesus Christ. They are not two different beings but one and the same connected by “kai”. Paul used “kai” so that it did not break up his penning of Christ, Spirit and Father as one God. I have been fortunate to have been taught Greek by two of my elders (I’m Baptist) Dr. Robert Westcott and Dr. Spiros Zodhiates who has a Greek dictionary AMG’s THE COMPLETE WORD STUDY DICTIONARY NEW TESTAMENT or the CD-Rom Bible Essentials that has his exegesis on it too.

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