An extremely common Koine word, arguably the most-common word in our Koine text, is a simple three-letter word transliterated as kai. In Koine it is: . So as to prevent confusion with this site, I will always use upper case KAI or KAIS or KAI Studies to designated the study we are undertaking on this site, and lower case kai, or in Koine script form , to designate the specific word that is the subject of this menu heading.
What is kai?
The standard Koine grammar classifies kai as a coordinating conjunction, nominally equivalent to our English word “and.” This will be discussed further in great detail.
There are two issues that negate such simple characterization for kai. First, in every English translation, various words in addition to “and” is used based upon the translators judgment of what best fits the context. Again, more on that below.
A second issue, which I do not find discussed in Koine grammars, or elsewhere, is that kai also plays a particular role in punctuation, and such punctuation is in two types. One is as we think of punctuation in English, through our use within whole thought statements–commas, dashes, parentheses, semicolons–in addition to demarcations of such whole thought statements by the use of periods, semi-colons, and new paragraph indents. None of these seven language tools have a Koine counterpart. Our word kai serves in certain contexts in these various roles.
Additionally, kai serves as a particular demarcation in certain contexts to establish scenes. Again, more on this below.
kai and Its Forms
Koine has a complex linguistic form known, generally, as inflections. In English we have very few counterpart inflections.
We use in English the ending letter “s” to designate plural number, as in baseball there are bases, runs, hits, fouls, and errors all designating more than one base, run, hit, foul error. But, language is messy. So we have plural in other situations without the “s:” sheep, fish.
In English we also use the letter “s” with an apostrophe to designate ownership or belonging to: the batter’s uniform. In grammar such usage is termed the genitive case, where the word derives from “genus” or category, so such batter’s uniform is in a category of belonging to such batter.
With verbs in English we capture a past tense by an “ed” ending. “Let’s go for a walk” is distinguished from a part event of “we walked.”
In Koine, however, there are a great many inflections. (Broadly speaking, the term linguists use is “morphology,” which means “shape,” for inflected words). Learning them has traditionally been a year-long task in a coursework, and soon forgotten if not used by regular careful reading of Koine. In our purposes here we shall always rely on sources that have extracted from all such inflections the linguistic form as these are readily available and allows us to focus our energies on comprehension.
The good news with our present word kai is that there are no inflections of any kind. The word kai always occurs in every case (as a stand alone word) exactly as kai. (kai does occur compounded with other words, as will be discussed, but that is a separate issue not presently in our view).
So, our first step in Koine mastery could not be easier: it is kai, it looks like our English script, and occurs only in this form in its every usage.
Frequency of Kai in Koine
There is a second piece of good news regarding kai: it is arguably the most-common word in the Bible (again when using “Bible” I am making reference to the Koine text of the NT and of the LXX of the OT). The definite article does occur more frequently but it appears in all its many, 24, forms so as a given fixed form, kai is indeed the most-frequent Koine word.
Well, how frequent, does kai occur, and so what?
The word kai occurs in the text of the NT used by the ESV and many other translations (NASB, NIV, etc.) as more than 9,000 times. Such 9,000 count is for the Koine text generally known as the “Critical Text” (CT, also generally taken to be the same as published as NA27). Another Koine text known as the “Textus Receptus” (TR) has been used by other translations, principally KJV and related versions; for the TR (as published in 1881 the kai count is 9,826.
The key point here is not the exactly number of kai occurrences but its predominance. Again depending on the Koine text used (presently considering just the NT), the totally word count is, for the CT 9,018 kai occurrences in 138,020 lemmas, and 9,826 in 147,474 lemmas. (A “lemma” is the dictionary form of a word, so in English the words uniform, uniforms, uniformed, uniformly would all be one dictionary entry, the “lemma” uniform, under which would be distinctive definitions for all such variations).
So, kai occurs, once every 15 Koine words in both Koine text (CT and TR). Thus it more likely than not that kai occurs in any particular verse one might choose to study.
The word kai occurs with such great frequency and regularity that one of the linguistic texts of purported “ancient Greek” texts is to analyze the frequency and occurrence structure of the word kai. Texts with infrequent usage of kai can be readily dismissed as fraudulent.
How is kai Translated
Using the ESV translation as an exemplar, the great majority of times kai is translated by “and.” This appears simple enough but as discussed below “and” has an important semantic range which affects interpretative understanding. The ESV also translates kai by the words: also, but, even, then, so, or, with now; it also ‘translates’ using a comma, or by nothing (that is, neglecting the word kai entirely in the translated text).
What about just translating “kai” as “and?”
The English word “and” is of course very common in print and speech. But it conveys distinct ideas that we customarily pick up from the context of usage.
A default meaning of “and” is simply “plus.” If one has a list of no order or priority significance, “and” just connects two or more items. We have “ham and eggs,” “peanut butter and jelly,” “left and right,” “night and day,” and so forth. In most circumstances such usage of “and” carries no significance beyond connecting two distinctive nouns–persons, places, or things–into one pairing, or larger grouping such as a food recipe or bill of materials for a device or project.
Another meaning of “and” is more than “plus” to include the idea of “next.” When preparing a meal recipe there is in some parts the need to follow a particular order. Such would also be the case with driving directions: go two miles on US 34, and turn at the first light, and make a left in the gas station.
Yet another nuance of “and” is pointing to an effect from a cause: he ran and tripped and broke his arm. We understand that such use of “and” has both senses of “plus” and “next” but there is something more in this example, namely that there is a progression of cause and effect, first the running leading to, or causing the trip, which in turn leads to the broken arm.
A fourth interpretation of “and” occurs with the idea of a culmination, the denouement: an ice cream desert with a cherry on top, or extending the broken arm example with “and he missed his graduation in the hospital.” This idea represents something like “thus” or “and…so.” It’s more than cause and effect; it’s akin to the “telos” (the Koine word the typically points to the ultimate end of a matter). A simple English expression, that sounds awkward to our hearing these days, that convey such implication of “and” is the word “unto.” So for our trip and fall example we understand the sequence as: he ran thus (“and so” tripped with result (“and”) he broke his arm resulting (“unto”) missing his graduation.
In everyday life, these nuances are minimally important and normally directly apprehended from the context and especially when expressed orally as the speaker uses the tools of emphasis in speech accompanied by facial expression and gesture to make the point.
In the circumstance of translating the Koine of God’s Word, it is materially important, even crucial, that every nuance be captured as best as is possible with the limitations of language, and not having the oral expression available to us. This leads translators to not use the simple translation of “kai” into “and” in all cases; instead, translators will use the alternatives discussed above: also, but, even, then, so, now, and so forth.
Is there a better way?
As non-Koine scholars, what should we do with “kai?” My view is that we should see it before our eyes in all 9,000 uses in the NT. In other words, there is no need to translate “kai” at all. The word is simple to recognize, leave it exist in its manuscript (mss) form, and let the reader grasp its usage from the context without it being slanted by a translator’s interpretation, an interpretation not needed for “kai” as a reader, at least a serious reader, can do that for oneself.
Does this approach sound extreme? No. Here’s an example of where this practice is already in place: the word “baptism” in all its forms. “Baptism” is a simple English transliteration of a Koine word (words in all their various forms of noun, verb, adjective). This is really quite amazing. One of the ‘hot words’ in Christianity–baptism, baptize, baptizing–is never translated. What has happened is the transliteration of the word appears x times in, for instance, the ESV “translation” and we are left with the task of deciding what the word actually meant in the Koine.
Baptism
The Koine lemma of the English word “baptism” is “bapto.” In the NT, such lemma word (“bapto”) occurs in six word forms: baptizo, baptisma, baptistes, baptismos, bapto, and embapto. The first is the verb form: baptizo means, in transliterated form, “to baptize.” The second is the noun form, “baptism.” The third is the adjective form, “baptist” or “baptizer.” And, so forth.
In the ESV, such lemma totals 118 occurrence, dominated by the verb form (of “to baptize”) occurring 77 times. But in none of these occurrence has the ESV, or any other of our primary English translations, sought to translate the original word into an English meaning word. So the result has been we have all learned a Koine word, more or less, and then interpreted it in accordance with our various ecclesiastical traditions.
Other Transliterated Examples
“Baptism” is not the only such example. Every persons name and the name of most places have been similarly treated. So “Jesus Christ” is the English transliteration of Koine “Iēsoús Christós.” There is no letter “j” in Koine, or in Hebrew or in Latin; we substitute “j” of “i” in all these cases.
Similarly we know “Peter” and “Paul” and “Barnabas” as English transliterations of their Koine form. If we were to translate their names, they would be “Stone,” “Small,” and “Son of Encouragement,” respectively.
The same holds for our English transliterated words “Jerusalem,” “Jordan,” and “Galilee,” and most other places.
However, as we have learned sitting before good teaching, each such name–people and places–has a richer meaning worthy of study. And, so, when we see the word “Barnabas” we should think something else about the reference than just the three English syllables we hear in our head; he was a man of encouragement. More importantly the name of “Jesus Christ” needs a materially deeper understanding. It is not the case that His ‘first, given name’ was “Jesus” and His family, surname, was “Christ.” Rather, Iēsoús is itself the Koine transliteration of the OT transliteration of the original Hebrew word “Joshua,” and Christós is the transliteration of the translation from Hebrew into Koine of the Hebrew word we have transliterated as “Messiah.” (You have to read the last two sentences twice in order to not lose the sequence). So with the connection to “Messiah” we have the crucial idea before us that “Jesus” is being referenced as “The Messiah.” However, we should also grasp that the name “Jesus,” again our transliteration of the His given name at birth is not just the Koine form of Hebrew “Joshua” but that “Joshua” means something very important, namely Jehovah (Yahweh, YHWH) saves, which is of course what occurred through that successor to Moses in the OT, but more importantly God did through His Son, the God-Man who we know as “Jesus” (“Joshua” the Messiah (“Christ”).” (Again you likely need to read that previous sentence more than once).
kai Could Be, and Should Be, Another Transliterated Example
So, I argue, that an equally important opportunity, and actually an easier one, is for “translations” to not “translate” our Koine word kai but instead just print it out as and when it occurs, all 9,000 plus times, and let us learn and grasp fully what it means by the context.
Such a “translation” is very unlikely to be forth coming. One way to do so would be to map the Koine NT with a public domain version such that “kai” is inserted where and as it occurs and its counterparts that had been in such version are either coupled with the inserted “kai” or deleted entirely. Doing such ‘mapping’ is not a simple task.
For our purposes then we will necessarily refer to interlinear texts to find such “kai” usage in the Koine and do our own insertions. In the examples that follow, we will go through how this can be easily done on particular verses or passages of particular interest.