Context of This Study of Greek Koine “kai.”
The first Epistle to the Corinthians (1 Cor) was written a few years after Paul had spent 18 months teaching in that major Greek city. The theme of the Epistle is corrective of the errors and misbehaviors that have developed in that church, the most important of which is the divisions in the body of believers, beginning in the first chapter and expanded in chapter 3.
Passage of Interest: 1 Cor 3:1-4
Our interest here, primarily, is the role of this site’s keyword, kai, in the corrective instruction given to the Corinthian church. As shown below in 1 Cor 3:1-4, kai occurs twice:
- linking [A] strife with [B] jealousy,
- linking [A] behaving as (mere) humans with [B] a being of the flesh
I have consciously used “with” to express the linking of the two above pairings [A with B] because our purpose here is to consider how kai might best be translated beyond its nominally-taken “and” as, a default translation, as in the ESV below and most other translations.
1 Cor 3:1-4 in the ESV Translation
1 Cor 3 1 But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people,
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). Crossway Bibles. Highlighting and bracket additions are mine.
but as people of the flesh [sárkinos], as infants [nḗpios] in Christ.
2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it.
And even now you are not yet ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh [sárkinos].
For while there is jealousy and [kai] strife among you,
are you not of the flesh [sárkinos] and [kai] behaving only in a human way?
4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and [de] another, “I follow Apollos,”
are you not being merely human [ánthrōpos]?
As highlighted we have three key words referencing the recipients of this text:
- flesh (which occurs three times),
- infants, and
- human (humanity).
Significantly, all five occurrences of theses three words are anarthrous (un-articulated), which in English we would precede by “a” (or “an”) but in Koine there is only the absence of the definite article. This absence of articulation is notable because it is contrary to the most-common situation of articulation used with Koine nouns. More on this below.
The Linking Words kai and de in 1 Cor 3:1-4
The ESV provides “and” as the translation of the Koine in three occurrences in our text above, twice in vs. 3, and once in vs. 4. However, as shown in brackets, the ESV has made such English word choice for two different Koine words: kai and de.
Briefly, de is the Koine word that conveys separation, contrast. This most commonly is translated by “but” or perhaps “except.” The NET Bible uses “or;” numerous other translations uses “another.” Both approaches conveys better the idea of separation. The Latin Vulgate translation has it alius autem (“but another”) which makes the separation even clearer. However, the majority of English translations follow the ESV with “and.” This is unfortunate in my view because the big deal issue in chapter 3, and the central theme of the entire Corinthian Epistle, is exactly and most sadly the separations (breaks) that have occurred, dividing upon the church body on a totally un-Biblical basis.
How Might kai Be Better Translated than by “and?”
Brief Recap of the Three “And’s“
As discussed elsewhere on this site, a most-common understanding of “and” is that of “plus,” an additive idea. This is what we mean by “ham and eggs,” “peanut butter and jelly,” “cream and sugar.” When so commonly used, there is no relational connective but that of “both,” and of no particular order or relationship. No hearer would respond: “do you want ‘ham and eggs,’ or do you want ‘eggs and ham’?” It’s simply plus, they’re both going on the same plate, the same piece of bread, or in the same cup, mixed without any relationship distinction. As a small experiment, order “half-cafe” coffee at a shop and insist that the decaf be put first into the cup so as to be on the bottom; you will be told that it makes absolutely no difference which goes in first.
In other contexts, “and” really signifies “next,” as when we would give out directions of travel or a sequence of adding ingredients for a recipe.
In yet other contexts “and” conveys the idea of an ultimate outcome, a telos, even a denouement: “George was in a hurry, running like he was on fire, jumping over benches and fences, as fast as the wind, and he fell, hit the ground hard, and broke his leg.” Neither of such “and” usages would convey the idea of “plus,” nor adequately the idea of “next.” The second “and,” especially, would be understood, by the context, that all the preceding text describes events that leads up to the culminating event, that of the broken leg. (And “George” derives from the Koine word for earth…so a little humor here). In such context, “and” really conveys the idea of cause and effect, or more subtly the flow of a narrative that results in a logical conclusion. If we sought to have a more expressive English linking word for such purpose we could choose “unto,” or “and, so,” or using an archaic but useful term “whereupon.” (As often the case, the archaic term works best).
Alternatives to “and” for the Two “kai’s” of 1 Cor 3:3
Our kai-text here is:
3 for you are still of the flesh [sárkinos].
For while there is jealousy and [kai] strife among you,
are you not of the flesh [sárkinos] and [kai] behaving only in a human way?
First, are the above two singular nouns–jealousy, strife–simply two additive things, peanut butter and jelly? Koine morphology does not help us here as these two nouns are directly parallel, distinguished only by the first being “masculine” and the second “feminine,” and the manuscript order is that “jealousy” precedes “strife.” So we must turn to context to see if there is something deeper that matters than an idea of “plus.”
The First kai: An Inner State of Being Linked to an External State of Being
We are not here doing a deep dive on the words “jealousy” and “strife.” But as they are in English, the first is a noun that catalogs an inner state of being, however transitive or dominating. In contrast, the second word–“strife”–catalogs a relational state of being external to any particular person in a state of “jealousy.” And, so, we would most reasonably sense that their linkage in something more than connecting two things (two states of being). Rather, we are led to the relational linking of the first leading to, flowing toward, resulting in, the latter: jealousy unto / whereupon strife.
Is this then the same thing as cause and effect? No. Koine, like English, has very distinct ways of expressing B caused by A, strife caused by jealousy. We can understand reasons for the distinction presently being suggested that “kai” conveys a flowing toward but not a causative linking. First, strife can occur without antecedent jealousy; there are just strife-full or highly-reactive people, always causing commotion, and strife. They are the opposite of the “agreeableness” trait of the “A” in “OCEAN,” a tool of psychology for personality segmentation. Further, a state of jealously might not necessarily lead to strife. This would be the case of a person who burns inside with such passion but out of fear or passivity restrains from its expression into a conflict.
So we can understand kai in the present context of being an intermediate linking, more than “plus,” but not to “cause / effect.” Is this understanding meaningful? I say “yes.” From 1 Cor 3:3 we can counsel ourselves, and anyone who listens to us, or will, that harboring jealously even if restrained and private is a not-good state of being. It’s something like the trigger pulled to a locked and ready position on a pistol. Guns, like strong emotions such as jealousy, need to be disarmed unless there are extraordinary reasons for them to be at ready. (Such as the Lord Himself who the Bible tells us that it was His “jealousy,” typically translated “zeal,” that preceded His cleansing of the Temple, an external act of serious strife, appropriate because of the affront against God of the ongoing practices present there).
The Second kai: An Inner State of Being Linked to an External Behavior
Returning to 1 Cor 3:3, the second kai in the verse links together (A) a state of being, fleshiness with (B) another state of being, “human(-ness),” behaving in a distinctive way (human-ing, behaving as those they were only humans / people, not as new creations in Christ).
Consider this context we are again reasonably led to a parallel insight to the first kai, namely: being fleshy flows toward / leads to behaving as ordinary people (humans) would do who do not have an inner life by the Spirit of God.
Again, does this matter? Again, the answer is “yes.” We are helped in appreciating the significance by noting the five occurrences noted above of flesh (3x), immaturity, and only being human. The Koine words, respectively are as shown at the beginning of this post: sárkinos, nḗpios, and ánthrōpos.
Our focus here is not doing a deep dive on Koine words, but a brief consideration is helpful. All three words, and five occurrences, are negative characterizations. Sárkinos can have a neutral meaning of a person’s material being distinct from bones and skin; it can simply designate body. But here, and in other places in Scripture it is freighted with the idea of bodily passions, some physiologists would call acting from the “limbic” brain regions, that which is itself unguided by the executive, analyzing, reasoning portion of the brain (“the frontal lobes”). In this context, sárkinos is suggestive of that impulse “if it feels good…do it.” And it is significant that sárkinos occurs three times in this very brief passage of four verses.
The other two relevant context words–nḗpios and ánthrōpos–also have a negative behavior / person connotation. Nḗpios is related to our English words associated with “neo-” or “newness,” conveying the idea of immaturity, adolescence. The Epistle makes clear that at this stage, the Corinthians should no longer be Spiritual children. As discussed just above, the word “human” translated by the ESV is of Koine ánthrōpos, the generic word for mankind / human being from which we get “anthropology” the study of such; ánthrōpos is also, here, conveying a negative condition as the Corinthians are called to be new creations, something much more than just better humans.
If you wish to study these three words an easy short cut is to use a web search by entering “Strongs G4560” ( for sárkinos), “Strongs G3515” (nḗpios), or “Strongs G444” (ánthrōpos).
All three of these words describe a condition of being of the Corinthian Christians and church members that demarcates the context and origin from which the most-serious condition that is developed beginning in 1 Cor 3:4–that of divisions in the church. Paul by the Holy Spirit, sees such divisions as a very serious matter. And the seriousness is much more than their existence. The divisions have arisen because they each have departed from following Jesus as Christ and Lord. Several groups are following mere men–Paul, Apollos, and Cephas / Peter (1 Cor 1:10), while others are (or claim that they are) following Christ. This condition is worse than nonsense: it eliminates the essence of what following Christ means, as though Jesus was just another one of the possibilities for being of New Testament Christianity.
Such foolishness–evil in its essence–did not arise from nothing. This brief passage of 1 Cor 3 gives five words of fleshy immaturity and two “kai” linkages, each of the form A flowing to B, perhaps best translated if a single word is demanded by “unto.” In both such linkages, the cure is by recognizing that antecedent condition A because it is that which naturally, inevitably becomes condition B.
Further Thoughts on the Five Anarthrous Nouns
Just above we noted the significance of three key words that together appear five times, always unarticulated in the Koine: sárkinos, nḗpios, and ánthrōpos.
All three of these words are nouns. Nouns, as we should recall, are traditionally defined as that class of word-types that describe persons, places, or things. But nouns are deeper than just those three sub-categories, especially in the Koine when the noun is unarticulated.
The usual rule for unarticulated Koine nouns, but not a rigid one, is that such nouns represent a category of that which exists, not any specific one, with emphasis on the idea of “category”or mort particularly a “universal.”
As discussed “jealousy” describes an inner state of being. We have all experienced it at some time and in some way. But let us think now of “jealousy” explicitly as “being” in the heightened sense of existence, something like a living category of life, as one might add to the great taxonomy of living things (mammals, reptiles, fungi, etc.).
The Concept of Existence from Mathematics
Let us do this by drawing a parallel from mathematics. In the discipline of mathematics the issue of existence recurs frequently and often in very important ways (a mathematician would say “always” in important ways). Accordingly, there is a distinctive mathematical symbol designating existence as meaningful, more so than the familiar designator π, namely: ∃ (“there exists”). Were I to influence an English translation of the New Testament, I would, in addition to putting kai everywhere it occurs, also insert such ∃ before every anarthrous (unarticulated) Koine noun to highlight the concept of such noun representing the existence of a category. While we’re on the subject of mathematical analogues, let us also think about incorporating ∄ (“there does not exist”) and ∃! (“there exists uniquely), as in: ∄ no other way by which a man can be saved, and such salvation comes ∃! in Christ.
The Concept of Existence from Philosophy: Ontology
A major division of philosophy deals with questions of existence, known by the term “ontology,” which means the study of being. Questions surrounding ontology are frequent and important: “I think therefore I am” (Descartes proclamation of the assurance of his existence). Which comes first: philology (words) or ontology (being)? Does true being stem from the existence of a word, or is it the other way around, namely that words only reflect a greater principle that something pre-exists.
External states of being, such as strife, are perceivable outside the inner condition of an individual person. There can be definitional issues of what rises to the level all of us might recognize as strife, and what would be the essential but/for traits that would make such designation. But, as is often said, I know it when I see it.
Internal states of being, such as jealousy, are more imperceivable although by communication and a relational connection internal states can be at least grasped to a large extent by others. Let us think more fully on this by the example, the ∃, of Abraham Lincoln, which we could express as ∃! Abraham Lincoln.
Let us first think in ontological terms of Abraham Lincoln (1809 – 1865) from the standpoint of his contemporaries. There would have some who knew him as a young man (say 1829 – 1830), others a lawyer (1836 – 1860), still others, and as President (1861 – 1865). If we were able, by some Time Machine, to have a conversation with individuals who knew Lincoln uniquely from each of such three periods, their ontological claim for him would be uniquely distinct: child, lawyer, President.
And what about us? We have our own, multiple ontologies of Lincoln. If we are recounting Presidents, then he was most-immediately preceded by Fillmore, Pierce, and Buchanan–all of whom little is known by the average person–and immediately succeeded by Andrew Johnson, Grant, and Hayes, again generally unknown men except for Ulysses Grant. But with Lincoln we are not supremely interested where he fit into what order of Presidents. His ontology for us, primarily, is not that he was the 16th President, but that he led the Union fight of the Civil War and ended slavery. The instantiation of such ontology is the massive, prominent Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC decorated with many of his declarations. When one stands at the Memorial one does not think of Lincoln’s bodily “being,” his remains, or even his historical “being.” Rather we think of the “being” that is present to us, his words and the legacy of his historic actions as President. By being, he is present to us, and has both ∃ and rightly understood, also ∃!.
Anarthrous nouns, somewhat less dramatically, have such ∃ when considering their ordinary semantic range, and ∃! with respect to historic / notable / uniquely distinctive context. Nouns tend to be humble, quiet things, especially compared to verbs, where literally all the action occurs. As to the Koine vocabulary of the New Testament there are more nouns (2412) than there are verbs (1864); humble they may be but they provide a richer range of semantic choices for persons, places, things, and categories. And the most frequently occurring nouns in the New Testament are, interestingly, these nine: God (1309x. Theos), Jesus (912x, Iesous), Lord (713x, Kurios), man (550x, anthropos), Christ (529x, Christos), Father (413x, Pater), day (389x, hemera), Spirit (379x, Pneuma), and Son (375x, Huios). Learning the Koine of just these nine significant words would give one understanding of 5566 words in the New Testament, which is 1/5th (20%) of all its nouns.
When we now consider all the anarthrous occurrences in our passage we can understand them as having a specific ∃. They are more than ideas. They have a form of weightiness to them, and presence, leading to the adverse consequences described.
Further Thoughts on kai as Additive
The default translation of kai is “and” closely followed by “also” which is essentially the same idea, that such linking word is like the simple plus sign, ✚, of mathematics. As final thought here let us return to mathematics for a final analogy.
One of the earliest principles of mathematics we all learned early in our days, shortly after learning 1 + 2 = 3, is this: 1 + 2 = 2 + 1.
We perhaps wondered, back then, whether the ‘trick’ of 1+2 and its mirror 2+1 leading to the same answer, 3, was a general principle or a particular example? Such question leads to the idea of equations. Specific number calculations are particulars; an equation expresses a universal. (If you didn’t have that nailed down, you missed something pretty important principle of algebra…here’s your second chance).
To express a universal by an equation we introduce the famous symbols x and y. We know that x and y do not stand for any particular value, but any value, that is a universal principle applicable to any particular. So we would then be able to grasp such universal as given by the above particular as x + y = y + x. Such is a law of mathematics that always is true for addition. It has a name: The Commutative Principle.
The use of “and” as the default translation of kai is expressing kai by such Commutative Principle. Kai, by such Principle, merely adds B to A, using our previous symbology, as equivalent to A added to B.
Our present goal with the exemplar of 1 Cor 3:1-4 is to show that there is a deeper understanding possible to kai than the application of the Commutative Principle, one that significantly enriches the understand of a text. Are you persuaded?