The semantic range of "to be"

Don Carson discusses several meanings for the linking verb "to be". He lists

1. Identity
2. Attribute
3. Cause
4. Resemblance
5. Fulfilment

Examples of these 5

1. A cat is an animal
2. The coat is leather
3. Listening is wisdom
4. People are sheep
5. That is what I said would happen

We can expand these sentences to restrict the semantic range of "is" and remove potential ambiguity by modifying the verb.

1. The cat belongs to the group animal
2. The coat is made of leather
3. Listening makes a person wise
4. People behave like sheep
5. This event corresponds to what I said would happen

Note that Identity is not always Equivalence. Equivalence is a special case of Identity where the subject and object can be interchanged such as "Clark Kent is Superman" or "aubergines are eggplants".

A 6th category (or perhaps a special case of "Attribute") is "Temporal/ Spatial," "the coat is on the floor."

Identity and Attribute can be essential (always belonging to the subject) or incidental (happening to belong to the subject).

Carson discusses this using the Greek verb (eimi) which appears to have a similar semantic range to English. His examples from the Bible are

1. Is the law sin? (Rom 7:7)
2. No one is good except God alone. (Mar 10:18)
3. To be carnally minded is death (Rom 8:6)
4. The tongue is a fire. (Jam 3:6)
5. This is what was spoken by the prophet (Act 2:16)

The context usually makes the meaning of "to be" clear, but discussion is needed about what is meant when there is ambiguity. Disputable or ambiguous passages include "this is my body" and "the Word was God".

Translation choices

Glenn Peoples raised the question why translators use "spiritual" over "reasonable" in Romans 12:1

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. (ESV)

There are couple of verses that I think are worth mentioning in this vein. 1 from the Old Testament, 1 from the New.

This I have mentioned before, and is more a best translation issue. Ezra 6:14 states

And the elders of the Jews built and prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo. They finished their building by decree of the God of Israel and by decree of Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes king of Persia;

While the additional conjunction "and" is the most common word for the Hebrew term, the explanatory conjunction "that is" is a legitimate choice and one that seems to fit the context better.

The translation query from the New Testament is more in line with Glenn's question, and perhaps even less justified than Romans 12:1. It is from another Pauline letter, 1 Corinthians 12:1

• Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed.(ESV)
• Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. (KJV)
• Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. (ASV)
• Now, brothers and sisters, I want you to understand about spiritual gifts. (NCV)
• Now about spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant. (NIV)
• Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware. (NASB)
• My friends, you asked me about spiritual gifts. (CEV)
• With regard to spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. (NET)

The question is why "gifts"? when it is not in the Greek. There is no word "gift". Paul uses the word "gift" elsewhere when referring to spiritual gifts (Romans 1:11) but the Greek here is

• Περι δε των πνευματικων,
• Now about [the] spiritual,

Granted "spiritual" is an adjective acting as a substantive here, and "spiritual" alone does not work in English. But why not say "spiritual things"?

Some versions do say this.

• But of spiritual things, brethren, I will not that ye not know (Wyclif)
• About matters of the spirit: brothers, I do not want you to be unaware. (HCSB)
• And concerning the spiritual things, brethren, I do not wish you to be ignorant; (YLT)

Also the NET Bible footnotes "spiritual things," the KJV and NASB have the word "gifts" in italics showing that it is not in the Greek.

ESV footnotes an alternative translation "spiritual persons."

The other place "spiritual" is frequently translated "spiritual gifts" is 1 Corinthians 14:1

Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.

The number of the beast

This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666. (Revelation 13)

I think it is likely that this number refers at least to Nero. If this is the case it has implications for the dating of the book of Revelation which I think was written prior to 70 AD.

In this passage we note the the number of the beast is the number of a man. This does not necessarily mean that the beast is a man, just that the number of the beast is the number of a man.

The number of a man may be the number of the name via gematria. Nero Caesar's number in Greek is 1337, but his number in Hebrew is 666. The call for wisdom may have meant that the number needed to be calculated in Hebrew, not Greek. The association with Nero is very ancient, almost certainly as old as the book of Revelation. Nero Caesar does not have a gematria in Latin (that I am aware of), the Latin numbering scheme does not lend itself to this. But transliteration of Nero Caesar from Latin to Hebrew gives the number 616 which is mentioned in several manuscripts of Revelation. This confirms that the authors of the variant manuscripts thought Nero was intended. Below are the calculations.

Greek	Number	Hebrew	Number	Latin	Hebrew	Number
Ν	50	נ	50	N	נ	50
Ε	5	-	-	E	-	-
Ρ	100	ר	200	R	ר	200
Ω	800	ו	6	O	ו	6
Ν	50	נ	50	-	-	-
-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Κ	20	ק	100	C	ק	100
Α	1	-	-	A	-	-
Ι	10	-	-	E	-	-
Σ	200	ס	60	S	ס	60
Α	1	-	-	E	-	-
Ρ	100	ר	200	R	ר	200
Total	1337		666			616

Though Nero's gematria in Greek is given by Suetonius without the Caesar resulting in 1005.

Hebrew and Greek numbering

In ancient Hebrew the letter glyphs doubled as numeral glyphs, the same symbol could be a letter or a number depending on the context. Written Hebrew did this several centuries before Christ. In Hebrew the glyphs for the numbers 400–900 are final forms (the alternate shape of letters when they are the last letter of a word) and I am uncertain how old they are, or if paleo-Hebrew had glyphs for higher numbers. The higher hundreds can be written as a combination of the lower hundreds glyphs.

Greek used a similar system called the Milesian (or Ionian) system which replaced the earlier Attic system. The Attic system was somewhat similar to the Roman system. Greek uses 3 glyphs that had become obsolete at the time it was used to allow numbering to 900; though the position of fau (Ϝ) leaves one curious as to whether it may still have been in use at the time the system was invented/ copied.

Below are the Hebrew and Greek glyphs for the corresponding numbers. The lower case Greek was non-existent at the time of the New Testament.

Hebrew Glyph	Number	Greek Glyph
א	1	Α α
ב	2	Β β
ג	3	Γ γ
ד	4	Δ δ
ה	5	Ε ε
ו	6	Ϝ ϝ
ז	7	Ζ ζ
ח	8	Η η
ט	9	Θ θ
י	10	Ι ι
כ, ך	20	Κ κ
ל	30	Λ λ
מ, ם	40	Μ μ
נ, ן	50	Ν ν
ס	60	Ξ ξ
ע	70	Ο ο
פ, ף	80	Π π
צ, ץ	90	Ϙ ϙ
ק	100	Ρ ρ
ר	200	Σ σ
ש	300	Τ τ
ת	400	Υ υ
ך	500	Φ φ
ם	600	Χ χ
ן	700	Ψ ψ
ף	800	Ω ω
ץ	900	Ͳ ͳ

Thus 23 is written ΚΓ, and 799 is ΨϘΘ.

Gematria is the association of words with numbers. The development of a word to number correspondence is understandable because the twofold sense of the glyphs. Every word has an associated number that is obtained by adding up the values of the glyphs read as numbers. For example the word king melek (מלך) is calculated as 40 + 30 + 20 = 90 (assuming 20 rather than 500 for kaph). David (דוד) is 4 + 6 + 4 = 14. This may be why Matthew included groups of 14 in his genealogy of Jesus.