Question: What is the precise difference between κρίνειν, ἀνακρίειν, διακρίνειν, ἐγκρίνειν, κατακρίνειν,and συγκρίνειν in N. T. usage? R.
Answer: The meaning of the first or simple form is “to judge,” ἀνακρίσις being the technical word for the previous inquiry or preliminary investigation. Compare 1 Cor. 2:15; 4:3-5; 9:3; 10:25, 27, in the Greek, as well as Acts 25:26 (noun). But διακρίνειν is “to discern,” right in 1 Cor. 11:29 but wrong in 31; as the simple form means not “damnation” but “judgment” and even as contrasted with that. Again συγκρίνειν is in plain contradistinction to ἀνακρίνειν in 1 Cor. 2, and means the communicating or authoritative explaining of spiritual things in spiritual words, not sifting or examining them. In John 5:22-29 the confusion of the A.V. is extreme and seriously misleading. The right word is “judge” or “judgment” throughout, not “condemnation” as in 24, nor “damnation” as in 29; for our Lord is contrasting “life” with “judgment,” though the issue in this case be the same. In 1 Cor. 11 the “judging” is present, in the sense of temporal only, in contrast with final and everlasting condemnation (κατακρ.). Compounded with ἀπὸ the verb means “to answer,” as it should be in 2 Cor. 1:9, not “sentence,” as we may add.