συμπόσιον

From the study of Mark 6:39

Range of meaning

Literally a 'drinking-together' (from syn, 'together', and pinō, 'drink'). (1) A drinking party or banquet, especially the after-dinner wine gathering of the Greek and Roman world, where guests reclined on couches. (2) The place where such a party is held. (3) By extension, a group of people dining together, a 'table party' (BDAG). In Mark 6:39 sense (3) is primary, but the festive overtones of (1) are not lost.

Against the English

BSB, WEB, ESV and NIV have 'groups', which is neutral and could describe a queue or a crowd-control system. KJV and YLT have 'companies', which today suggests businesses or army units. None of these keeps the dining-party, banquet sense of the Greek. 'Dinner parties' or 'table companies' is closer.

How it drifted

Translators reasonably choose 'groups' because the next verse speaks of numbers (hundreds and fifties). But 'groups' drops the word's festive social meaning. The English 'symposium' has since drifted to mean an academic conference, so it cannot be used to recover the sense either.

Used elsewhere in the period

Common in classical and Hellenistic Greek for banquets (Plato's and Xenophon's Symposium; Plutarch's Table Talk). In the Greek Old Testament, Sirach uses it for a wine banquet (Sir 31:31; 32:5, 'a concert of music at a banquet of wine'), and it appears in the Maccabean books for feasts. In the New Testament it occurs only here, in the repeated form.