I cannot tell you how many times people ask me, when I tell them how important I think Greek is, why is it so important. This is a good and logical question but the truth is that very often people underestimate the importance of the Biblical languages. Even though so many are interested as to why they are so important to me, many of these same folks do not see the same importance. This is not to say that they do not find them important at all, they simply think that it is not for them, that it is for someone else, someone more interested or ambitious, or, heaven forbid, only for pastors. This is in many cases true, Greek and Hebrew are not for everyone, not everyone has what it takes to study and understand Greek, however, for many this is not true, and for some of these their lack of motivation comes from a misunderstanding. The misunderstanding is the main reason for me writing this blog, because the misunderstanding is based on the importance of the Greek Bible.
The New Testament is written in Greek, the Old Testament is written in Hebrew and at time Aramaic. This is a true statement. It is not and was not written in English. English and all others are "translations," or perhaps you prefer commentary, this is important to keep in mind. Why you may ask, or perhaps you find this statement surprising thinking always that the English Bible is the Bible. The problem with this is that too much of the English words you see on the printed page are dependent on the translator. If there is or was a theological argument, you will never see it, instead you will only see the perspective of whomever translated your version. On this note let me tell you, there are some really bad ones out there. At times even the supposed good ones are way, way, off. What this means is that the only way to see what the Bible says and know for sure what it says, is to read it in the original languages.
The next thing to notice is that very often Greeks and Hebrews thought differently than we do now, much of this comes out in the way they word things, or in how they use tenses and so on. Sometimes the significance comes in the word play or even something like Word order. The other day I was translating 1 Peter and he was writing about how we have hope, "in us" and the way he worded it simply would not work in English, "in us" is actually located in the middle of "the hope" and looks like this, the "in us" hope, this is hard to convey and rarely actually done in translations. Not only is this done, but the Greek New Testament makes use of word play, this is when words can have double meaning and is meant to be taken that way. Jesus tells Nicodemus that he needs to be born, "from above" or is it "again" what is in your Bible, the Greek leaves room for both and is probably intends for both to be read, which would help to understand the confusion on Nicodemus' side of things.
Really this is simply the tip of the iceberg, there is so much more to learn and understand and get out of your Bible. I could go even further but I will stop here for now. Instead I would like to take this opportunity to tell you of how important Greek is to me, and how important I think it is to at least try to learn it if you can. I will be teaching a free course in Greek this summer. The classes will be located in the NTC Nursing Building in some of the classrooms in the lounge area. These are free, you need to provide your own books or buy them from me, (reimburse me I only charge what I pay) and for that I will teach. but what if you don't live in or near Wausau WI, there is still the classes which Voelz provided online (video of his class) this is on Itunes U under Concordia Seminaries page. So I hope you will take the opportunity to use these and learn this language and is very worthwile.
No comments:
Post a Comment