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james
Bear Cub
Joined: 18 Sep 2007
Posts: 648
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 Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 3:38 pm Post subject: Who really knows ? |
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Today Greek scholars say that the Greek language of Bible days is so perfect and exact that if the student of the Greek is a refined and accurate grammarian he can truly know exactly what the New Teatament Word teaches. But is this not only a theory ? Is it not so that every Greek scholar of repute from one denomination debates another student of another denomination, and is their arguments not based on identical Greek words?
Prior to the Nicene Council of 325 there were two great students Arius and Athanasius who became locked in a debate over a Greek word. And this happened less than 300 years after Christ, so how is it we are believeing it possible to understand the exact Greek language almost 2000 years later ? Not only that some historians believe that Aramaic was the original language of the New Testament.
Have we pushed aside seeking revelation from God for seminary intellect ? Have we become so prideful that we fear being looked upon as "unlearned (uneducated) and ignorant men" Acts 4:13 or do we dread being classified as "common people" Mark 12:37.
What would happen if we shelfed every book we have, only opened the Bible and sought the truth through Spiritual Revelation, after all John 14:26 says "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my Name, WILL TEACH YOU A-L-L THINGS,"
After all the Bible was printed for us unlearned, common folk. So I'll just go with what the Bible plainly sets forth.. |
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rufus
Big Goldfish
Joined: 22 Sep 2007
Posts: 68
Location: USA
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| Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 9:03 am Post subject: Re: Who really knows ? |
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| james wrote: |
Prior to the Nicene Council of 325 there were two great students Arius and Athanasius who became locked in a debate over a Greek word. And this happened less than 300 years after Christ |
Hello james,
What was the Greek word? And where does it appear in the New Testament?
Thanks
rufus |
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james
Bear Cub
Joined: 18 Sep 2007
Posts: 648
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| Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 2:48 pm Post subject: |
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| I believe the Greek word was logos, you can google their names and see that their whole doctrine revolved around how that word was defined. It is used in John 1:1 3 times for the word WORD and in John 1:14. It is also used throughout the NT for Word . In 325 at the council of Nicene it is considered, by some, how the doctrine of the Trinity began. |
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Yehushuan
King Kong
Joined: 30 Mar 2006
Posts: 2455
Location: Charismatic
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| Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 4:04 pm Post subject: |
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James, the argument was not over a single “word”. It was over a rather involved philosophical Archetype that was represented by a single word. Kind of like all the debates over “democracy.” The definition of democracy is not debated, but the various implications and philosophies and implementations are.
The first cosmology (an explanation of the world around us) was put forth by Plato. Now you may have taken some high school or college course about Plato and his “FORM”. If not, then the debate is somewhat meaningless, but Plato did not write in English using the word “Form,” but rather Plato wrote in Greek using the word “Logos”.
The gospel of John was written, in part, to refute the cosmology of the neo-Platonists. And when attributed to Jesus, just what part of Plato’s LOGOS attaches?
THAT was the argument. It was over deep philosophical implications of Christology – not about a word definition.
Yehu |
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Yehushuan
King Kong
Joined: 30 Mar 2006
Posts: 2455
Location: Charismatic
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| Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 4:17 pm Post subject: Re: Who really knows ? |
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| james wrote: | | Today Greek scholars say that the Greek language of Bible days is so perfect and exact… |
There are no Greek scholars who say this, and if one does, don’t buy a bridge from him.
I mean, AS a Greek scholar, I wonder who sold you this malarkey. Seriously. This is a rumor that should not be spread around, unless you have actually seen it written by someone who is learned in Greek. Those who study the ancient manuscripts of the New Testament couldn’t say that with a straight face.
| james wrote: | | is their arguments not based on identical Greek words? |
As a matter of fact, no. Most of these arguments surround variations in the manuscripts. Where two of the same books have different words and wordings.
Now there are some arguments over the definitions of words, but this is mostly between definitions derived by scholars living over 400 years ago, and scholars who now have access to papyri from Egypt.
Most Christians are probably aware that the New Testament texts were originally written (perhaps published is a better term) in Greek. But they are probably not aware that the New Testament does not read like modern Greek, nor the ancient texts of the Greek philosophers and novelists (such as Plato and Homer). The dialect of Plato is called “classical” Greek (also Attic Greek), and only academic knowledge of Attic Greek was available to the King James translators. The Greek of the NT is so unlike Attic Greek that many of the KJV translators expressed a view that the New Testament had been written in some sort of “divine” dialect. Since the advance of archeology in the very late 1800’s, we now know quite a bit more about the dialect of Greek in which the NT was written. This is called Koine (or common) Greek. The NT, instead of being written for the scholar, was written for the common man, and I proffer this link for your perusal: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~jtreat/koine/classical.html
“One man is to be given the credit for the discovery of the Koine – a German pastor named Adolf Deissmann. Even though one or two perceptive scholars had noted the true character of NT Greek as early as the middle of the nineteenth century, their statements made no impression on general opinion. Deissmann, on a visit to a friend in Marburg, found a volume of Greek papyri from Egypt, and leafing through this publication, he was struck by the similarity to the Greek of the NT. He followed up this observation with continued study, and his publications of his findings finally led to general acceptance of the position that the peculiarities of the Greek NT were, for the most part, to be explained by reference to the nonliterary Greek, the popular colloquial language of the period. He first published his results in two volumes of Bible Studies (1895, 1897) and later on in the justly popular Life from the Ancient East (1908).”
- The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, pg. 486.
(Kind of makes you wonder why some Christians fight so fiercely for the KJV if the translators didn’t quite have a handle on the language.)
Yehu |
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Craig2uguys
Hamster
Joined: 30 Nov 2007
Posts: 87
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 12:09 am Post subject: Re: Who really knows ? |
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| james wrote: | | Today Greek scholars say that the Greek language of Bible days is so perfect and exact that if the student of the Greek is a refined and accurate grammarian he can truly know exactly what the New Teatament Word teaches. But is this not only a theory ? Is it not so that every Greek scholar of repute from one denomination debates another student of another denomination, and is their arguments not based on identical Greek words? |
Only a person with virtually no knowledge of Greek would say such a thing. See, for example, this excellent site: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/
| james wrote: | | What would happen if we shelfed every book we have, only opened the Bible and sought the truth through Spiritual Revelation, after all John 14:26 says "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my Name, WILL TEACH YOU A-L-L THINGS," |
Millions of people have done that, and that is why we have ten of millions of interpretations of the Bible. |
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Craig2uguys
Hamster
Joined: 30 Nov 2007
Posts: 87
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 12:51 am Post subject: |
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| james wrote: |
After all the Bible was printed for us unlearned, common folk. So I'll just go with what the Bible plainly sets forth. |
The Bible was printed so that everyone who could read would be able to read the Bible if he was fortunate enough to be able to pay the price for one before they became affordable. This did not happen until after 1830 when mechanized printing became far enough advanced that Bibles could be printed and sold affordably.
Needless to say, the more education a man has the more proficient he will be in understanding what he reads, including the Bible. And let us not forget that Biblical Greek is the most inflected of all languages and that English is now the least inflected of all modern languages setting the two languages at opposite poles and making it very difficult to express in English what was written in Greek. And let us not forget the much more serious problem of the Greek verb system. We do not have in English an exact counterpart of any of the tenses used in Greek, and in Greek there are tenses that do not exist at all in English. The result, of course, is that English translations of the Greek New Testament give us only an approximation of the force and meaning of all the verbs (action words) in the New Testament. And to greatly compound the problem, all of the Greek tenses emphasize the aspect of the action rather than the time of the action, and all of the English tenses emphasize the time of the action rather than the aspect of the language. (To better understand what is meant by the ‘aspect’ of action, see the subject of ‘verbal aspect.’ ) And don’t overlook the fact that the Greek prepositions are greatly different than our English prepositions making an exact translation impossible and, in many cases, even a fairly close translation impossible.
And that is just the New Testament. Translating the Hebrew and Aramaic of the Old Testament into English presents its own many and substantial difficulties. That is why those who are called by God to pastor a church must learn Greek to qualify for admission to a good seminary and while at the seminary learn Hebrew. And we go to churches that are pastored by men who have an excellent seminary education so that they can teach us Old and New Testament truths that are buried in the original languages.
And, of course, the some of the very best seminaries require potential pastors to learn Latin, French and German so that they can study what the Holy Spirit has taught and is teaching others throughout the history of the Church. And some pastors have also learned Syriac, Coptic and Ethiopic so that they can read very early translations of the Hebrew text before it became corrupted in some spots and the original meaning otherwise lost. And, of course, some laypersons who really want to get into the Bible and learn all that God has made it possible for them to learn with the help of the Holy Spirit also learn these languages.
If a man who cannot read at all opens up a Bible and asks the Holy Spirit to teach it to him, the Holy Spirit is going to tell the man to get his act together and learn how to read. If a man who can read but who has a limited education opens up a Bible and asks the Holy Spirit to teach it to him, the Holy Spirit is going to tell the man to get his act together and get an education, but such a man is not likely to hear what the Holy Spirit is saying.
And let us not forget that the two men whom it pleased God to use to write most of the New Testament were Luke and Paul, the two by far best educated New Testament writers. The more knowledge a man has, the more God has to work with, both in learning and in teaching. |
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rufus
Big Goldfish
Joined: 22 Sep 2007
Posts: 68
Location: USA
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| Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 5:05 pm Post subject: |
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I have a story I'd like to add to this discussion. Some years back I took a vacation overseas. I was having a friendly argument with another American on our tour group. The argument involved a Greek word and/or a Greek text. I can't remember what Greek word in the bible we were discussing. Both of us used Greek concordances, lexicons, etc.
Now, there was a lady on our tour group from Greece, who also spoke English and overheard our discussion. After our friendly argument was over the Greek lady (not a scholar, just a lady from Greece) looked at us, sort of laughed a bit and made some comment. Well, it sort of dawned on me that any literate person in Greece can read a Greek text, just like I can read any English text, although I'm not a professor who teaches English at a college or university.
Let me express this another way. If I opened up Sir Lancelot Brentons Greek and English Septuagint which has the English on the right side of the page and the Greek on the left, and I covered up the English and made a photo copy of the Greek of Exodus 20, and then showed it to a Greek immigrant who had a Gyro stand, or a taxi driver in Athens and asked him what that said, he could look at it and say "Oh! that's the the ten commandments".
Let me give another example: I've been reading Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus in the "Loeb Classical Library" series which has the English on the right hand page and the Greek on the left. I'm English speaking so I read the right hand side. If I handed that Loeb Classic to an immigrant from Greece who was not proficient in English, they would read the left hand side, correct?
What I'm getting at is this: Knowing two or more languages is a skill. If one is a scholar, that is, if their employed to translate texts from one language to another, be it the gospel of John or Plutarch, they must meet some minimum qualifications to get that job position. But average English speaking people who are not on the editorial boards that translate Loeb Classics or bible manuscripts can still find the meaning of a Greek word or text if they study the matter. Indeed, they can even spot an error in a Greek concordance or lexicon that the editorial board may have missed, didn't bother to correct, or in some cases, misled themselves.
Last edited by rufus on Thu Dec 27, 2007 6:29 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Yehushuan
King Kong
Joined: 30 Mar 2006
Posts: 2455
Location: Charismatic
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| Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2007 9:52 am Post subject: |
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| rufus wrote: | | Well, it sort of dawned on me that any literate person in Greece can read a Greek text, just like I can read any English text, although I'm not a professor who teaches English at a college or university. |
Unfortunately this presumption is wrong.
Modern Greek is as akin to the dialect of Koine Greek as modern English is to ye Olde English (meaning not really). Perhaps even Saxon (or Low German) is a better comparison. Your examples merely show that most Greeks are taught certain classics that were written in Attic Greek. After all, it is their cultural heritage – like you, perhaps, being acquainted with Shakespeare. But then so is the Greek Orthodox Church (their heritage).
Without specifics, it is most likely that your friendly Greek lady was laughing at your non-Greek Orthodox interpretation (perspective). Just as the Roman Catholic Church pleads superiority of the Pope over the evangelism of Peter and Paul in Rome, the Greek Orthodox Church tends to plead special superiority because the text had been written in Greek. (Both false appeals.)
Within my experience (admittedly limited) speakers of Modern Greek tend to make the more egregious errors with the original texts, and I’ll provide a comparable English example:
(1Pe 2:9 KJV) But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:
Peculiar? How peculiar. (And we’re only talking about 400 years of linguistic drift.)
I’m not saying translation is impossible, but neither am I saying that translation is easy. For example we are quite confident that the concepts of Plato have been accurately rendered into English – specifically that of the FORM (Plato’s cosmology). What even educated people seem not to know is that Plato, writing in Greek, did not talk about FORM (an English word after all) but rather wrote LOGOS.
The first chapter of John is an appended refutation to the Neo-Platonists of the early church period (specifically Plotinus). Any use of the Greek word “logos” as an Archetype within cosmology (i.e. John 1) would instantly be recognized as a comment or challenge to Plato. Therefore:
In the beginning was the Form, and the Form was with God, and the Form was God.
Yehu
PS: I happen to think ‘Pattern’ is a better English word, but I don't have the political clout yet to implement this on a wider scale. |
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Yehushuan
King Kong
Joined: 30 Mar 2006
Posts: 2455
Location: Charismatic
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| Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2007 10:56 am Post subject: |
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Craig,
I gather you are not an Evangelical pastor.
| Craig2uguys wrote: | | And let us not forget that the two men whom it pleased God to use to write most of the New Testament were Luke and Paul, the two by far best educated New Testament writers. |
One should also not forget that it was both Luke and Paul who “it pleased God”(?) to dramatically change the gospel as presented by Jesus.
| Craig2uguys wrote: | | all of the Greek tenses emphasize the aspect of the action rather than the time of the action |
Are you sure you have not confused this with Hebrew? I was under the impression that aspect is indicated uniquely by tense in dialects of Ancient Greek. I’d appreciate your source reference for this assertion.
| Craig2uguys wrote: | | in many cases, even a fairly close translation impossible. |
I’m curious. Give me three examples
| Craig2uguys wrote: | | those who are called by God to pastor a church must learn Greek |
God has a language requirement for Righteousness by Faith? One needs to know Greek to meet the needs of one’s congregants (marriage, baptism, communion, counseling)? As if ministry can only be accomplished by the ‘seminaried’? The Holy Ghost can only speak to those who are educated in foreign languages?
Yehu |
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rufus
Big Goldfish
Joined: 22 Sep 2007
Posts: 68
Location: USA
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| Posted: Tue Dec 25, 2007 6:55 am Post subject: |
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| rufus wrote: | | Well, it sort of dawned on me that any literate person in Greece can read a Greek text, just like I can read any English text, although I'm not a professor who teaches English at a college or university. |
| Yehushuan wrote: |
Unfortunately this presumption is wrong.
Modern Greek is as akin to the dialect of Koine Greek as modern English is to ye Olde English (meaning not really). Perhaps even Saxon (or Low German) is a better comparison. Your examples merely show that most Greeks are taught certain classics that were written in Attic Greek. After all, it is their cultural heritage – like you, perhaps, being acquainted with Shakespeare. |
Granted, modern Greek is not exactly the same as the Greek of the first century. And if I'm not mistaken the Greek of Homer's time was a little different than the Greek of the first century. But there's still alot of similarities. Thus, it seems to me that it is easier for a modern Greek to learn the language of Homer, Plato, Paul or Epictetus than it is for an English speaking person who has not grown up with the Greek language.
One can discover the similarities between ancient and modern Greek by examining a lexicon of New Testament words and comparing those with the same words found in Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon and with a modern Greek dictionary. Granted, modern Greek differs from ancient Greek, but it's alot closer than English, German or Spanish, especially considering the fact that the Greek letters of the modern language are almost identical to those of the first century.
As I pointed out on my previous post, simply knowing some Greek does not qualify one to be on the editorial board overseeing the translation of Greek texts. Nevertheless, even an amatuer can discover the probable meaning intended by the ancient author. And if their using correct logic they could also spot an error made by a proffessional who used fallacious reasoning. |
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rufus
Big Goldfish
Joined: 22 Sep 2007
Posts: 68
Location: USA
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| Posted: Tue Dec 25, 2007 7:20 am Post subject: |
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| rufus wrote: |
Some years back I took a vacation overseas. I was having a friendly argument with another American on our tour group. The argument involved a Greek word and/or a Greek text. I can't remember what Greek word in the bible we were discussing.
Now, there was a lady on our tour group from Greece, who also spoke English and overheard our discussion. After our friendly argument was over the Greek lady (not a scholar, just a lady from Greece) looked at us, sort of laughed a bit and made some comment. |
| Yehushuan wrote: |
Without specifics, it is most likely that your friendly Greek lady was laughing at your non-Greek Orthodox interpretation |
Thanks for informing me of her denominational affiliation, Yehushuan! How do know she was Greek Orthodox? With that kind of insight, maybe you could also recall the Greek word we were discussing, seeing how you know the interpretation!
Last edited by rufus on Thu Dec 27, 2007 6:33 am; edited 1 time in total |
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RevJP
Moderator
Joined: 18 Apr 2003
Posts: 6840
Location: USA
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| Posted: Tue Dec 25, 2007 8:10 am Post subject: |
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I find this discussion interesting. Yehu has some good points, then falls off the board completely with others, Rufus, while meaning well, you don't seem to grasp the difficulties of translating and properly translating older languages. Craig.... no, I do not agree with much of what you have to say.
The truth is much of what Yehu pointed out; Modern Greeks have the ability to read and understand 1st century Greek texts just as much as modern english speakers have the ability to read and understand olde english - some but limited to the extreme.
The problem comes in not just understanding the words, but the meaning of the words being used. Let us see one example of such in english:
Suffer, as in "suffer the little children to come unto me..."
This is our understanding of 'suffer':
suf·fer /ˈsʌfər/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[suhf-er] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–verb (used without object)
1. to undergo or feel pain or distress: The patient is still suffering.
2. to sustain injury, disadvantage, or loss: One's health suffers from overwork. The business suffers from lack of capital.
3. to undergo a penalty, as of death: The traitor was made to suffer on the gallows.
4. to endure pain, disability, death, etc., patiently or willingly.
–verb (used with object)
5. to undergo, be subjected to, or endure (pain, distress, injury, loss, or anything unpleasant): to suffer the pangs of conscience.
6. to undergo or experience (any action, process, or condition): to suffer change.
This is the understanding of suffer as used in old time english:
7. to tolerate or allow: I do not suffer fools gladly.
The average modern english speaker would not know this without some education in the use of the word prior to the 18th century. As is the case with Greek, the 1st century Greek is much different in use and meaning than what the modern Greek is today. |
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Yehushuan
King Kong
Joined: 30 Mar 2006
Posts: 2455
Location: Charismatic
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| Posted: Tue Dec 25, 2007 9:58 am Post subject: |
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RevJP !!  long time no wrangle.
In retrospect I wonder if I should have expanded on my comments regarding Logos. At the risk of repeating what I’ve posted over in Bible Debate, the first chapter of John is written in a style that would be instantly recognized by one educated in the first century as a philosophical cosmology, and the word LOGOS would have stuck out as a sore thumb, since Plato did not write about the FORM, but rather used the word LOGOS.
Hence:
In the beginning was the FORM, and the FORM was with God, and the FORM was God.
Yehu
PS: I am intrigued as to which points fell off the board. You assess, but provide no illumination. |
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Yehushuan
King Kong
Joined: 30 Mar 2006
Posts: 2455
Location: Charismatic
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| Posted: Tue Dec 25, 2007 10:02 am Post subject: |
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| rufus wrote: | Thanks for informing me of her denominational affiliation, Yehushuan! How do know she was Greek Orthodox? With that kind of insight, maybe you could also recall the Greek word we were discussing, seeing how you know the interpretation!  |
No need to get snotty. "without specifics" - "most likely" what part of equivocation seems perplexing?
How was she Greek Orthodox? Is the Pope Italian?
Yehu |
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