When I was working on my undergraduate degree I had to take some language classes in order to receive my degree. I ended up taking Elementary Greek I and II and Intermediate Greek I. Now, once again I find myself taking Greek in seminary. As I sat in class today listening to the teacher I developed a greater appreciation for this language. Doing it a second time not only refreshes my memory but it helps me to understand things even better. In fact I wish I would have taken it more seriously when I had it the first time because I gained a skill that would have seriously enhance my bible study if I would have used it. It certainly isn’t easy but it is well worth the time and effort.
I am amazed time and time again at how different the Greek language is from English. The way they wrote the original Greek transcripts enables us to gain far greater understanding of the text than just simply reading the English translation of it. The English language uses sentence structure to determine meaning. For instance, in the sentence “Jack smacked Jill” we understand in English that it was Jack that did the smacking and it was Jill that got smacked. If you changed the sentence to “Jill smacked Jack” then it would completely changed the meaning. Now we understand the sentence to mean Jill did the smacking and Jack was the one who was smacked. In Greek the sentence structure does not determine meaning at all, instead it is each individual word that determines the meaning. In Greek if you want to understand the meaning of the sentence “Jack smacked Jill” then you would look at the way each word was written. By understanding the endings and stems of the words, you can determine the meaning of the sentence. It doesn’t matter how you arrange the sentence because it still means the same thing unlike English. Ok, that is all well and good, but you are probably thinking, so what? What’s the big deal? Well because the Greek language does not use sentence structure for meaning it has the ability to use the sentence structure for something far greater, emphasis.
When you write something that someone else has said it is very difficult to understand the true purpose of an English sentence because we have no way of knowing what tones, facial expressions, and gestures people are using when they speak. The exact same sentence can mean two different things depending on how the sentence is actually said. These are things that do not carry over into writing and so it creates serious misunderstanding. I began to notice this when I started my blog. I have posted well over one hundred entries and many times people completely misunderstand what I say. Not because I said it wrong, but because they could not understand where I was coming from because they could not hear my tone of voice or see my eyes or facial expression. The English language causes sentences to lose meaning in this manner. However the Greek language does not do this. Instead the tone and emphasis of a sentence is determined by the sentence structure. This means you can know when a writer of the New Testament is stressing a certain point or is putting emphasis on something that we should know. This is just one of the many things about Greek that will lead anyone to a greater understanding of the text. Facing facts, you simply cannot understand or determine true meaning of certain passages without help from studying the original language. It is a sad, sad thing that many seminaries and schools around the world are no longer requiring these languages to be taught, because these students are loosing a vital part of study.
If you are a bible student take my advice, do not forsake these languages whatever you do! They may be hard and a lot of work, but it is far more valuable to know them than it is to simply rely on text that has been translated for you. Even if the text is translated correctly, you can’t always get the true meaning of a sentence because the English language leaves out so much.
Pressed
That was a very good introduction of the differences between Greek and English except that someone almost certainly will assert that Greek is not a “dead” language. Certainly, the language has changed between the era of the New Testament and now, in the same way that Attic, Ionic, and Doric Greek are different from the Koine Greek that the Apostles used. Turn from Koine Greek to a passage from Aristotle, Plato, or Homer, and you can see some of the differences in style and structure that occurred between those periods. Assyrian, by contrast, is a dead language, because it hasn’t survived except possibly by extreme mutation.
Old English is extremely different form modern English. I’m not referring to the English of the Middle Ages (Chaucer or the author of “Piers Plowman”), but to the language of Beowulf or “The Ruin,” which is far closer to German and Danish than to modern English. In spite of the vast difference between the two, we categorize all three as Old, Middle, and Modern as variations of English.
Well the reason it is considered a dead langauge is because it isn’t spoken anymore. Koine “common” Greek isn’t something that is used at all anymore as far as speaking or writing except for what work is done with old texts and the New Testament.
I would like to take/learn some Greek sometime.
Thanks for that, Pressed. I need encouragement to get myself started back on learning Koine Greek. I learned enough to read John 1:1 and a few other passages and never got any further. Perhaps I should get back to work!
I have a Nestle-aland Novum Testamentum Graece
Bible evidently published in Stuttgart Germany>
On line I have found Hellenistic Greek Language
site and it is close but not identical to my
Bible. I have look in a variety of Lexicons
but many of the Greek words in the Novum are
not to be found e.g., Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian
Literature Revised by Frederick W. Danker 3rd Edition BDAG; nor the Spiros Zodhiates reference index and several others. Is there a Kione Greek-
English dictionary/lexicon? I am almost 68 years old and I know that I have only begun. Personally I see confusion in the KJV. Yet it is my Bible of preference. God said that he was not the author of confusion. I believe in order to resolve what appears to be conflicts that going to the Kione Greek will be helpful. I do not read Greek but I know that context is important and case endings are extremely important. If you know of any reference book
that would be of help I would appreciate knowing
the publishing date, publisher, and the Title
plus author. I went the the 1545 German Bibel to
solve a problem that I had with the word “save.”
My concern is regarding five basic KJV words. Ghost,Spirit & in the Spirit wherein each of these Greek words are mingled; otherwise, the Original greek word for Ghost was translated into KJV as Ghost, sometimes as spirit, and others as in the spirit.
The words baptized, baptise and baptised seperately do not always have the same Greek word as their source. I can not find the Greek words in any lexicon for the words translated as baptized, baptise and baptized in the KJV. I hope to learn precisely what each Greek word means.
Bill
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