[B-Greek] Recap of Class 3/27
Eric Weiss
eweiss at gte.net
Fri Mar 28 10:51:00 EST 2003
Friends:
As you know (if you were there), due to overwhelming demand we did NOT
do anything new last night, but briefly reviewed the vocabulary so far.
As you did concur that a person should be able to keep up with the
material if they do 30-40 or so minutes a day, 5 days a week (and many
confessed that they were only working at it 2-3 days a week, and hence
had fallen behind), I'll keep the pace of the class the same and hope
that everyone uses this week to catch up so we can begin Lessons 16 & 17
next week. :o)
We then discussed the feature of the UBS4 Greek New Testament we will be
using -- e.g.:
- the textual apparatus
- how to make sense of the variant readings listing
- what the rankings (A, B, C, D) mean
- the Scriptural cross-references at the bottom (and the allusions and
verbal parallels chart at the back before the dictionary)
- the Discourse Segmentation apparatus -- i.e., the listing at the
bottom of the page of how various translations segment and punctuate the
text (i.e., paragraphing, periods vs. commas, etc.)
Thoroughly read the introdution to the Greek New Testament for a more
detailed explanation of these things.
Though I didn't get it on the tape I made for Billy Morgan, we read
through Colossians 1:9-11 as I explained the issues translators have to
face and why it can sometimes be a word-for-word task to translate a NT
passage. I hope after that you got a better idea of what translation can
involve and also why you are taking Greek.
Yes, you'll still have to consult the experts, and you should often
defer to their judgment on translation/interpretation/word-meaning,
etc., but that does not mean it's no use to take Greek just because
you'll still need someone to tell you or help tell you what it means at
times. If you don't take Greek, and/or cannot read the Greek, you have
in a sense decided to let someone else tell you what the Bible says,
because even in this brief passage from Colossians, you could see the
many choices translators are faced with. They often make the same
choices from translation to translation, but sometimes they don't -- and
if you can't go to the Greek text yourself, you don't know why the
English translations differ or why one of the choices should or should
not be preferred to the other choice(s).
Also, as in the case in the Acts passage we read (Acts 17:28), we
discovered that some of the early versions (Peshitta, Ethiopic -- per
Metzger's Textual Commentary book, which goes into detail re: the
text-critical notes in the UBS4 Greek New Testament) say "sages/wise
men" instead of "poets," and also that some mss. have "our poets"
instead of "your poets." These things you would not know if you didn't
or couldn't read from the Greek New Testament. Nor would you understand
why the text editors chose the text they did over the other variants.
So ... everyone work a little extra this week to bring them up through
chapter 15, sort and learn your vocabulary cards, and I'll see you next
Thursday with lots of new good stuff!!
--
Eric S. Weiss
http://home1.gte.net/vzn05pnm/index.htm
S.D.G.
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