[B-Greek] Jefferson on Greek - Norm Cousins
L. Harris
ljoharris at ckt.net
Wed Feb 8 16:06:49 EST 2006
Hi Michael,
>You might get the "not appropriate here" response from Carl ... but thanks for the heads up. We could all well spent some time >revisiting the founding fathers' vision for America.
Well I hope Carl dosent say anything since he originally brought it up in a message on the 6th. (What say you Carl?)
I went and looked and I believe Norman Cousins did write the book of which you speak, though I have not read it. Actually I never thought about him other than him being the author of the book in question, but having looked him up, now I see that he wrote quite extensively and seemed to be a very interesting person. Here are two quotes he's famous for.
"Laughter is inner jogging"
and
"Life is an adventure in forgivness."
(sheesh no kidding!)
The reason I suggested his book In God We Trust (letters of the religious beliefs of the founding fathers) has to do with the fact that it was from this book I learned that many of the founding fathers were very fluent in reading and writing Greek. I learned this before I ever set about to learn Greek and it was one of the things that gave me the desire to learn it myself. In fact they often wrote to one another in Greek and I find that very interesting, since I believe that their understanding of the Greek language is what led many of them to have some very different opinions on God than the established Churches. I believe this because not only did they write to one another in Greek but they also read the NT in Greek and could see where the Church did not exactly go by what they believed it to be saying. In some of the letters in the book they get down right graffic in their criticism on the subject.
Another thing I found to be interesting is that many of them began studying for the ministry and wound up being lawyers instead. And due to some of their attitudes towards established religion it makes me wonder if it were not due to their ability to read and write Greek that they saw a lot of hypocracy and contradiction in what was sometimes taught in the pulpits of organized religion and thus (THANKFULLY FOR US) choose to be lawyers and well.....THE REST IS HISTORY.
Now not everyone agreed or had the same beliefs but there was something about having the knowledge and freedom to read the scriptures in the original language that really put these men on a course of, for lack of a better description "free thinking". And in fact in learning more about Greek and relating this knowledge in my reading of the scriptures has also done the same for me. In short it's given me a "freedom" that I did not before posssess. And this is what I believe the impact was on them.
I think the ultimate goal of learning Greek to begin with, is to find a close as possible what the founding apostles meant in their writings because as Jesus said "If you coninue in my Word, you shall be my disciples indeed and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. Free from what? Free from error, free from lies, free from deceptions, free from false concepts, impressions and inaccuracies that always steal away your freedom found only in the truth. I mean it's not just that way for the Bible, it's that way for everything in life, when ever and where ever you are under a false impression you wind up loosing out on something in the long run.
Kind regards back to you.
Linda Harris
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