[B-Greek] "Why do we make pastors translate?"
Kevin Riley
klriley100 at gmail.com
Sun Dec 13 20:09:29 EST 2009
This discussion has been interesting - partly because it is of a very
different system of education. I have a BA (Theol) and had to take 2 years
of Greek and one of Hebrew. The first year of Greek was learning the forms
of Greek and parsing almost ad infinitum. The second year was translating,
with parsing required when the word didn't make sense. I often had the
unsettling experience of agonising over a verse which just didn't yield its
meaning, then, when called upon to translate in class without reference to
my homework, I could translate almost without thinking. I never understood
how I could do that, or how my teacher could unerringly choose me for the
verse I had struggled with unsuccessfully. There was an optional third year
of Greek, which moved away from the NT and church fathers used in 2nd year
to works judged likely to be unknown to the students, but it wasn't offered
during my time. The second year was very helpful because it took the focus
away from form and put it on meaning. Rather than getting marks for
identifying a form correctly, and giving a woodenly literal translation, we
had to put the thought of the Greek into English words. That meant paying
attention to how Greek works, how it structures the elements of language,
and how it expresses ideas.
Many of my fellow students complained about learning Greek, as it seemed a
waste of time to learn something you wouldn't need. Any time they wanted to
know what the Greek said, they could consult a commentary. I think that may
come partly from a perception that language learning is hard, but also from
a knowledge of what is required of them by their parishioners and
superiors. The main question most parishioners will have is whether their
bible translates the Greek 'accurately', by which they really mean whether
there is a on-to-one correspondence between the Greek word and the English
word. The main question for their superiors is whether they are preaching a
message that is doctrinally sound according to the denomination, and a
knowledge of what Greek words 'really' mean is seen as useful for that
purpose - sometimes. Most of the time, analysis of the Greek focuses on
individual words, or a verse of the text. That removes Greek from our
experience of reading any other language. If we learn French, Spanish, etc,
we are focused on learning how to speak the language or read whole pieces of
literature in that language. We learn Greek, and then spend our lives
focused on analyzing small chunks of text. I have talked to a number of
pastors, and almost without exception they do 'word studies', or at best
'verse studies', in Greek, but the serious study of a passage, noticing the
flow of ideas and the structure of the argument, is done in English.
Learning Greek is really just a useful tool for studying the bible in
English, not a way into studying the Greek text itself. In most churches,
the English bible is treated more as a collection of short sayings to be
used randomly as convenient than as a continuous text, so I don't think we
should be surprised that the Greek is treated similarly.
I have to say I agree with George on the necessity of those who will preach
the gospel learning Greek and Hebrew, but it really has to be in a context
where they actually learn to read Greek and Hebrew. If all they will learn
is to parse Greek words, and maybe produce some sort of literal, wooden
translation, they probably are better off learning one of the other hundred
and one skills expected of a pastor. That perhaps raises a much larger
question, the answer to which impacts directly and indirectly on the
question of learning Greek: what is expected of a pastor? If the answer
includes many things apart from, or instead of, preaching the gospel, then
perhaps the effort needed to master Greek is not justified. My own
experience and observation is that most denominations require far more than
any one person can accomplish, and Greek simply gets lost in the busyness of
trying to keep both parishioners and superiors happy. A preacher can
justify hours spent each week on maintaining and improving Greek skills, but
can a counsellor, administrator, fund raiser, teacher of children, visitor
of the old and the sick, coach, etc, etc put forward the same
justification? Probably off-topic for this list, but very relevant for the
pastor 'in the field' who wants to maintain Greek skills but struggles to
find the time amid all the other duties and expectations that must be met.
Kevin Riley
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