[B-Greek] Using Greek

Nicholas Aggelopoulos n_aggelopoulos at hotmail.com
Fri Mar 13 11:35:03 EDT 2009




Dear all,
Here is my difference in view: Greek is not a long dead
tongue or dialect. It is a living tongue, but not everybody’s mother tongue. It
is not easier for someone to try to understand Modern Greek than Biblical
Greek, if they are not Greek. This is not answering so much the original
question as saying that one may consider New Testament Greek a dead language,
if the same person would consider the language of Shakespeare a dead language.
The fortunate thing, indeed, is that the language is not dead and can be
understood, not deciphered.
I agree on the other points in the appended email.


 

To be able to read the original text in any language, helps
clear up misunderstandings. In an early translation of Homer, the sea drunk
with wine (wine-drunk sea) was translated famously as the wine-dark sea. The
phrase has stuck and is one of the most often quoted from Homer. It is not
crucial when reading a work of poetry but some understanding of the original is
probably of interest when critically reading the Bible.

 

The difference between reading the text in Greek vs English
is that the English translations often sound as just that: translations. The
original reads more as the thoughts naturally coming out of the minds of the Evangelists.
That may be what someone meant, when they said they gained in humility
from reading the original text in Greek. Part of the reason why there are so
many translations into English is that it is not an easy task to match the fluency
of the original texts.

 

The principle is similar when reading English literature. It
is far more satisfying to read the original than a modernized version of
Chaucer or, for example, a Greek translation of a Modern English writer. 

 

Finally, the Evangelists are the closest one can get to
Christ. That should be enough to motivate someone serious enough to want to be able
to read exactly what they wrote.

 Nicholas Aggelopoulos



------------------------------------------

> From: cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
> To: ebyon at sbcglobal.net
> Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 07:46:07 -0400
> CC: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Using Greek
> 
>  I  
> think also (b) that the attitude and approach that one brings to bear  
> on reading the Greek; an open mind to alternative possibilities  
> allowed by the grammatical rules/patterns of Koine Greek, that certain  
> thoughtfulness (some will want to identify this with guidance of the  
> Spirit) which opens eyes and mind to what is being communicated in a  
> long-dead dialect of an alien language in a text composed in a  
> radically different world ages ago. To rephrase it, I think that  
> without some real competence in Koine Greek and an appropriate mind- 
> set when approaching the GNT, one might really be better off working  
> with good versions (preferably more than one) in one's own native  
> language.
> 
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Ret)
> 
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek
> B-Greek mailing list
> B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek

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