[B-Greek] The Elephant on the List
George F Somsel
gfsomsel at yahoo.com
Thu Feb 18 14:22:53 EST 2010
Mark Matchman wrote:
"There are two reasons
why it makes much less sense for the Christian to learn
Greek than it does for the Jew to learn Hebrew or for
the Muslim to learn Arabic.
"One is well know and often discussed on the List: We
do not know how much of the Greek NT was originally
formulated in Hebrew or Aramaic. Therefore, it is pointless
to get hung up on what "the Greek says."
Whether the original discourse, if what we have in any way accurately reflects it, was formulated in Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic or Swahili makes no difference. What we have is the Greek text which reflects the earliest accounts of the founding of Christianity. It is pointless to attempt to go beyond what is written in the text. To do so is in essence to reject the text which we have. I happen to think that Bultmann was correct in considering the accounts of Jesus' life and sayings to be the product of the early Church, but whether that is the case or whether it is simply a translation of events which occurred we rely upon these texts and not on our own reconstruction of what we might consider to have been the original situation.
george
gfsomsel
… search for truth, hear truth,
learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth,
defend the truth till death.
- Jan Hus
_________
----- Original Message ----
From: Mark Lightman <lightmanmark at yahoo.com>
To: Blue Meeksbay <bluemeeksbay at yahoo.com>
Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Thu, February 18, 2010 11:17:57 AM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] The Elephant on the List
When Mark wrote:
<Because the English translations are more
clear than the Greek, and because the English translations
are better literature than the
the Greek, there really is no reason to learn New Testament Greek.
(unless you are yourself a translator)...>
Blue wrote in response:
<I think many of our Jewish brethren would disagree
with you on this point. They are taught (at least the
Orthodox) to treasure the original language and to
learn it no matter what occupation they may decide
to pursue. But I would agree with you that the knowledge
of the Greek is not necessary to learn truth.>
You bring up a great point, Blue. There are two reasons
why it makes much less sense for the Christian to learn
Greek than it does for the Jew to learn Hebrew or for
the Muslim to learn Arabic.
One is well know and often discussed on the List: We
do not know how much of the Greek NT was originally
formulated in Hebrew or Aramaic. Therefore, it is pointless
to get hung up on what "the Greek says."
The other is just as well known but is never talked about--
sort of like another little elephant. Paul, and as far as we
know, nearly every other Early Christian writer, accepted
as a fact that their Bible was some form of the Greek Old
Testament, the LXX or some proto-LXX. They were
perfectly happy to "rely" on a translation. You might
respond that Paul, as a Pharisee and someone who
probably spent some time studying in Jerusalem,
probably knew some Hebrew. Agreed, he probably
did. But he never uses it in any of his letters.
That is to say, if the LXX was good enough for Paul,
and the King James Bible was good enough for Jesus,
then the RSV-NIV-TEV is good enough for me, he he.
Mark L
FWSFOROS MARKOS
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