> I can tell you that the by far greater (90% pus) percentage of them
> are not "speakers of Greek". You have to understand, these are 16, 18, 24,
> 26 years old young people who are born into homes of first generation
> immigrants, most of them laborers and small storekeepers who not only
> they had not the time and money to provide their children with a proper
> formal Greek education, but they themselves are completely incapable to
> provide them the rudiments of a proper Greek language upbringing at home,
This last sentence may be illuminating. It sounds like you are saying that
only modern Greeks who have "a proper formal Greek education" can easily
understand NT Greek, and those who are "laborers and small storekeepers"
would be "completely incapable" of providing their children with this kind
of education.
I assume that a proper formal Greek education includes reading the classics,
the New Testament, etc., and would be equivalent to an English education that
included reading Beowulf, Bede, Chaucer, the Cloud of Unknowing, etc. in the
original. (This kind of English education is almost impossible to find, BTW!)
A modern American who had read Beowulf in the original Old Saxon would
be able to understand Chaucer's Middle English. But most Americans,
who do not have this kind of background, have a hard time understanding
Middle English, or even the more modern King James English.
> Do you know how does to a Greek - who is somewhat, say, even little,
> aware of the power and the beauty of the NT and the Liturgy of the
> greek Orthodox ecclesiai...
I do think that the Orthodox Liturgy is very beautiful. And yes,
I would say that it "swings", when you have the right priest, and not
somebody who mumbles.
Jonathan
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Jonathan Robie
POET Software, 3207 Gibson Road, Durham, N.C., 27703
Ph: 919.598.5728 Fax: 919.598.6728
email: jwrobie@mindspring.com, jonathan@poet.com
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