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Re: Meaning of case (and the Apocalypse)

This discussion topic is VERY interesting to me.  The Greek in my formal
education was nearly 100% classical Greek.  Plato, Xenophon, Homer,
Tragedies, Herodotus, etc.  As a Bible Student I have my GNT with me all the
time & the friends occasionally ask me to verify that a certain meaning is
conveyed in "The Greek."  I do find that, in the absence of formal training
in NT, LXX or even contemporary  (i.e., authors contemporary to the NT)
"koine" Greek I analyse & translate as though it were Plato or Herodotus.
 One may argue that what is lost is the benefit of contemporary, especially
theological, context is missing.  One may just as easily argue that one is
not biased by spurious theology & can therefore extract the true meaning of
the NT without bias.  There is also the tendency to take full liberty
whenever there is a construction that falls outside familiar classical
paradigms.  For example, somewhere in Ap 20 (sorry, I don't have my text in
front of me) is the prhase "...and when the thousand years are ended...".
 One of the corrector's hands has "-then" on "teleo"  -- I think etelesthen
(again, not having my NT in front of me I'm  misquoting it but someone out
there knows exactly what I'm referring to).  One of my friends reasons that
"-then" is an adverbial ending indicating direction toward & therefore is at
liberty to say "...towards the end of the thousand years..." allowing him to
place the Little Season within the Millennium.  I'd rather say that I've
never seen such an ending on a Greek word -- at least not in "classical"
greek & call it an impossible reading.  So much for the lengthy example.

I'm very interested in others' testimonials on reading NT with a "classical"
background.

David Jambor
BA, Classical Languages & Literature