From: mjoseph (mjoseph@terminal.cz)
Date: Sat Dec 27 1997 - 12:29:20 EST
In response to Mark Joseph's question about Rolf Furuli's assertion:
>In any Bible translation the
>theology of the translators will and must play an important role
Clayton Stirling Bartholomew told an apocryphal story:
*****
>In 1982 James Barr and Bruce Waltke were sitting in a small cafe in Paris
>where they were discussing in French the first two verses of Genesis. Both
>men
>spoke French fluently. Waltke and Barr were able after two hours to agree on
>the syntax of the first two verses of Genesis. After another hour they were
>able to agree on several aspects of Hebrew cosmology that were reflected in
>these verses. (snip) Do you think their
>use of French was colored by their metaphysical precommittments? Do you think
>their understanding of the ancient Hebrew document was colored by their
>metaphysical precommittments? My answer to both questions is Yes.
*****
1) Clayton, I know it is the holiday season, but take it easy on the egg
nog, you hear? :-)
2) Though it wasn't one of the questions I posed, you do provide an
answer to one important question, though. I don't think anybody denies
that we all bring "metaphysical precommitments" to our interpretation.
However, it is an open question as to how much these affect our
interpretation. I am of the personal opinion (though I know that there
are those who disagree, especially among the post-modernists) that these
can be minimized (and that fairly easily) if they are consciously
recognized, and if much effort is made to get good at the grammar and to
learn the historical context of the first century. In other words, to
your "Yes," I would say, "OK, but to what degree?" This allows me to
bring up two related points, which I wanted to put in the first post, but
didn't as it was already too long:
2a) Should theology students be taught secular Greek first, in order to
enable them to bring the text to theology, rather that their theology to
the text? (This applies equally to liberals, evangelicals, and
Catholics). And if so, classical or Koine? I once suggested to my
seminary prof that perhaps we should learn Greek from 1 Clement, in order
to avoid reading our theology (and memorized verses) into the text before
we knew Greek well. All he did was roll his eyes and say that after the
rigors of learning the inflections, the students should be rewarded by
reading the New Testament.
2b) Is "a little learning a dangerous thing"? Should theology students
be taught *more* Greek than they usually are? After all, I think that
more than one person on this list has heard a sermon in which a
theological point has been made from, and at the expense of the Greek.
But, what more can realistically be expected if people are given only
four (or less) semesters of Greek at 2-3 hours per week?
****************************
Ben Crick adds:
>When people get arguing about the arthrous/anarthrous use of various
> nouns and noun clauses, I just wonder how on earth the Romans and the
> Russians ever manage to understand the right meaning of anything, when
> they can communicate quite happily without any articles at all!
Amazing, huh? Actually, this was just one particular example that I
picked out; it could easily be multiplied by whatever grammatical
features are often discussed in exegesis. It all goes back to my
original question about the difference between reading a language like
one's native language, and reading a language by analyzing each
inflectional element in each word.
> It is indispensable to acquire what the Germns call the "Sprachgefuehl"
> for the language one is studying. Reading the Greek NT out loud is an
> excellent way of getting to know "how it works", and to achieve the stage
> at which one *knows* what it is saying, without having to translate it
> into English first.
See my response to Clayton above; would this process be more honest
and/or efficient if the "Sprachgefuehl" were obtained by reading, say,
Josephus (or some other Koine Greek writing)?
>> Just think of the classic example in which a Protestant explains Mt.
>> 16:18 like this: "You (Jesus says, pointing to Peter) are Peter, and
>> (in a tone of voice indicating that the "and" really means "but",
>> accompanied by a dramatic gesture toward a nearby cliff) on THIS rock
>> I will build my church."
>
> Hmmmm. PETROS and PETRA are not synonyms;
Sorry for the dumb mistake; I guess I've read the argument about the two
words being the same in Aramaic so often that I can no longer think
straight!
>but clearly "body language" is
> important in face-to-face communication, but is absent from the printed
> page. Hence the plethora of stage directions in a play.
>
> I can't answer your questions, Mark:
Rats. I was hoping for THE ANSWER (note the definite article :-)
>but you've sure given us plenty to
> chew on!
Thanks, that's what I wanted to do.
***************************
An anonymous friend remarked off-list:
>This raises the questions "were the biblical writers native speakers of
>Greek?" and "Was Koine a creole or pidgin, a simplified Business Greek or a
>'real' language with actual native speakers. My teachers(non-theologians)
>leaned toward the Business Greek for Foreigners end of the spectrum.
One of my questions exactly, though I didn't stress it in the first post.
I know the "linguistic map of first-century Palestine" was just
discussed on the list. Could someone give us a brief list (assuming such
a thing exists) of accessible "Koine literature" (a coherent work, not
just a heap of papyrus fragments)? I know that a lot of people in the
first century wrote in Attic as a literary language, but are there any
Greek works, preferably with a provenance outside of Palestine, that
would enable us to study Koine as Koine, and not "just" as the vehicle
for the New Testament revelation? If not, would Josephus qualify?
Happy New Year to all,
Mark Joseph
____________________________
There are two kinds of fools:
The first says, "This is old, therefore it is good."
The other says, "This is new, therefore it is better."
______________________________________________________
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