From: Ben Crick (ben.crick@argonet.co.uk)
Date: Thu Dec 25 1997 - 22:01:12 EST
On Wed 24 Dec 97 (21:43:18 +0100), mjoseph@terminal.cz wrote:
> Put simply, my (first) question is, "Can we understand the New Testament
> as a normal piece of Koine Greek writing?" I assume that most of the
> people on this list speak at least one foreign language fluently. I
> speak both French and Czech fluently, though they are for me, an
> American, foreign languages. Now, when I listen to or read in Czech, I
> don't stop and ask myself after each genitive "Is this a genitive of
> source? of possession? an objective genitive? a subjective genitive?"
> etc. I just *know*, because I've been speaking the language for many
> years. Yes, there are plays on words, idioms, and figures of speech, but
> I understand these without translating them word-for-word into English.
[snip]
Happy Christmas, Mark!
Thank you for that. I learned Latin at school; speak French and German
fluently; learnt Russian in the military; read Hebrew and Greek at uni.
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! I've no
idea whether Czech has the article; cognate Russian certainly has not.
> Now, reading the New Testament is not like that! Someone poses a
> question on this list about, say, Mt. 4:3 or Lk 3:23 (to use two recent
> examples), and all of us give cogent, supported exegetical reasoning as
> to why this or that translation is superior or inferior. ... [snip]
What Hebrew and Greek have in common, is that they BOTH have the DEFINITE
article; but NEITHER has the INDEFINITE article a, an. This must pose
problems for Latin and Russian with neither article; and for English with
both articles. So it's always a good idea to check what Jerome's Vulgate
makes of a disputed text before making up one's mind.
> ... ... I remember that a few months ago someone, Carl Conrad
> I think, suggested that students should do extensive reading in Greek at
> the expense of intensive study of single words--that comment made a great
> impression on me as being self-evidently correct. Perhaps that would help
> toward resolution of the problem that I am pointing at here). While I
> seriously doubt that anyone on this list speaks Koine (and certainly no
> one regularly hears it spoken), do those who have studied it for many
> years find themselves understanding it in the way someone nowadays might
> understand a French-speaking friend?
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.
> 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; 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, like DL Sayers'
/The Man Born to be King/. The body-language has to be "written-in".
I can't answer your questions, Mark: but you've sure given us plenty to
chew on!
Happy New Year!
-- Revd Ben Crick, BA CF <ben.crick@argonet.co.uk> 232 Canterbury Road, Birchington, Kent, CT7 9TD (UK) http://www.cnetwork.co.uk/crick/htm
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