Greek


Jeff over at the Scripture Zealot blog has posted a great article about a translation of scripture called The Source. You can read it online in pdf format, or buy a print copy from Amazon like I just did: The Source New Testament With Extensive Notes on Greek Word Meaning. I was extremely pleased with the contents of this translation after examining the preview at Amazon and decided to buy a copy. I’ve also been thinking that I am probably well overdue to buy a copy of the NET bible with all of it’s notes, or perhaps the NET diglot since I am mostly interested in New Testament studies right now.

Actually… I just checked Logos and I have a copy of the NET with notes already. However I think I’d benefit more from having them in a print copy with the notes readily accessible on the same page. Something about having the notations pop up when I mouse-hover just isn’t the same for me. Not to mention that I have difficulty doing any sort of serious study from a computer screen. Back to my original point though, I’ve just ordered this study edition of The Source and will be posting some more thoughts on it in the future.

Over at Brian’s blog, he posted a passage from Timothy and requested that we offer up our own translations without looking to an English translation first. He requested parsing information, but I don’t actually know how to do this, other than to look it up in one of my resources. So here I offer my initial translation in English. I would never submit anything without first comparing it with many translations, however I do so at his request.

  • Try hard to present yourself before God as one who is not ashamed to correctly guide the word of truth.

He also requested that we explain our translation decisions for three of the Greek words. I translated as Try hard because I don’t know anyone who actually says zealous or take pains in everyday conversation. I used present… before because I think that stand… before could convey some strange mental image. Finally I chose to use correctly guide because I felt that it sort of captures the underlying Greek meaning and still is intelligible in English. This would be the phrase that I’d look up in other translations because I’m certain that there is a better way to render this. Feel free to critique me and to offer up your own translation, I’ll probably post a revision after checking my other translations.

Here’s the Greek for easy reference:

  • σπούδασον σεαυτὸν δόκιμον παραστῆσαι τῷ θεῷ ἐργάτην ἀνεπαίσχυντον, ὀρθοτομοῦντα τὸν λόγον τῆς ἀληθείας.

There’s a lot going on around my house right now. I’ve had another job interview, it looks interesting but the pay is terribly low, and no benefits. I also found out this morning that a job I interviewed for two months ago wasn’t taken after all, and I’m hoping to get offered the position tomorrow, or later this week. Please pray with me that I can find employment before graduation in July.

On the Greek front, I am still plugging away at some exercises and have been trying my hand reading Greek, somewhat successfully. I’ve got my new Greek-English GNT and it is helping quite a bit, my vocabulary is still pitifully low and is the main hindrance right now. More info on that later in it’s own post.

I also picked up a nice copy of The Message last week, for half price. My brother had mentioned that he wanted to read it, and I’ve wanted a copy for a couple years. As well, I picked up a copy of The Easy-to-Read Version, the New Century Version, and the New Life Bible/Version; the last one is inconsistently documented in the book so I’m not sure which it is because they use both terms interchangeably. I’m still looking for a cheap reference copy of the CEV but they’ve all been over $15 and I’m not in a hurry.

Also, I’ve got yet more books to read… where to begin? I picked up three interesting books on classical literature (as in Latin & Greek). After I got home from the library I noticed that all three were written by Moses Hadas. Can anyone tell me anything about him and how much value I can put in his works? There are two volumes called A History of Greek Literature and A History of Latin Literature. However I started the other book first, by the same author, called Ancilla to Classical Reading; all three are published by Columbia Univ. It’s been extremely interesting so far and answers many of the questions I asked in my last post. This will probably become a new topic of interest on this blog, as I pursue these languages further and alongside my studies of scripture.

Something I’m starting to mull over is which language to learn after Greek, go to Latin or to Hebrew next? Because of my discovery of the Loeb Classical Library I’m leaning more towards Latin at this point, though Hebrew probably has more eternal value… Will there be a Latin mass in the heavenly realm?

I’ve started reading Xenophon’s Anabasis, in English, and I have a separate copy in Greek. However I think I’ll wait on the Greek until I pick up the Loeb edition because it’s a huge PITA to swap back and forth. It’s been fascinating, and as a lover of history I’m thinking of going to Herodotus and maybe Tacitus next. Which reminds me, I have Ceasar’s Gallic Wars in the Loeb but haven’t started it yet.

Last but not least, I’m trying to cut back on how much time I spend reading blogs, commenting on them, and on my own. Being busy has also helped with this a bit, but I’ve taken some steps to reduce how much time I spend and it seems to be working so far. If I’m not commenting on your blog as much, it’s not because I’m not reading you or don’t find you interesting, I’m just re-allocating my time. My new target is to make one or two quality posts a week. I hope to get into more detailed posts once I get through some of this material, just have to read it first.

I’ve been thinking about this for most of the past month. How would one go about learning from the classics as an adult? I’m wondering what sorts of things I missed out by not learning Latin and Greek. I know there are a lot of resourceful people who read my blog, so can someone please link me to some information where I can find out how to give myself something of a classical education?

I’m thinking more Greek, and Latin only through English translation. Not sure what else is included under this topic, but I would like a little help in looking in the right direction.

To catch the full emphasis of this post, please read the following posts (and comments) in order before continuing. TC’s original post A Speck of Dust in the TNIV’s Eye; comments there birthed these two posts by Suzanne over at the BBB: Rahab and her sisters & Grammatical Gender.

*****

Now that you have read those, I’ll get on with my story. Over the past few months I’ve studied a bit about the Greek term adelphoi which means brothers. Or does it? Trying to find the answer to this question has led me back and forth, through various commentaries, and ultimately to this post. Up until Sunday morning this journey had been primarily relegated to what I read online and the occasional book. Why Sunday morning? Well, it just so happens that we’ve been studying James during Sunday School, and yesterday our class teacher and his wife were MIA, with no one assigned to cover for them. Both our high school and middle school pastors are in our class, however they were out of town for the holiday weekend as well. So after about twenty minutes of chit-chat and sharing prayer requests I finally offered to lead us through the passage for the day.

On this particular day I happened to bring three small bibles to church instead of my usual one. They were my TNIV, ESV, and a tiny GNT that I had just purchased the day before for $5. As I quickly glanced over the passage in our handbook I found the references to James 2:14-19 (I’ve included the Greek at the bottom of the post for your convenience).

I flipped to the page in my TNIV and noticed that it started off with the infamous my brothers and sisters! As I read verse fifteen I noticed that it also had the words a brother or sister, singular! After the previous week’s blog reading I couldn’t believe the odds of this happening. A quick glance at my GNT showed me that there were not just one, but three Greek words in this passage relating directly to Suzanne’s post the day before.
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