A Translation is NOT the Word of God
Τί δέ με καλεῖτε Κύριε, Κύριε, καὶ οὐ ποιεῖτε ἃ λέγω;
—ΚΑΤΑ ΛΟΥΚΑΝ 6:46 [i]
And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?
— John 8:32 [KJV] [ii]
The title of this course is How to Study with the Greek New Testament. When I first named the course, it didn’t have the “with” in the title, but that was a bit misleading—in the sense that it seemed to restrict the scope of the course to the Greek NT; which couldn’t be further from my true intentions. From the moment I had the idea, the hope was that the course would endow the students with the tools, the general principles and the correct methodology to successfully study the whole Bible, not just the GNT. So, the “with” was added.
What we’ll be doing for the next ten Sundays is seeing how the Greek text of the New Testament can be use to study the whole Word of God. You will see how to come to a clearer understanding of the Scriptures through things like defining words correctly, taking note of grammar, being aware of the limitations of translations, exegeting rather than eisegeting, and so on.
Primarily, all this will be done through example. Each week, I’ll give a General Principle for studying the Bible, and then demonstrate how it is applied—the idea being to simultaneously teach the principle and confirm it works.
There will be practical, hands-on instruction, too. Today, for instance, we will learn the Greek alphabet and how to read Greek words then read a few. Later on, when we will learn some of the basic mechanics of Greek grammar and syntax, we’ll do relevant word studies. We’ll also learn how to effectively utilise concordances and the different lexicons and online resources available to us—all with an eye to learning how our English translations relate to the original Greek.
Why the NT and not the OT?
Well, simply put, because the NT explains and defines most of the Old Testament.
Well, simply put, because the NT explains and defines most of the Old Testament.
Why the Greek NT and not the English?
Because in Luke 6:47, Jesus says, “Whosoever cometh to me, and hears my sayings, and does them” is like a man who built an unshakable house on a foundation of rock. Then, in John 14:15, He says, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” Clearly, we can’t do what He says, nor keep His commandments, unless we know what He actually said and what He actually commanded; and until we study the GNT, we can’t really know for sure what He said or what He commanded, because—and here’s our first General Principle—a translation is NOT the Word of God.
Because in Luke 6:47, Jesus says, “Whosoever cometh to me, and hears my sayings, and does them” is like a man who built an unshakable house on a foundation of rock. Then, in John 14:15, He says, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” Clearly, we can’t do what He says, nor keep His commandments, unless we know what He actually said and what He actually commanded; and until we study the GNT, we can’t really know for sure what He said or what He commanded, because—and here’s our first General Principle—a translation is NOT the Word of God.
I am pretty sure that most of you here already know that the books and epistles of the NT were first written in Greek, but it doesn’t necessarily follow from that that you believe your favourite English version isn’t the Word of God. Well, if that’s the case, let this be your first challenging concept of the course. The original, inspired word of God is the Greek text, not the English, or German, or Te Reo Maori, or any other translation. God chose to create the Greek language as the most suitable of all human languages by which to record the words of His Son and His Apostles. The fact that Greek was the lingua franca of the world when Jesus came into it was no accident; no mere fluke of history. The spread of the Greek language by Alexander the Great throughout the known world was preordained by God. We know this because He predicted it through the prophet Daniel [1].
Of course, this is not to say that translations are wicked and we have to learn fluent Greek to understand the NT or to be saved. No, all that’s required is for us to acknowledge that the true NT is the GNT, and to understand that, because of the greater degree of nuance and complexity of the Greek language, a word-for-word English translation can never transmit the full meaning of the original text.
As well, we must realise that all of the existing English translations have errors in them, not only because of the limitations of the English language, but because the translators themselves were human and fallible. They were all motivated, to varying degrees, by personal and professional pride and ambition; they were all in the service of people motivated, to varying degrees, by personal and professional pride and ambition. And they all had doctrinal baggage. Don’t forget, the first English Bible, the Wycliffe Bible, wasn’t written until a thousand years after the death of the last Apostle. A great many heresies can be formulated in a church over a thousand years.
With that in mind, what would you make of the following, is it the result of malice, bias, translator compromise or simple preference? Take a look at Matthew 7:23.
And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
Now jump ahead three chapters to Matthew 10:32-33.
Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.
Note the words “profess” in the first verse and the word “confess” in the second. In the Greek text, these are the same word, ὁμολογέω [homologeo]. Three problems spring immediately to mind about this use of two English words for the same Greek word:
- The word “profess” and “confess” seem like opposites to the modern English reader, because of the Latin prefixes pro and con. So Jesus sounds like He’s doing two different things here.
- The doctrinal connection between the two verses is lost to the English reader. He will not connect the working of iniquity with denying Christ before men.
- Neither word conveys just how personal the Greek word is. Homologeo means to “speak the same”—it is a compound word made up of “homo”, meaning “the same”; and "logeo", meaning, among other things, “to say”; so, literally, “to say the same as”. When Jesus says “confess Me before men”, He means to speak the same words as you heard Him speak (btw, the word translated “deny”, ἀρνέομαι [arneomai], means “to contradict”). When He says He will “profess unto them”, He means He will say the same thing as they just reported they said (prophesying & casting out demons), “God says you’re wicked. Now get out!”
So, clearly, if you want to know what the real words of Jesus were, or want to know what He really taught and commanded, you must eventually turn to the Greek text. That being said, however, I think you will be pleasantly surprised to find out just how little actual knowledge of Greek you will need to access the GNT.
Okay, now let’s take look at the Greek alphabet and a few fundamentals on reading Greek.
The 24 letters are made up of 7 vowels and 17 consonants. :
α | β | γ | δ | ε | ζ | η | θ | ι | κ | λ | μ | ν | ξ | ο | π | ρ | σ | τ | υ | φ | χ | ψ | ω |
a | b | g | d | e | z | ā | th | i | k | l | m | n | x | o | p | r | s | t | u | f | ch | ps | ō |
Diphthongs: Whenever two vowels combine to make a single sound, the combination is called a diphthong. Here are the seven main Greek diphthongs and how they sound:
αι like ai in aisle αυ like ow in cow
ει like ei in height οι like oi in oil
ευ like eu in feud ου like ou in soup
υι like ue in queen
Breathings: Every vowel or diphthong that starts a word will have a rough or smooth breathing mark. The rough breathing looks like a single quotation mark ( ‘ ) indicates a preceding h-sound. The smooth breathing looks like an apostrophe ( ’ ) and is not sounded. When over a diphthong, the breathing is placed above the second vowel. Curiously, whenever a rho (r) begins a word, it always has a rough breathing mark but this is never sounded.
Accents: One of the following accents will be found on the majority of words in most printed texts today. They denote stress and, in rare but important cases, distinguish differences in meaning: The acute (´), the grave (`) and the circumflex ( ῀) or (ˆ).
When the vowel starting a word is a capital, the accent and breathing mark is placed in front of the letter.
Elision: An apostrophe is used to show that a vowel has been dropped (elided).
Punctuation: There are four punctuation marks used in Greek: The comma and full-stop are the same as in English. The semicolon is simply the top half of the English colon floating above the line. The Greek question mark is the same mark as our semicolon—and, yes, it'll take you a while to get used to that one.
[1] The Kingdom of brass in Daniel 2 & the leopard of Daniel 7.
[i] All Greek citations from THE NEW TESTAMENT IN GREEK ACCORDING TO THE TEXT FOLLOWED IN THE AUTHORISED VERSION TOGETHER WITH THE VARIATIONS ADOPTED IN THE REVISED VERSION, edited by F.H.A. Scrivener; CAMBRIDGE: At the University Press 1949.
[ii] Whilst all English Bible verses are taken from the King James Version, modern punctuation and quotation markings will often be used where appropriate without reference (I.e. Capitalization after question marks; double inverted commas on opening quotes, then single inverted commas for internal quotations.).
