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Why Greek is Not Like a Precise Code

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The Logos Word by Word blog has a fabulous piece about how the ancient Greek language works, contrary to urban legend.

There is an idea which floats around in pulpits and Bible studies, and it goes something like this: “Greek is a perfectly precise language which clearly conveys its meaning, and this is the reason why God used Greek for the New Testament.” I do not pretend to know the mind of God regarding why the New Testament is in Greek. But there are some substantial problems in the assertion that Greek is “perfectly precise.” Uncovering these problems…will actually help us interpret the Bible more accurately.

I have heard this folk tale many times, typically espoused by people who do not themselves know Greek. But armed with a Strong’s Concordance, they believe they can get themselves to “the real meaning” of the words of the New Testament, which are “more precise” than English words could ever be.

The same myth is often espoused regarding the Hebrew language of the Old Testament. Such myths simply need to be blown to bits and scattered to the wind. Biblical Hebrew and Greek were human languages that function very much like the human languages that are still spoken today. There are differences, of course, in how the grammar works. But the fact remains that they function like languages and not like computer code. So this article is well worth your time.

Check it out!

3 Ways Not to Use Greek in Bible Study

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An all-too-common myth in Bible study is that there is a “true” or “deeper” meaning in the original languages that doesn’t come across in English. Not only is this idea almost always untrue, it is also normally damaging to careful Bible study.

I’m not saying that Greek and Hebrew are worthless. They matter, and pastors and Bible teachers will benefit from studying the languages. But we must study them as languages, not as secret codes. It’s far more useful to learn how language works than to learn how to reference Strong’s numbers and identify Hebrew and Greek word roots.

For example, “agape” means very little on its own. It finds meaning only when it’s used in a sentence. Matthew, Luke, Paul, and John may have very different things in mind when they use the same word. We benefit much more from examining the sentences than by scrutinizing the exact vocabulary. And normally we can do this just fine in English.

Justin Dillehay walks through 3 common errors committed by those who dabble in Greek vocabulary in their Bible study. We do well to take notice!

  1. Usage trumps etymology: Avoid the root fallacy. The origins of a word have very little to do with that word’s later usage.
  2. Scholars are necessary: Avoid the cult of the amateur. Praise God for those members of the body who dedicate their lives to rich understanding of Greek and Hebrew. Perhaps we ought to be slow to suggest how a certain passage “should” be translated.
  3. Context is king: Avoid the overload fallacy. When a writer uses a certain word, he’s not normally tapping into every other use of that word in prior literature. Therefore, Dillehay writes, “An ounce of good contextual analysis is worth a pound of poorly done Greek word studies.”

Dillehay’s full article is well worth reading. Check it out!

A Little Greek can be a Big Distraction

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I’ve argued that you don’t have to reference Greek or Hebrew to study the Bible. You can observe, interpret, and apply just fine using a decent English translation (I use the ESV and NET the most).

In this post, I’d like to give an example of how knowing a bit of Greek can actually distract you from careful OIA of a passage.

Afghanistan Matters (2009), Creative Commons

Afghanistan Matters (2009), Creative Commons

In John 21:15-19, Jesus and Simon Peter eat breakfast and chat about love and lambs. Three times, Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me?” Three times, Peter affirms his love, and Jesus calls him to be a godly shepherd.

Those who dig into the Greek text of John 21 quickly discover that John uses two different words for “love.” Jesus’ first two questions use the word agape. Jesus’ third question and all three of Peter’s responses use the word philia.

“Do you love (agape) me?”
“Yes, Lord, you know that I love (philia) you.”
“Do you love (agape) me?”
“Yes, Lord, you know that I love (philia) you.”
“Do you love (philia) me?”
“You know that I love (philia) you.”

The question arises: What is the difference between agape and philia? What’s really going on in the conversation that doesn’t come across in English?

So the student reads commentaries and consults lexicons. Many blogs address this particular question in this particular passage (just Google “agape philia john 21,” and you’ll have no shortage of reading material). Some say that agape love is the higher form of love, and Jesus comes down to Peter’s level the third time. Others reverse it, saying that by the end Peter convinces Jesus that he has the right kind of love.

The problem with this approach is that it assumes that Greek words each have a focused, specialized meaning. It approaches lexicons as technical manuals, almost as if there’s a code to be broken, and the right tools offer the key.

But no language works that way. Not English or German, Greek or Hebrew. Words certainly have histories. They have ranges of meaning. Lexicons help us to understand their range of usage.

But literature is as much an art as it is a science. Writers have agendas, but they advance their agendas by making them beautiful. So they use synonyms, turns of phrase, metaphors, and other such devices.

Referring to John 21;15-19, D.A. Carson explains:

Some expositions of these verses turn on the distribution of the two different verbs for “love” that appear…This will not do, for at least the following reasons…The two verbs are used interchangeably in this Gospel…The Evangelist constantly uses minor variations for stylistic reasons of his own. This is confirmed in the present passage. In addition to the two words for “love,” John resorts to three other pairs: bosko and poimano (“feed” and “take care of” the sheep), arnia and probata (“lambs” and “sheep”), and oida and ginosko (both rendered “you know” in v. 17). These have not stirred homiletical imaginations; it is difficult to see why the first pair should (The Gospel According to John, pp. 676-677).

If we hadn’t gotten distracted by Greek expeditions, what treasure might we mine from this passage? Note the following observations, which could easily be made from the English text.

  1. The setting: the scene takes place at a charcoal fire (John 21:9), the same setting where Peter denied Jesus three times (John 18:18). Charcoal fires appear in only these two scenes in the Gospel of John. It’s not an accident.
  2. The flow: Peter begins the chapter chasing his former vocation as a fisherman (John 21:3). Jesus wants to turn him into a shepherd (John 21:15-17). Peter gets it. Later, when he instructs church elders, he doesn’t call them to be fishers of men. He commands them to shepherd the flock of God (1 Peter 5:1-2).
  3. The model: Jesus wants Peter to follow him (John 21:19b). This means Peter should be a shepherd like Jesus was (John 21:15-17). This means dying for the good of the sheep, just like Jesus did (John 21:18-19, 10:11-15).

John 21 shows Jesus restoring and commissioning Peter for sacrificial leadership in the church. This much is clear even in translation.

Sure, the Greek (or Hebrew) text often reveals wordplay that doesn’t translate well. Sometimes the structure of a passage or argument is more clear in the original language than in translation. And Greek and Hebrew are simply beautiful and fun.

But the main point of a passage rarely depends on intimate knowledge of the original languages.

You Don’t Have to Reference Greek or Hebrew

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Assumption #4 for this blog states:

The Bible should be translated into modern languages so modern people can know it. Many English translations faithfully capture the meaning of the original text.

Loren Kerns (2013), Creative Commons

Loren Kerns (2013), Creative Commons

I don’t want to get into the details of linguistics and translation, but I want to address a common misconception about Bible study. The misconception is this: to really get deep, you need to know Greek and Hebrew. Or, at the very least, you should be able to refer to it.

What do I mean by referring to it?

I’m talking about that tendency to refer to the “real” meaning of a word or phrase by making use of the Greek or Hebrew word or phrase behind it. Perhaps you’ve heard or made statements like this.

The “love” in this verse is agape love. It’s not the usual sort of philia love. It’s the selfless, sacrificial agape love.

The word behind the word “greetings” in this passage is shalom. It’s the traditional Jewish greeting, but shalom involves much more peace and wholeness than simple greetings.

I don’t really know what the author is talking about here, since I don’t know the Greek.

We can’t get to the bottom of our question because so much gets lost in translation…

These statements are simply not true. There is rarely much to be found in Greek or Hebrew that can’t be found in a careful English translation.

Now, I’m not suggesting that knowing Greek or Hebrew is worthless. I love the ancient languages, and they have enriched my understanding and love for the Scripture. I think ministers of the word should learn the original languages so they can understand how language and translation work and so better shepherd their people with the word.

But if you don’t know Greek or Hebrew, and you don’t have the opportunity to learn them, you’ll do just fine. Your Bible study would be better served by practicing good observation, interpretation, and application of the English Bible, than by spending lots of time looking up Greek and Hebrew words in lexicons.

Let me give an example.

I have on my desk the latest issue of Bible Study Magazine (Vol. 5 No. 5). The magazine is fantastic. If you still read physical magazines, you should subscribe to this one. It’s only $20/year. And I won’t get a commission if you subscribe. I really mean it – I like this magazine!

But they have a column entitled “Greek Word Study Without Greek.” It’s meant to help non-scholars do a Greek study without knowing Greek. In this article, E. Tod Twist examines Paul’s use of the word “tradition,” and he compares it with Jesus’ use of the same word. Jesus appears to disparage tradition in the Gospels (Matt 15:3, Mark 7:8), but Paul encourages it in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, 3:6.

So, for those who don’t know Greek, Twist lists 5 steps to show how to study the Greek word.

  1. Make the switch to Greek and establish a working definition
  2. Look up the Greek word in a lexicon
  3. Survey the usage of the word in the New Testament
  4. Account for the different perspectives by examining context
  5. Application–the “So What?”

In this case, the “switch” of step 1 involves getting an interlinear Bible and identifying the Greek word for “tradition” in 2 Thessalonians. Then a lexicon will define the Greek word for you (step 2). In step 3, the student uses a concordance or search engine to find all the verses that use the word.

Once the student hits step 4, he studies each passage to see how the word is used in context. At this point, Twist’s article actually hits pay dirt. His application (step 5) drives his point home:

As we study Scripture, we see that the proper response to tradition is not unthinking acceptance or rejection–it is discernment. For both Jesus and Paul, good paradosis [the Greek word for “tradition”] originates with God and leads us toward Him. Any tradition that does otherwise must be rejected.

Yes! Wonderful conclusion.

Here’s my contention: Twist didn’t need to go to the Greek to reach that conclusion. He could have skipped steps 1-2 entirely. He could have done step 3 with an English concordance or search engine. And he did steps 4 & 5 all in English anyway.

So why do we feel the need to “make the switch to Greek” in order to dig into the Scripture?

Don’t fall into the trap. The Lord provided intelligent translators to write excellent translations of the Bible in modern languages. Through those translations, you can know Jesus and have life. And the Greek word for “know” is ginosko, which means…”to know.”

But the Hebrew word for “life” is hayyim. Hang on a second while I look that one up again.

Oh.

Ok.

It means “life.” Glad we got that straightened out.

Your Translation Matters

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Recently, I came across this funny skit from a church out in Oregon. While definitely a caricature, it does well to make a good point: Translation is both difficult and important.

When it comes to the Bible, most of us rely on one of the many English translations available.  While many Christians describe themselves as “bible believing,” in my experience few Christians have considered whether what they are reading is a true representation of what was originally said.

The following are two less comical examples of the theological implications that can result from translation errors:

  • Matthew 4:17 is a description of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. It can be thought of as a summary statement of what Jesus was about.  The Latin of the Vulgate is as follows:

Exinde coepit Iesus praedicare et dicere paenitentiam agite adpropinquavit enim regnum caelorum.  

A literal English translation of this would be “Then Jesus began to preach and say: ‘do penance (paenitentiam agite) for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near.’”

It would be reasonable for a skilled bible study leader to assume that Jesus preaches penance. Perhaps Christianity is about responding to God’s kingdom by making use of the penitential system of the church?  (Your church has one, right?)   The most accurate translation of the Greek text of Matthew’s gospel however would likely be “repent”, not “do penance.”

  • Luke 1:28 is the famous ‘annunciation’ passage, where Gabriel declares to Mary that she will have a child.  The Latin of the Vulgate is as follows:

et ingressus angelus ad eam dixit ave gratia plena Dominus tecum benedicta tu in mulieribus

In English, a fair translation would be: “And the angel went in and said to her, “Hail, one that is full of grace (ave gratia plena) the Lord is with you, blessed are you.”

Even the very best OIA leads one to understand that Mary was a vessel who was full of God’s grace. Perhaps grace is a substance, and one can get access to God’s grace through Mary? These ideas actually became popular in the Medieval church, until scholars established that a faithful translation of the Greek refers to Mary as “One who has found favor.”

Your bible translation matters very practically.

  1. I have found translations such as the ESV, NASB, NIV and even the NET Bible to be very useful for bible-study, because they are quite true to the original.
  2. Bibles such as The Living Bible and The Message are very useful for general reading and comprehension, but could lead to theological errors in deeper study.
  3. Logos has fantastic software available, but why not consider learning Greek and Hebrew? God in his wisdom chose those languages to write down his Word.