Free Greek Course

NO! Dead language, have all I need and more in the English, time proven Authorized Version.
Harvest, couldn't stay away

 

Bartholomew said:

Interesting point but it encourages ignorance. (Proverbs 1:22) I won’t fool myself by saying I’m a master of any language, (even English! ) but learning the rudiments of another language allows a person to begin to appreciate some of the complexities involved in the translation process. Furthermore it helps the student better understand the intellectual discussions surrounding controversial topics.

 

No, I consider THEM greater Greek scholars than I will ever be.

No, it is a reasonable and honest answer to the question you posted. Why do you always get so hostile with anyone who disagrees with you on the Bible version subject?

Not true - the AV was almost not translated because the Geneva Bible, Tyndale, etc. all existed before this time. The difference is that the AV translaters were well qualified to refine and improve on the works of these previous English versions; whereas I will never be qualified to improve upon them. Besides, are you saying God didn't preserve his word in the vernacular (even by your definition of "preservation")? If not, it is YOU who is acting like the Roman Catholic; and if so, you have no right to tell me I should learn Greek. Besides, if you actually READ my post you'll see that I said it was fine for those skilled or interested in Greek to go and learn it (just as it is fine for me to learn about theoretical physics). I just said I won't learn Greek.

How, exactly?

 

I'd say, "You don't have to! The AV is written in modern English, but there are a few words and phrases that are difficult to understand (but then that is true of MVs, too). If you find a word you don't understand, then ask me - if I don't know, I'll find out for you." I would also add that I have no problem updating certain words in the AV, or putting modern equivalents in the margins.

 

Ransom, am I reading you correctly that you feel if one is sure that he holds the Words of God, complete and without error in lets say the KJV and does not feel the need to invest time and energy in learning Greek or Hebrew they are ignorant?

 

Interesting point but it encourages ignorance.</font>[/QUOTE]Well, what if I offered to pay for you to go and study a course in theoretical physics, one in brick-laying and one in fashion design; a degree in Sanskrit and another in artifical intelligence; and a correspondance course in Aristotelean metaphysics? If you say "no" to any of them then you're encouraging ignorance. You may think your time is better spent elsewhere; but then I think mine is, too. Besides, the Roman Catholics could say the same: "You should learn Latin. Saying you want to spend your time doing something else encourages ignorance. You shouldn't be satisfied with a vernacular translation. No translation is good enough."

 

I'd say, "You don't have to! The AV is written in modern English, but there are a few words and phrases that are difficult to understand (but then that is true of MVs, too).</font>[/QUOTE] Some of the phrases are more than a little hard to understand and others one might think the understand when they actually don't since the same phrase carries different connotations today.

I was raised on the KJV and don't have as many problems with understanding as someone who wasn't, especially new converts.

Thanks but no thanks. Understanding the Word of God really shouldn't require a human guide to explain the language. Commentators help with meanings and implications but one shouldn't be separated from the word of God by the peculiar language of a translation. This seems to be one of the ways the RCC-Latin Vulgate problem developed. People trusted someone else exclusively to tell them what the Bible said and meant.

You may not but many other KJVO's do as you well know. I think one of them even asked "who would be qualified?" to perform such an undertaking thus implying that the KJV translators are above correction of any kind by another human.

 

Thanks but no thanks. Understanding the Word of God really shouldn't require a human guide to explain the language.</font>[/QUOTE]Four points:

1. How would you know what any English word meant unless someone had told you? How can it be wrong to learn just a few more words in your own language? And yet this is light-years away from the hypothetical Greek course offered here, which would take hours, and yet Dr. Bob claims would only 'scratch the surface'!

2. By this argument I have to throw out the MVs, too. How would I know what a "hoopoe" (Lev 11:19, NIV) or "mina" (Luke 19:16, NIV) were unless someone told me or I looked them up in a dictionary?

3. I have no problem putting modern equvalents of the words in the margins. Besides, this isn't a debate about the AV specifically, but "English verses Greek".

4. If I shouldn't have a human guide or dictionary, why are you telling me I have to learn Ancient Greek???

 

Hi Swordsman! The ironic thing is that Ransom doen't think he'll have the words of God without error even if he spends his whole life learning and digging up Greek!!!

 

OK, sorry if what I wrote is untrue - although it is true for almost all anti-KJVOs on here. But if you DO believe you can have the words of God without error, where are they? And don't tell me within manuscripts that have errors, because then you don't have them "without error", do you?!

 

I will take that one up. No. It is not possible without direct divine intervention for anyone (including you, Harvest, Ransom, me, Nestle-Aland, UBS, and everyone else) to know that they have the words of God. Whether you like it or not, God chose to leave uncertainty as to the original wording in the mss evidence for the Bible.

We have the Word of God which is not dependent on having the exact inspired words or else we could never have it in English. By God's choice, the specific Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic words that He chose were became uncertain within only a few generations of copying.

If you would like to prove me wrong, show me the manuscript that precisely matches the TR or KJV in every detail then prove that it is the one that God preserved perfectly from original writing. I know this is a ridiculous request. Likewise, this fixation on having a single set of words in English or even the original languages into which you would restrain God's Word to is equally ridiculous.

 

I think what this has shown is that those most in need of it are the one's most loudly opposed to it. Nothing destroys the myth of the KJOnly position like a little knowledge. It is funny how you hate the language that God inspired his word in. If the KJV is so good, why did God deprive those poor Christians of teh first 1500 years of church history? Was his perfect word not important enough to give to them?? Or did he care less than them?

The scholarship you so hate is the scholarship that gave you the KJV. You have bitten the hand that feeds you.

 

Hi Scott. You're entitled to that opinion, but I would be interested to know if Ransom agrees or not. If not, you had better argue that with him; and if so, then he was indeed lying when he accused me of bearing false witness.

 

Who said I hate it?

And if the originals authors had the only perfect manuscripts, why did God deprive every Christian since from having his perfect word? And if the Greek is so good, why did he deprive his almost-perfect word from all those who didn't know that dead language? Did he care less about them???

No, the scholarship I hate is the scholarship that pretends it is better than the scholarship of the AV translators, and which fights tooth and nail against a perfect God preserving his perfectly inspired word perfectly.

 

I wasn't referring to you specifically, but your attitude that rejects its study is telling.

He didn't because the perfection of his word does not depend on its word for word copying, which is good since not even the KJV is perfect in that sense.

He didn't. Every faithful translation into any language is the word of God. He cared about them so he preserved his word and enabled its translation into their language, just as he did with English.

The scholarship of today's translators is better by virtue of the benefit of 400 years of advances. The translators of the KJV were brilliant. So are the translator's of today. For you to exalt that scholarship above today's scholarship is shortsighted. We are not fighting against God preserving his word perfectly. There is nothing to fight against. He didn't do it, as is demonstrated by over 5000 differing manuscripts that have been preserved by God.

 

The "dead" languages of the Bible are not and never will be forgotten.

Both biblical Greek and Hebrew have myriads of grammars, dictionaries, manuscripts, lectionaries, research papers, word studies, etc, etc in almost every language on earth and back into antiquity.

"to the Jew first and also to the Greek".

HankD

 

I wasn't referring to you specifically, but your attitude that rejects its study is telling.</font>[/QUOTE]How many times do I have to say that I have no problem with people learning Greek??? All I said is that I would not. And I then get criticised for that decision.

Also, you critise me for believing the word of God exists perfectly in English, and therefore (it is presumed) some people have the same access to the perfect word of God. This is somehow "unfair". However, it is no more "unfair" than your idea that the orginal readers of 1 Corinthians had the perfect words of God, but NO subsequent readers of that letter had. Nor is it any more "unfair" than the idea that people who know Greek have greater incites into what God really said. And if people who know Greek don't have greater incites into what God realy said, then I don't have to learn Greek, do I???

 

It should be evident from history that a knowledge of NT Greek per se does not give greater insight into the knowledge of God's mysteries and teachings. Some who technically may have mastered NT Greek have been outright heretics in many areas. Others have been orthodox. And some with virtually no knowledge of Greek and its grammar have had greater knowledge of God and His ways than such with great Greek skills. Knowledge of Greek may puff up, depending on circumstances. Likewise a knowledge of the Scriptures apart from the Greek may puff up. A thing which does not puff up is a genuine experience of the love of God in Christ Jesus, that is a thing which edifies, and it does not come via a knowledge of Greek or its grammar, but by special revelation from Jesus Christ the Lord. This is what Jude wished for his target group, Jude 2b.

Harald