Is the level of Koine Greek taught in baptist seminaries truly that low?

My son, a recent grad of Maranatha BBC and Maranatha Grad School who is now in Calvary Bapt. Seminary, takes his Greek NT and his LXX OT to church instead of an English Bible. He and his friends love to hit each other in Koine with such phrases as "You da man!"

 

Definitely a foreigner!!

 

I don't doubt many can have a good understanding of the language without ability to speak it - that was not my point. And I am not asserting that one should speak Hellenistic Greek in order to read it.

But the question is what degree of linguistic familiarity must one have to be a capable exgete? I am just always wary of these guys with a few years of Greek who "speak" authoritatively about what a passage must mean based on somthing like "the once and for all action of the aorist tense". Authoritatively misinterpreting the Bible can have consequences!

 

Okay, I'll agree with you here. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing!

I am reminded of an American a few years back when the baseball caps with Chinese characters on them were popular. A Chinese man told the American what the character meant, but the American said, "It can't mean that! It is the name of my favorite sports team in Chinese." What he didn't realize is whoever chose the Chinese for the hat simply took a character with the approximate meaning.

 

I have heard some "whoppers" out of the mouths of preachers who supposedly studied Greek. My opinion is that it wasn't their training that generated the nonsense, but it was their inability to think in a judicious manner--probably a combination of genetics and prejudice. They wanted to text so say thus-and-so, so they found it "in the Greek." A hundred blows might enter into such a dunce and straighten him out, but the mere "rebuke" of a classroom apparently doen't stand a chance.

I once watched R. B. Thieme "exegete" through a passage, explaining all kinds of grammar, and he missed the whole point of the paragraph--which was easily seen by an English reader.

 

Old R. B. probably would have missed it in any language!

You know, I believe there is a spiritual gift of languages (KJV tongues), and those who don't have it are likely to mess up their interpretations without lots of study--not that someone with the gift can get by without study.

In order to just begin as a pro in Japanese, it requires two years of full-time language school--including summers. And I have a book somewhere, Japanese in 30 Days! Not quite up to the standards of the man with 12 credits of undergrad Greek!

 

Most orthodox theologians and preachers of the past, especially from the Reformation period, were fluent in classical Greek and Latin even before they entered their first year at university. The same classical requirements were applicable in this country until the Industrial Revolution brought changes into the academic world, i.e. "practical" knowledge versus the esoteric/useless knowledge of classical antiquity.

If one gives Baptist seminarians the Greek text of Homer or Thucydides, it is doubtful they could read it comprehendingly.

 

Good observation. And I think there are many more important things for a Baptist minister to do (more important than being able to read Homer). A little knowledge of Greek is sufficient provided that the pastor realizes his limitations.

 

I think that dumbing down education is one of the tools of Satan. How can you expect someone to understand Greek when he can't even understand English? (I am, of course, referring to English speaking students who cannot comprehend English grammar, etc.)

 

It's like an example that was given to me by a pastor once: If you were to fall off the dock, would you prefer to be able to swim 20 yards or not at all?

That is why I teach a little Greek to the people at my church when I get the opportunity.

 

Well, of course not! And why should they be able to? Homer and Thucydides, of course, were classical, not koine. Verb forms were different, other grammar was different, vocabulary was different. I don't see how knowing classical Greek would help that much with koine.

It reminds me of when the Himoro brothers were coming to my church in Yokohama. They were from Akita Prefecture, and I simply could not understand their dialect. Fortunately, they could speak Tokyo Standard, so we got along fine. But I really don't think learning their dialect would have helped me that much to know standard Japanese. It would have been a waste of time!

 

John, good words. I agree.

 

I think most seminaries teach you simply how to read and translate the Biblical text. That's what the seminary I go to teaches. We do not learn how to say "Hello, how are you doing?" in Greek... because the apostles never wrote, "Hello, how are you doing?". Futher, since no one will be writing any new Scripture, and Koine is no longer spoken or written, it is only nominally useful to know how to come up with new phrases and use words that aren't even found in the Bible.

With that said, anyone who thinks they know the language because they can look up words in a lexicon is deceiving themselves. There is a lot more to the language than knowing the definition of words. Grammar and sytax are essential, and are taught in every major seminary I know of.

Dr. James Price, the OT editor of the NKJV, is a Hebrew scholar if there ever was one. A new prof, who had spent a few years in Israel, came up to him and started talking to him in modern Hebrew. Dr. Price said he couldn't understand him. The prof. later (and foolishly) went around bad mouthing Dr. Price saying he didn't really know Hebrew and shouldn't be teaching. Obviously the man didn't know diddly about OT Hebrew. Apply as you will

 

Also, if you look at your lexicons, even they only cover the words in the NT. In most cases, you have to get a different lexicon even for the LXX.

 

And Dr. Price's training was strictly in Hebrew at Dropsy U. from Jewish profs, if I'm not mistaken.

Vice versa, just because a person is fluent in a language doesn't mean he or she is at a professional level in it, able to do translation work or even write effectively in the language!

 

Unless you can translate the latest episode of CSI into Koine, you're not truly fluent. Or maybe, Star Trek the Next Generation.

 

So what is "laser" or "warp speed" in koine?

 

So what is "laser" or "warp speed" in koine? </font>[/QUOTE]Well, anyone worth a hill of beans (at least when it comes to speaking Koine Greek) should be able to tell you, apparently.

Holodeck should be a good one.

 

So what is "laser" or "warp speed" in koine? </font>[/QUOTE]Well, anyone worth a hill of beans (at least when it comes to speaking Koine Greek) should be able to tell you, apparently.

Holodeck should be a good one. </font>[/QUOTE]I don't remember any of these words being in the Bible or Church Fathers, and it doesn't seem likely that they would be in the various papyri of wills, business receipts, etc. What's a man to do??

Seriously, Japanese has a solution for words such as these. There is an extra alphabet used for foreign words, and they just pronounce them according to that alphabet. Thus, Nebuchadnezzar is "Nebukadenezaru." Simple, right?

 

I was just talking to my wife about this, and she encounters Russians at her work on a daily basis who can understand exactly what she is saying, but have to have a translator to reply back.

Understanding and speaking a language are two entirely different things.