it's all greek to me

I've danced around the idea that there is a greater need for anyone reading the Bible (believers and non-believers alike) to develop a robust familiarity with classical Greek and ancient Hebrew in several posts over the "history" of the blog. I want to be clear: what I'm suggesting is both bold and unpopular. It goes against quite a bit of tradition, especially in England and America, of faithfully reading and interpreting the Bible in the vernacular English. I decided to post this entry to explain what I mean by my claim and, hopefully, to back it up. As always, I have no intention for anyone to simply take my word for it but, rather, to approach this question with an open mind, study it for the him/herself and incorporate it into their understanding of the sacred.

I plan on using a specific example to explain my position, but the main point I want to make is this: whether you're using the Bible to justify your belief or criticizing the Bible from a place of unbelief, it's much better to know Greek and Hebrew language, culture, history and literature. The more you know about ancient Hebrew, Greek and - to an extent - Latin, the better you will be able to come away with an interpretation of the texts that is both fair to the text itself and to the individuals that transcribed them.

Example - The Gospel of Jesus Christ According to John, chapter three, verse sixteen (John 3:16)

I think that nearly any Christian - or even some non-Christians that have been to church before - will be familiar with this text. In many ways this passage is the passage which acts as the common thread for all of the various different denominations and confessions within the Christian tradition. During a private conversation that Jesus is having with a member of the religious/political elite, John records that Jesus explains his "ontology". The passage - in the English Standard Version of the Bible - reads: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." For most Christians, this passage is very straightforward. To them it outlines the following basic truths (if I miss something, or get something wrong in this list, please feel free to tell me):

- God loves the human race
- He sent his son to the Earth in the form of Jesus
- If you put your trust in the divine power of Jesus as the son of God, then you will be enter the church of redeemed saints and allowed into Heaven when you die

In order to understand this incredibly deep text I'm going to provide the original key words in the Greek from this passage and then break down the passage itself.

"Theos houto agapao kosmos didomi monogenes huios pas pisteuo [negative article] apollumi echo aionios zoe."

There should be no doubt as to why this verse is so popular in Christian traditions: it's absolutely beautiful! Pure poetry. What little bit that comes through in the English translation is eclipsed by its stunning Greek origins. Allow me to offer an alternative translation of the Greek text to English:

"God had such a perfect compassion on the entire Universe, that he generated a singly unique being for it. Everything that is entrusted to this singularity will not decay into uselessness and futility, but continue to exist without boundries."

When looking at the actual Greek vocabulary that John used in this text, the whole passage begins to take an entirely different shape. Here are a few key points to illustrate what I mean:

- The word for "the world" that John uses is kosmos, which carries a unique Aristotelian concept along with it. In a nutshell, John is saying that God loves not just the people on the Earth (which would have been the word anthropos) but everything in the Universe and the Universe itself.

In other words: The God that John is describing in this text is not only concerned with people, but with the order of the entire Universe. From a scientific point of view, one could argue that God's concern with the Universe is at a subatomic level.

- Traditional interpretations of monogenes huios as "only Son" or "only begotten Son" are problematic, not because it is "incorrect" but because it is a very narrow interpretation for a pair of terms that have very wide interpretive meanings. A fair interpretation of the Greek word monogenes huios would be "a singularity that was generated from one's own being." To simply say that John is calling Jesus "the son of God" actually limits and subtracts from the text since the phrase he uses is much larger and broader.

In other words: the Jesus that John is describing is actually bigger than "the son of God."

- Probably the most interesting and potentially troublesome translation in the English versions of the passage are for the words pas pisteuo. The trouble here is almost entirely linguistic in nature. Most European languages that are derived from or influenced by Latin have a complete lack of a "middle voice" that Greek has between the active and passive. Moreover, the Greek word pisteuo can be read in all three voices, making it difficult to understand outside of a context. Finally, the original Latin translations of the Bible (from which English versions later came) do not have middle or passive connotations for their analogous versions of pisteuo (both credo and fidelus).

In other words: pas pisteuo could mean "all who believe" or (perhaps more likely given the context of Jesus' statement) "all whom have been entrusted to." This, obviously, poses serious questions to orthodox Christian theology because it implies that the belief of the sinner is not a requirement for the soteria (complete healing) of God.

- The final two ideas that benefit from a more objective interpretation are those of "die" and "eternal life." The word used here for "death" and "die" is rooted in the Greek word apollumi. Death is a faithful translation of this word, but it also has a broader understanding. It is not only "die" but it means "decay" and "descend into futility." John is not only talking about physical death, but he's also referencing a qualitative lack of "life." It is this idea that perfectly contrasts the following image presented in the words aionios zoe. This is traditionally interpreted (via the Latin) as "eternal life" or "everlasting life." This translation is incomplete because it focuses only on the quantitative aspect (like duration and time) rather than incorporating the qualitative aspects. More than just "life that goes on forever," the Greek says "life without limitations or boundaries."

As I said at the beginning of this post, I hope that the information I've presented explains my opinion that literacy in Greek and Hebrew is important for Biblical research and readings. Of course it is possible to "get something" out of reading the Bible in English. Christians in the English-speaking world have been inspired by English vernacular passages of the Bible for centuries. My argument is that those that would use the Bible to make claims about truth or reality (both believers and atheists) should do so from an informed and educated point of view and not to rely on shoddy interpretations based on incomplete vernacular translations.

Feel free to comment as you see fit.