It’s All Greek To Me
March 1st, 2007 by Stephen
I have a rule of thumb when listening to a sermon. If the pastor or minister starts talking about how the original Greek of a passage says something other than what our translation says, then he does not know what he is talking about!
Before I completely offend everyone who has ever delivered a sermon before, perhaps I should go into some more detail.
My point is that one often hears sermons in which the preacher digresses into a discussion of why one Greek word was used over another. I think such digressions are always questionable, and often completely wrong. At best, I will look up the passage in a good commentary later to see what others have said about the subject, but often I ignore such points made.
But what if the different versions of the Bible translate differently? A case in point might be 1 Corinthians 7, where my RSV and other literal translations say “it is good for a man not to touch a woman”, but the NIV jumps to “it is good for a man not to marry”, and other versions say “it is good for a man not to have sexual relations”. What do we make of this jumble of interpretations?
I think we can note several things:
Firstly, the difficulty of the passage is demonstrated by the disagreement of Bible translators on the point. We can see the disagreement from the English translations. No need for Greek yet.
Secondly, if the translators cannot agree, then a basic competance in Greek is probably not going to help much. Appeal to the Greek text in this case reveals that the literal translations (KJV, RSV, NASB etc.) are indeed translating literally. The passage does indeed say “it is good for a man not to touch a woman”.
Now a commentary can be of great assistance here, because appeal to a commentary will show that the term “to touch a woman” was a first century idiom that referred to sexual relations. When learning a language, one must learn many idioms before one can gain fluency in the language (One of my favourites is the Welsh “dros ben llestri”, which is idiomatic for “over the top” - although literally it is translated as “over the head of the dishes”!).
Armed with this information about the idiom (the Greek one now, not the Welsh one!), we are able to do an exegesis of the passage, without appeal to the Greek words used.
However, I can envisage examples where one might wish to quote what the commentators say about the original Greek. In such circumstances, I think the quote should be properly referenced.
If a preacher says “the original Greek actually suggests this…” I will assume the preacher is working on their own knowledge (and probably out of their depth). If they say “Barret tells us, in his commentary on 1 Corinthians, that the original Greek form used was an idiom for this…” then I can evaluate the quality of the source of the information, and even check it out for myself later - an important stage in the process of critical appraisal of the information we receive.
So I am not actually saying we can never preach on what the original Greek says - but as most preachers are not experts in Koine Greek, we must acknowledge our sources and alternative interpretations when we do so.
And here I was usually impressed when the Pastor started with “it says this in the Greek.” Thanks for making me more of a skeptic.
The best thing learning Greek did for me was to help me recognize bad uses of Greek in preaching. Occasionally, knowing some Greek can enhance one’s understanding of a passage, but if someone ever says this in the Greek means that, and then proceeds to interpret as though it had been translated that rather than this, then he’s either playing fast and loose or blindly following someone else who is. The translators of any reputable translation are really Greek scholars, and there’s a reason they translated as they did.
Donald Carson has a great book called Exegetical Fallacies, which catalogues common types of misinterpretations, many of them false assumptions regarding original languages.
I don’t quite agree about citing sources. There’s no reason to clutter up sermons with verbal footnotes. But there’s also no reason to try to impress a congregation with ostentatious displays of esoteric knowledge either.
Thanks both for your comments. Keith, I have added “Exegetical Fallacies” to my Amazon shopping basket. Unfortunately Amazon are quoting 4-6 weeks, so it may be a while before I get to read it, but thanks for the recommendation.
As to the issue about verbal footnotes - we each will prefer different styles of course, but how should a preacher deal with a passage such as 1 Corinthians 7 then? I suppose he could say “it has been pointed out that …” and allow people to ask him for a reference if interested, but this is hardly any less cumbersome than “C K Barrett, in his commentary, has pointed out that…”
The problem with “verbal footnotes” is that pastors use various sources for their sermon material beyond just issues with original languages. If they were to cite sources for everything they said, given the fact that a sermon is a linear auditory medium, it would clutter, confuse, and dilute the message. For one thing, a pastor should not consult merely one commentary to resolve a thorny exegetical issue; then the pastor would get sidetracked into why he prefers one commentary’s interpretation over another. I do agree that pastors should give some indication of their sources when arguing a point that is less than intuitive, controversial, or in some other way out of the ordinary. They should also be available and non-defensive when asked where they got a particular point.
With your interest in clarity of reason, you’ll love Exegetical Fallacies. I’m very happy to pass it along.
Thanks for coming back on this Keith. Clearly there needs to be limits on how involved the preacher gets in discussing his sources. Why a commentary is preferred is definitely more a later discussion piece than something to be mentioned in the sermon. And also we perhaps do not expect a preacher to disclose all sources they have consulted.
But I still think it would be helpful, when discussing Greek texts, to disclose this information. But as the point is quite minor, don’t worry: I will not be walking out on any preacher who fails to do so
Thanks for your comments
Stephen
[...] In My last post I spoke about preachers appealing to the Greek of a verse to make a point, but I used as my example 1 Corinthians 7 verse 1 (explaining the findings of Greek scholars including C K Barratt and Gordon Fee that the Greek term “to touch a woman” is idiomatic for “to have sexual relations”). What I did not do was provide an interpretation for this passage that makes sense of it armed with this knowledge. [...]
I don’t agree! I love hearing the Greek slant/meaning behind certain passages, most likely because my dad is a Greek scholar and uses it in his messages. He doesn’t do it “to impress” either. It adds a lot more meaning and depth, imo, to know the original meaning.
I did find this post very interesting, though, and like MIn, it will probably color my thoughts the next time Greek or Hebrew is referenced in church!
I do not think that we must proscribe all use of Greek - but if someone is arguing that we have misunderstood a passage because we are not looking at the Greek, only at the English, then I would ask how it is that the translators have missed this point!
A case in point is 1 Timothy 2:12, where Paul says he does not allow a woman to teach or have authority over men in the church. There is a lot that can be said in an attempt to understand this passage, but too often I have been presented with arguments from well meaning people whose attention has been drawn to the word “authentein” in this passage, which means authority. On many occasions people have argued to me or in my presence that we should translate this word as “lord it over” and that the passage says something other than what the Bible translators have given us.
The argument sounds convincing, but it is wrong on several counts, which is why the translators translate it the way that Paul meant it.
(I have a fuller post on the subject on this blog).
So by all means read the Greek texts. But if someone is telling you that a passage is mistranslated and misunderstood because the translation should actually say something else - be very wary.
Thanks for your comments.
Well, what is your opinion on the meanings behind agape and phileo love as used in different passages?
Whilst I accept there is some difference between these words, I think that the difference is often over-stressed. I think it is a good rule of thumb that there are no true synonyms in any language. Consider “ball” and “sphere”, which in some contexts mean the same thing, but mean someting quite different in the phrases “have a ball” or “creator of the rolling spheres”.
But the point is that they can be synonyms. And this is the case with agape and phileo. Consider Matthew 23:6 and Luke 11:43. These are synoptic passages, saying “For you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces.” One passage uses agape, and the other phileo (and there are other examples).
Louw - Nida say in their lexicon: “. . . Though some persons have tried to assign certain significant differences of meaning between [agape and phileo] (25.33), it does not seem possible to insist upon a contrast of meaning in any and all contexts.”
But there can be a difference. Agape is the word used when describing the act of willing to love. Phileo is never used in this context. The synonyms are not exact, but the English context usually brings out this difference. Beyond that we need not push the Greek too far.
There is one passage that people often preach on the difference between these words for love. That passage is John 21:15-17, where much is made of the fact that Jesus asks Peter twice if he loves him (agape) and Peter replies twice that he does (phileo) and then Jesus asks if he loves him again (phileo) and Peter insists that Jesus knows he loves him (phileo).
But it may be a mistake to make too much of this wordplay. There are a numer of other synonyms being used in that passage (boskein - poimanein [feeding sheep], arnia - probatia [sheep], elkuein - surein[draw or pull]). The phileo/agape distinction appears to be just another attempt to avoid overuse of the same word - a natural varying of vocabulary for stylistic reasons.
There may be more to it than that, but the problem is that preachers who draw attention to this wordplay are often rather uncritically accepting sharp distinctions between “the four loves” that may not be justified, and not acknowledging that these words may well just be synonyms (as a number of commentators have pointed out).
Thanks for the comment.
Stephen
Thanks for answering that in depth, I must confess, I was most curious about your take on that John 21 passage. You covered it really well, and I appreciate it!