Winter Institutes, ever heard of them? My church offers 3-4 week classes towards the end of winter on a variety of topics: Christian parenting, evangelism, mission work, Biblical geography, etc. These classes take place on Sunday nights for about 2 hours each session. The church offers childcare and the classes are free. They are taught by a variety of people generally professionally trained/education in the subject area they are talking about.
I decided to take a class this time around. The class that I participated in was called "It's All Greek to Me." This class focused on getting a basic understanding (very basic, because it was only 3 weeks long) of the Greek language as it relates to the New Testament. Essentially, having a working knowledge of Greek is like reading the Bible in color. Another benefit comes into play when reading commentaries or understanding specific words in scripture and being aware of their "slight shades of differences."
There was a brief history of the Greek language discussing the evolution from Linear B to Classical Greek (8th Century BC) to Hellenistic Greek to, finally, Koina Greek.
We went over the Greek alphabet and discussed similarities and differences compared with the English alphabet. (I can write my name in Greek!!) This class really required me to recall my college instruction in grammar and syntax. Several words/phrases were thrown around and I wouldn't be honest if I didn't say that a few of them went out just as fast as they went in: semantic domains, in/definite articles, subjunctive, in/direct object, transliterations, periphrastic constructions, etc...
The Greek language has an interesting array of verb tenses and voice: pluperfect, perfect, imperfect, aorist, present, future. Each of those can be passive or active.
We discussed 2 types of word studies:
diachronic-tracing the use of the word through history, noting changes
synchronic-determining the range of meanings
As a class we looked at the word "dwelling" and "tabernacle" and found several shades of difference.
Over all, I enjoyed the class. However, it was meant for 6-8 weeks rather than 3!
2 comments:
I loved your metaphor on "reading in color." While in Italy, I was highly struck by the variance in language when I arrived in the Naples Bay area - Greek culture and language permeates southern Italy in a most distinctive manner. As for studying the Bible in Greek - heck, I'd be happy if I could just the the Latin down correctly! We really have to hand it to Jerome for translating into Latin from both Hebrew & Greek; the mind boggles!
Well... it all sounds like Greek to me!!
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