Let us speak about Greek

From Peter:

Why it’s important to learn Greek accents

I’ve eventually decided to use Duff’s Elements of New Testament Greek in the classroom (with supplementary material).  One of the major drawbacks of this textbook is that no accents appear in the book.  Duff explains this by saying that accents are unimportant, and weren’t in the original manuscripts.

A couple of reasons I disagree:

1. As Professor Deines pointed out to me, spaces between words were also not in the original manuscripts – and neither were lowercase letters!  Yet we use them because they are a helpful development.
2. Accents help with reading aloud – and reading aloud is, I think, a really important part of learning Greek.  It’s important, for example, to hear distinctions between vowel lengths.  These sorts of distinctions were essential to Greek poetry, as you will notice in this line from a play by Aristophanes – read it out loud:

δόξῃ δὲ μὴ δρᾶν ταῦτα τῷ κεκτημένῳ

What could be better?

What could be better than spending a beautiful summer day (i.e. yesterday) in a rowing boat on the lake at the University of Nottingham…

ANSWER: Spending a beautiful summer day (i.e. yesterday) in a rowing boat on the lake at the University of Nottingham WHILE ENGAGING IN GREEK DIALOGUES!…

On the benefit of listening to classical Greek

There are lots of plays written in Classical Greek, and I’ve decided to improve my likelihood of being able to attend and enjoy a production of such a play, by improving my grasp of Attic Greek.  I’ve started going through the texts associated with the Cambridge course Reading Greek, and I’ve found the accompanying CD, Speaking Greek, really fun.  It’s easy-to-understand Greek, read dramatically in the style of Greek plays or other works.  As I’ve listened, I’ve found that certain things have become easily internalised – the use of the vocative, certain vocabulary, different forms of verbs… and the best thing is that it doesn’t feel like hard work – it feels like fun:

• Laugh, as Dikaiopolis discovers that someone is chopping up the boat that he’s travelling on!
• Cry, as you consider the plight of the poor sailors!
• Become suddenly pensive, as you reflect on whether the perpetrator ought to come to justice!

Anyway, I recommend it:

Greek translation in the Loeb Classical Library

I’m discovering that the translations from Greek in the Loeb Classical Library are rather varied in quality.  Here is the Loeb translation of Philo’s Special Laws, III 14:

What form of unholiness could be more impious than this: that a father’s bed, which should be kept untouched as something sacred, should be brought to shame?

And here is my own translation:

But what could be more ungodly than this wicked act?  A father’s deathbed, which should be left untouched as a guarded sacred stronghold, is disgraced.

I can’t be bothered attempting to reproduce the Greek here, but just notice a couple of differences: Firstly, the Loeb translation makes no attempt to indicate that it is the father’s deathbed that is envisaged – i.e. the father is dead, and his bed is being disgraced by his son taking his former wife.  Secondly, the image of the “guarded stronghold” is completely absent from the Loeb translation.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that the Loeb translation is rubbish – but it does remind of how worthwhile it is to read the Greek, not just the English.

Ancient Greek in Classroom Conversation

I’ll be teaching Biblical Greek at the University of Nottingham this academic year, so I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how best to do it.  I’m not thrilled with the textbooks I’ve looked into, but will probably settle for Duff or Mounce – or Stanley Porter’s new textbook if it comes out in time.  Anyway, I’d been planning to supplement the text by going through the vocab of John or Mark or 1 Cor or something like that, and formulating phrases and conversational raw material that I could use in class - to help students acquire a sense of how Greek functions in practice, as well as some useful vocab. 

But then I came across this article ‘Ancient Greek in Classroom Conversation’ by Paula Saffire, and it seems Saffire has already done a lot of the work for me.  Saffire describes why and how conversational (Attic) Greek can be a useful way in which to help students into the language.  I’ve now ordered her book ‘Ancient Greek Alive’, in which she provides scripts for classroom use.  I’m not expecting they’ll be immediately usable in my own (Koine) situation, but I think they’ll provoke some useful ideas.  She starts off with simple things, such as “What is your name?”, “Can you write the letters?”, “Let us get to know each other”, etc.  She doesn’t think that more literary approaches to learning a “dead” language can be dispensed with – so in her own teaching, she phases out the conversational component after the first couple of weeks.  But she argues that beginning with conversation can help students to relax and enjoy things as they start to learn.

I’m aware that there is debate about the pros and cons of oral approaches to teaching dead languages.  My own intention is not to dispense with a traditional literary approach – but to supplement it, in an ongoing way.  I’ll keep you posted on how things develop.

How should we interpret verbs of transference… and why does it matter?

Who gave Jesus into the hands of ’sinners’ to be sacrificed and then raised up?  Did God do it?  Did Jesus do it?  Obviously this is a theological question – but there are some interesting questions of interpretation when it comes to New Testament passages that speak about these things – such as Mark 14:41 (“the Son of Man is handed/comes over/hands himself over into the hands of sinners”), Heb 9:28 (“So also the Christ being offered/coming/offering himself once to bring up the sins of many”) and Acts 1:11 (This Jesus being brought up/ascending/bringing himself up from you thus into heaven”).  And these questions have to do with verbs of transference.

One paper at Rome SBL dealt with this very issue, suggesting that too often (since Jerome), we have overlooked the various possibilities in interpreting verbs of transference in these settings.  The paper was by Paul Danove from Villanova University.  It’s worth doing some terminology first:

Conceptualization of Transference: An AGENT transfers a THEME from a SOURCE to a GOAL

Conceptualization of Motion: A THEME moves from a SOURCE to a GOAL

But all of these entities are not necessarily explicitly mentioned whenever verbs of transference or motion are used.  Danove’s argument was that when the AGENT is not explicitly mentioned, and cannot be clearly retrieved by context, there are three possible interpretations (using Acts 27:14 as an example):

1. Transference-Active: Thus it happened that all were brought safely onto the land [passivized active transference]
2. Motion-Passive: Thus it happened that all came safely onto the land
3. Transference-Passive: Thus it happened that all brought themselves safely onto the land [reflexive]

Danove points out: “Although Greek grammar accommodates the three-fold interpretation of specific passive occurrences of verbs of transference, all three grammatically possible interpretations need not be logical or viable within their local context.”

So let’s apply this to one of the passages mentioned above: Hebrews 9:28.  The usual translation is “So also the Christ being offered once to bring up the sins of many” – which is the first option above.  But – Danove points out – there is no contextual support for this reading: in the context, it is Christ who offered himself.  Thus, it may be that the third option above is preferable: “So also the Christ offering himself once to bring up the sins of many…”  Danove’s point was simply that we need to be aware that there are three options for understanding the verb here, and we shouldn’t simply assume that the absence of an obvious agent should always be interpreted as a “divine passive”.

How should we understand the Greek perfect?

Anyone who has studied NT Greek will have been taught English “glosses” to help them understand the different forms:

• Present: I am loosing/I loose
• Future: I will loose
• Aorist: I loosed
• Imperfect: I was loosing
• Perfect: I have loosed
• Pluperfect: I had loosed

The standard gloss for the perfect, “I have loosed” arises from the common understanding of the perfect as “past action with continuing consequences in the present”.  But how accurate is that understanding of the perfect?  What (if anything) is actually essential to the perfect form in every usage?

While I was in Rome for the recent SBL conference, I met Con Campbell, and attended his paper, “Breaking Perfect Rules: The Traditional Understanding of the Greek Perfect”.  Con has argued in his books for a renewed understanding of the perfect, and this paper continued the theme, but came from a more illustrative perspective: He took the English Standard Version and examined how this English translation dealt with the perfect.  He found that of 835 perfect indicatives in the Greek New Testament, 58% are NOT translated according to the traditional “rule” (that the perfect expresses a past action with present consequences).  That’s a heck of a lot of exceptions!

So how does the ESV translate perfect indicatives?  Of the 835, it translates 404 (i.e. 48%) as straight present, and 80 (almost 10%) as simple past, without any hint of ongoing consequences.

Of course, one of the most important developments in the study of New Testament Greek in the last few decades has been the recognition of the importance of verbal aspect.  To simplify, this development involves the insight that the forms of the Greek verb mentioned above (present, aorist, imperfect, perfect, pluperfect) do not all ‘encode’ time.  For example, the idea of ‘present time’ is not essential to the present form.  The present form may be used in context to speak of present time or to speak of past time.  But what is (arguably) essential to the verbal forms is the concept of aspect.  Aspect may be of (at least) two types: Perfective aspect (which is like the bird’s eye view in Googlemaps – showing the big picture), or imperfective aspect (which is like the streetview in Googlemaps – moving along a street and seeing the details).  The present form does not encode time, but it does (at least) encode imperfective aspect – the streetview, in which action is seen as it happens (whether in present or past time).

So back to the perfect form: How can we best understand it?  Is there an ’aspect’ that is essential to the perfect form in every usage?  In Con Campbell’s paper, he outlined three proposals: Perfective aspect, Stative aspect, and Imperfective aspect.  He suggested that the latter two are worthy of consideration:

Porter has argued that ’stative aspect’ best describes what the perfect form expresses – we might gloss “I stand loosed” or “I am in the state of loosedness”.  This does actually make good sense of the 48% of occurrences in which the ESV went for a straight present translation – “It is written” (“it stands written”/”it is in a state of writtenness”); “the door is shut” (“the door stands shut”/”the door is in a state of shutness”); “I am sure that neither death nor life…” (“I stand certain that neither death nor life…”/”I am in a state of certainty that neither death nor life…).  But what of the perfect indicatives that the ESV translates as a simple past?  “You sent to John” (John 5:33) is hard to imagine as a stative: “You are in a state of sent-to-John-ness”.

Campbell’s own view, as he has outlined elsewhere, is that ‘imperfective aspect’ best describes what the perfect form expresses.  He notes that when the perfect form indicates past time, it is usually in the same situations that the present form is used for past time – in verbs of transference and in introducing discourse.  Thus we might think of the perfect form as in some sense parallel to the present form – used to give a “streetview” perspective, often in present time, and sometimes in past time.  So what is the difference between the present form and the perfect form?  The perfect form is like a “heightened” present – thus perhaps we might gloss “I DO loose”.

I need to do more thinking about this, but I think it’s clear, as Campbell illustrated, that the “traditional view” of the perfect can no longer be thought of as the “rule”.

On the similarity of Koine and Modern Greek… and a silly photo

First, the serious photo that illustrates the similarity of Koine and Modern Greek.  Here’s a sign, in modern Greek, on the base of a statue in Athens.  If you have any knowledge of NT Greek, you’ll realise that it’s completely understandable.  The very obvious continuity between Koine Greek and Modern Greek is one thing that’s pushing me toward the idea of adopting pronunciation that sounds more like real living Greek…

And now the silly photo – taken in a toyshop in Athens…

Children and instruments: They play, you grown.

The Ordering of Ethical Instruction in Paul

From time to time I make the claim that Pauline ethics exhibits a usual ordering of issues, moving from:

Issues related to “corporeal” bodies – particularly involving the avoidance of sexual immorality, greed, and impurity…

through to

Issues related to the “corporate” body of Christ – particularly involving the pursuit of mutually edifying love

This seems to occur both when Paul is being ‘negative’ – eg Romans 1, where the progression of idolatry begins with sexual sins and moves toward social sins – and when Paul is being ‘positive’ – eg Romans 12, which begins with the offering of renewed bodies and moves to loving participation within the body of Christ.  But the emphasis in Paul’s ‘negative’ mode is on corporeal issues; and the emphasis in Paul’s ‘positive’ mode is on corporate issues. 

So, to over-simplify, Paul seems to envisage the Christian life as a movement from godless bodily habitation (expressed quintessentially in self-owning sexual immorality) to Godward bodily habitation (expressed quintessentially in other-centred love).

So anyway – here are some further thoughts I’ve been having about this: I think that for Paul, the sense of this ethical movement is bound up with his conception of Christianity as essentially involving union with Christ (particularly in his bodily achievements of cross & resurrection).  But the general pattern seems to be inherited from Diaspora Jewish ethics, which often seems to exhibit a similar ordering of topics (though without the unifying “body” terminology sometimes found in Paul).

Here’s an example: Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr, in his 1987 book on early Jewish literature, notes the following movement of ethical topics exhibited throughout the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs – a work which he sees as bearing a general likeness to the other (earlier) expressions of Jewish ethics that he explores (if you can’t read it or the font doesn’t show, just see below for an explanation of it):

πορνεία        μοιχεία   πλεονεχία   ἔλεος   ἀπληστία

κλοπή   ὑπερηφανία   ψεῦδος   καταλαλία   ζῆλος   φθόνος   δόλος   μάχη

Notice how the opening issues are especially related to sex and greed (fornication, adultery, greed, desire); while the latter issues especially emphasise daily social interaction – particularly verbal interaction (arrogance, lying, jealousy, deceit).  The dividing line is Niebuhr’s.

So I’m gradually working my way through early Jewish literature – as well as Greco-Roman examples of ethical discussion… and we’ll see where all of this goes.