Posted on 08/18/2015 7:24:51 AM PDT by Salvation
...often and to strive to master ancient Greek. I am no Greek scholar, but as the years tick by I am becoming more and more familiar with the language in which God chose to inscribe His Holy Word of the New Testament.
Something of the hidden richness of the Greek text struck me recently as I was teaching my parishioners in Bible study. (We are preparing for the arrival of the Pope in Washington by studying the Office of Simon Peter, as laid out in Scripture.)
Why do I speak of the richness of the Greek text as “hidden”? Surely a good translation shows forth the meaning of the text, right? Well, no; not fully. There are too many subtleties and complex constructions that English just cannot accurately convey. Much is lost in the translation; much is hidden.
Consider, then, a well-known section in Matthew 16. The Lord has just declared Simon to be “Peter” (rock) and then goes on to give him the “keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.” The Lord says to Peter, “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Mat 16:19). The only problem is that this is not exactly what the Lord says. The Greek is much richer and more emphatic. It not only affirms Peter’s authority, but also describes how and why that authority is commendable and infallible.
Here is the Greek text, followed by an English translation that is as literal as possible:
δώσω σοι τὰς κλεῖδας τῆς βασιλείας τῶν οὐρανῶν, καὶ ὃ ἐὰν δήσῃς ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἔσται δεδεμένον ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, καὶ ὃ ἐὰν λύσῃς ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἔσται λελυμένον ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς.
I will give to you the keys of the Kingdom of the heavens, and whatever, if you might bind on the earth, it will have been bound in the heavens; and whatever you might loose on the earth, it will have been loosed in the heavens.
Note that the verbs related to heaven’s binding and loosing are dedemenon and lelumenon. They are perfect (passive) participles in the middle voice. As such, they indicate something that has already been done in Heaven before Peter does it on Earth.
Hence a literal, though awkward, English rendering would be “Whatever you might bind on the earth, having (already) been bound in heaven, and whatever you might loose on the earth, having (already) been loosed in heaven.”
But this is just not the way we talk in English. And thus most English renderings go something like this: “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” And, while smoother, it loses the inspirational emphasis that the Greek text conveys.
The Greek text makes clear that if Peter binds or looses something on Earth, it is because Heaven has inspired this act; in no way is Heaven engaged in a “rearguard action.” Rather, Peter is inspired to carry out what has already been done in Heaven. Heaven is not forced to comply with Peter’s decision. Rather, Heaven binds or looses, and then inspires Peter and his successors to do likewise. The Greek conveys this important subtlety; the English does not.
This subtle but important description of inspiration also fits well within the context of Matthew 16. Recall that Jesus had said to Peter, who correctly identified Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God, Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven (Matt 16:17).
Thus, Heaven “has Peter’s back,” inspiring what Peter utters. Heaven is not bound by Peter, it inspires him. Our Faith is not in Peter as a man; it is not in any of Peter’s successors as men. Rather, our faith is in God, who protects Peter and his successors from error and inspires what is formally taught and proposed for belief.
Is the English text wrong? No. It is just limited in conveying the subtleties. The Greek text is better at affirming the Catholic belief in the infallibility of the formal papal teaching on Faith and morals. It affirms more clearly that our faith is in God, who inspires. And while we pray that whoever is pope is a smart guy, this is not the source of our confidence. The source of our confidence is God’s capacity to inspire even sinful men who are not brilliant theologians. Our faith is in God, not in men as such. The Greek text invites us to believe that whatever is bound by the pope has already been bound in Heaven.
As another example, consider how Peter was prepared to teach properly at the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) by the vision God gave to him in Acts 10. In this vision, Peter was instructed to baptize the first Gentiles and receive them as brethren. Thus, when the time for the Council came, Peter was ready to speak and teach the truth. He loosed on Earth what had already been loosed in Heaven. And while it is true that St. Paul later had to rebuke Peter (Gal 2) for not living the teaching fully (for Peter drew back to consort only with Jewish Christians out of fear and social pressure), it remains true that Peter taught it rightly by inspiration. And this is what is promised: that whatever Peter would formally bind or loose on Earth had already been bound or loosed in Heaven.
And thus the Greek, in all its subtlety, sets forth an important reminder that the mechanism of infallible teaching from the Pope is not in the man, but in God, who inspires and leads Peter and his successors.
Rather, study all the above, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, the languages of the world of the Bible.
I believe that's where a lot of problems in roman catholic doctrine/beliefs stem from in the use of the Latin over the Greek and Hebrew.
Oh, it’s an interesting study, for sure. Our access to scholarship on Greek is a blessing. But let’s be sure we don’t become dependent on it, lest we be led away from our reliance on the Word to correct our misunderstandings.
(We don’t need an accurate translation of Matt. 16:19, for instance, to know what Jesus was telling Peter.)
Rather let’s just agree to disagree. :)
Thanks for the ping. Yes, translation from Greek to English isn’t always accurate. In the Prefatory Note to the First Edition of his Analytical Concordance to the Bible [1884], Robert Young wrote: “For our Translation [KGV] often renders one Greek word by ten or twenty English ones; and on the other hand, it sometimes employs one English word to translate ten or twenty Greek ones.”
Access to the Greek will only enhance the understanding of the Word and will eliminate the majority of errors in understanding the Word.
Luke 1:28 is not the conveying of a new title as claimed by Catholicism. It is a greeting due to the imperative mood of the verb “Greetings!” in the text.
Ha! Okay, I see what you mean.
But I have my doubts whether Greek scholarship will bring the Mary-worshippers to Christ. After all, they didn’t get to Mary-worship by Luke 1:28, any more than the belief-only-ers got there by John 3:16. They both got where they are by following men, and Greek isn’t the antidote for that poison.
You are right, and everyone, Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, or Baptist, should go over this with a fine-toothed comb to totally understand it. Pope was especially correct and clear on the point that Peter did not have any authority to bind anything on earth that had not already been bound in heaven, nor to loose/endorse anything that had not already been loosed/endorsed in Heaven. And NOW that the canon of verbally inspired, infallible Scripture has been completed and published in the original languages, the binding/loosing be contained explicitly in that body of writings and not of any extrabiblical provenance or interpretation.
You are quite correct in this. It was Luther's contemporary Catholic friend Desiderius Erasmus, who compiled what is now known as the Received Text, a Byzantine/Majority textform, that Luther read the Koine and through its lucid opening chapter of Paul's epistle to the Romans came to discover the Heavenly brilliance of salvation on the basis of faith alone in the Biblical Jesus alone, interpreting Habakkuk 2, and thereby led Spirit-filled humans out of the error-filled religious denomination, forever.
Latin is not the language of the Bible. The Holy Ghost still speaks today in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine. But not in Latin.
Uninspired humans try, with some success, in interpreting to other humans in their languages, once Latin (but not now), English (pre-Elizabethan), German, Spanish, etc.
Beg your pardon there. The first Bible printed by the Gutenberg Press were in Latin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutenberg_Bible
The Gutenberg Bible (also known as the 42-line Bible, the Mazarin Bible or the B42) was the first major book printed in the West using movable type. It marked the start of the “Gutenberg Revolution” and the age of the printed book in the West. Widely praised for its high aesthetic and artistic qualities,[1] the book has an iconic status. Written in Latin, the Gutenberg Bible is an edition of the Vulgate, printed by Johannes Gutenberg, in Mainz, in present-day Germany, in the 1450s.
I will give to you the keys of the Kingdom . . .
I will give to thee the keys of the Kingdom . . .
The AV/KJV never misses on this grammatical detail. Modern English could well give the wrong understanding, without proper exegesis.
You don’t need to beg my pardon on this. The Vulgate is a translation. Latin is not the language of the Bible, although it was a language into which the language of the Scriptures was translated.
Lexical aid 5463 along with chairete are applied even in Modern Greek as salutations or as a wishing of happiness. The same term is used ironically in Matthew 26:49 to Jesus following his arrest. Generally it is reserved for persons of stature.
Conversely κεχαριτωμένη Lexical aid 5487 is definced as favored, highly favored etc... This word appears one other time in Ephesians 1:6 in describing Jesus.
Luk 1:28 And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.
What mood is the verb for hail in in the Greek?
Check Eph 1:6 again. Who is receiving what and who is giving it?
Lexical aids tot he New Testament compiled and edited by Spiros Zodhiates, Th.D. Portions taken from A Greek-English Lexicon tot he New Testament (John Parkhurst 1767
Biblical-Theological Lexicon of the New Testament (Hermann Cremer 1895)
Synonyms of the New testament (R.C. Trench 1876
An Expository Dictionary of the New Testament words (W.E. Vine, 1940)
All of which are non-Catholic sources and recognized by the protestant community for their accuracy.
If you have a disagreement, it is not with me, but with the non-Catholic sources.
I like CARM, but I also use CRI.
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