Hi from New Zealand
Posted: April 17th, 2015, 6:33 pm
Hi,
I am 43, have an academic background (masters degree in classical music) and currently live in a small town in New Zealand. I taught myself Biblical Greek 10 years ago, finished Bill Mounce's “Basics of Biblical Greek”, memorised about 1000 Greek words from NT and read parts of the Greek NT... but... did not keep it up.
I am seriously considering reviewing my knowledge and possibly going deeper into Biblical Greek and the problem I am having at the moment is not 'how' to learn but 'why'.
This statement by Bill Mounce was an inspiration for me then:
“I believe that learning Greek is nothing more than a natural extension of our loving relationship with Jesus Christ. Although many translations are good, they are one step further removed from what Jesus said. Ultimately we want to know him and his massage as well as possible. A knowledge of the Greek language is essential to achieve this goal.”
I am questioning this statement's validity now and if I could somehow restore my believe in it, that would be good enough to resume my personal studies. I can probably do about 2 hours of studying every day on my own and if I start now... well...in 10 years who knows where I will be!? Even if I learn Greek well, I don't have a particular vision what I am going to do with it, apart of course from reading the Bible in Greek. It just seems that something draws me to the way the first Christians expressed themselves. There is some charm and attraction to this language!
As a counter-argument I can say that even if modern translations are somewhat imperfect, what ultimately matters is where a believer’s heart is! And why shouldn’t we treat Koine Greek just as another medium for communication, just as Portuguese or Chinese ?!
I would love to hear your comments on this (especially from people who have been on that road for a while) and realise that asking about the value of learning Biblical Greek in a Biblical Greek Forum sounds a bit silly...(obviously if there are people who maintain a forum like this one, they believe that learning Greek is worth the time and energy!). If I can hear personal stories why learning Biblical Greek is important from people who have mastered it to some degree … this can probably motivate me.
Links to 'motivational' stories on this forum or anywhere on the internet will be appreciated.
But... it seems to me that the lack of personal communication with fellow learners was what let me down the first time. I did not consider it important and maybe that was a mistake...
Thank you in advance!
I am 43, have an academic background (masters degree in classical music) and currently live in a small town in New Zealand. I taught myself Biblical Greek 10 years ago, finished Bill Mounce's “Basics of Biblical Greek”, memorised about 1000 Greek words from NT and read parts of the Greek NT... but... did not keep it up.
I am seriously considering reviewing my knowledge and possibly going deeper into Biblical Greek and the problem I am having at the moment is not 'how' to learn but 'why'.
This statement by Bill Mounce was an inspiration for me then:
“I believe that learning Greek is nothing more than a natural extension of our loving relationship with Jesus Christ. Although many translations are good, they are one step further removed from what Jesus said. Ultimately we want to know him and his massage as well as possible. A knowledge of the Greek language is essential to achieve this goal.”
I am questioning this statement's validity now and if I could somehow restore my believe in it, that would be good enough to resume my personal studies. I can probably do about 2 hours of studying every day on my own and if I start now... well...in 10 years who knows where I will be!? Even if I learn Greek well, I don't have a particular vision what I am going to do with it, apart of course from reading the Bible in Greek. It just seems that something draws me to the way the first Christians expressed themselves. There is some charm and attraction to this language!
As a counter-argument I can say that even if modern translations are somewhat imperfect, what ultimately matters is where a believer’s heart is! And why shouldn’t we treat Koine Greek just as another medium for communication, just as Portuguese or Chinese ?!
I would love to hear your comments on this (especially from people who have been on that road for a while) and realise that asking about the value of learning Biblical Greek in a Biblical Greek Forum sounds a bit silly...(obviously if there are people who maintain a forum like this one, they believe that learning Greek is worth the time and energy!). If I can hear personal stories why learning Biblical Greek is important from people who have mastered it to some degree … this can probably motivate me.
Links to 'motivational' stories on this forum or anywhere on the internet will be appreciated.
But... it seems to me that the lack of personal communication with fellow learners was what let me down the first time. I did not consider it important and maybe that was a mistake...
Thank you in advance!