May 2, 2008
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The mythical power of Greek – debunked
There’s this false notion among Christians that knowing the Greek language will give you special knowledge of the Bible and therefore special knowledge to God — as if it’s the key that unlocks all secrets. This is actually not true. I have loved learning Greek in this past year, because it is fun reading God’s Word as it was written by the original authors and catching the subtle implications of verb tense, voice and moods that might not come through in English translations. But the best part has been having the cloud of ‘mystery’ lifted from the idea of Greek. You know how pastors do it, they say, “This is what it really says in the Greek”, and you can only accept what she or he has to say because you don’t know any Greek. My professor says that there really is no reason to be so condescending when you preach. What it says in your Bible in English is what that particular Greek word means. That is why those scholars translated it that way.
Here are some examples of Greek words that pastors have over-exegeted:
Some pastors want to “give you greater insight” (or maybe they’re just misinformed) by telling you that the word used to describe the Holy Spirit “parakletos” comes from two words: “para” which means “alongside” and “kaleo” which means “called”, so they say that the word parakletos means “one who is called alongside”, i.e. the Holy Spirit is one who is called to come alongside us. And while this ‘insight’ sounds clever, this is not exactly true. “Parakletos” is a word that means “helper, encourager.”
In the English language, we don’t usually break down a word to give us more insight into its meaning. We don’t take a word like “understand” and break it down by its parts. Otherwise, we’d think understand means to stand under. So why do we do this with the Greek?
The second example has to do with John 21 when Jesus reinstates Peter. I used to teach this in my Bible studies incorrectly too. The incredible Greek “insight” goes like this: The first two times Jesus says to Peter, “Agapas me?” Peter responds, “Sure, philo you.” (instead of, “Agapo you.”) So on the third time, Jesus changes his question to, “Phileis me?” And Peter again responds, “Yes, philo you.” In explaining this passage, many define agape as unconditional, divine love, and phileo means brotherly, human love (i.e. it’s a lesser love), and therefore, Peter is responding with a lesser love and in the end, Jesus goes down to his level and asks him if he brotherly-loves him. What’s the point of this? I have no idea. Why is it such great insight that Jesus goes from asking Simon if he unconditionally loves him to only brotherly loving him?
Actually, the Greek verb agapao doesn’t just mean unconditional love. It can also just mean regular old, plain “love”. For example, in 1 John 2:15 when it talks about the love for the world, the word that is used is also “agapao“. It doesn’t really make sense to interpret that verse as divine, unconditional love for the world, does it? So “agapao” doesn’t just mean unconditional love. There are also other places in the New Testament where the word “phileo” is used to describe God’s love. Words have more than one meaning, and to draw an exegetical insight based on one definition of a word across the board can be dangerous and just plain irresponsibile scholarship. When we write an essay in English and have to repeat the same idea, we switch back and forth between words, using synonyms, just “because”. In the same way, Jesus is just using a synonym when He does the switcheroo. There’s no deeper meaning. If you check commentaries, you will find that nine out of ten scholars will tell you this.
Okay, last one. The word in Greek that means “power” is dunamis. Some people say that dunamis is related to dynamite, so therefore “dunamis” means “explosive”. But it really doesn’t mean that. Dynamites hadn’t even been invented during New Testament times. This is called semantic anachronism. Preachers sometimes quote Romans 1:16 as, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the dynamite of God…” “as if something profound or even esoteric has been uttered. To mention dynamite as a kind of analogy is singularly inappropriate. Dynamite blows things up, tears things down, rips out rock, gouges holes, destroys things. The power of God concerning which Paul speaks…its goal is to save…(and its aim is) for the wholeness and perfection implicit in the consummation of our salvation.” (p. 34 D.A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies).
Amen to that. So the moral of the story? God’s word, as it has been translated in our English Bibles by Christian scholars, is God’s word to us. You don’t have to know Greek to know God’s word and His heart. It’s fun and great and certainly adds to things — but it’s not essential!
Comments (8)
This post was so funny. I don’t know if it meant to be funny, but I found it greatly amusing! It reminded me of the father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Ooh. That’s like a long-overdue public service announcement. Thanks!
i don’t know if many pastors use this technique to talk down to their congregation, and i don’t think many people listening take it as “since i know more than you, here is what it really means…”
i heard a joke that DTS graduates are known for emphasizing that. i do like it when pastors can teach me a little about the original Greek or Hebrew wording. it’s like in Chinese, some words don’t translate well to English.
i do agree that it’s not essential to understanding God’s word, as we read it and ask the Holy Spirit to help us apply it in our lives.
@snoopy1028 - You’re right, Mike. I guess “condescending” was too strong a word, and I probably shouldn’t have written that… but my Greek professor, who is a formidable New Testament scholar, admonished us to avoid saying in sermons and Bible studies, “This is what the Greek really says”, because knowing the Greek word is not usually necessary (it’s not the key) to understand the meaning of a particular passage. It’s a bit misleading when pastors share it like it was the key (not all do, but some do). My prof said that we are to use the Greek when we are studying and preparing for a sermon, just as we use textual context and historical, cultural context – in order to discern the true meaning of a passage.
I think that when pastors say “this is what the Greek really means”, their intent really is to “enlighten” their parishioners. There’s really no other reason why they are using it. I just wanted to share a few examples of fallacies that I’ve heard over and over again in sermons so that everyone will know also that those conclusions are not true, and so that we can all avoid teaching those fallacies when we lead our own Bible studies. Also, I wanted to point out that when pastors say “this is what the Greek really means”, it causes us to have doubts about our own translations, when in fact, the English translations are perfectly fine — and we are able to understand God’s heart perfectly through it.
haha i remember learning that in hermeneutics! But you have more license to talk about that since you actually know Greek!
Good stuff! 
My favorite line: “Dynamites hadn’t even been invented during New Testament times.”
It always makes me happy when people write something so sensible that challenges the “conventional wisdom,” as you have here.
To add some comments about translation.. I would guess there are times when reading in the original text would give greater insight. But the caveat is that you must know the original language to gain that greater insight. I’ve been dealing with some Chinese translated to English recently, and to the extent being able to read the original Chinese would help me depends on me understanding the context of how Chinese people use certain phrases. If one knows the connotations/etc behind certain exact phrases, then knowing the exact phrase is helpful. But otherwise, I would say the scholarship of a group of educated translators is a pretty good bet as to the best way to render the meaning in English.
i enjoyed this!
Great stuff! If you don’t mind, may I repost this and link back to this entry?
God bless, hugs and kisses.
Lots of Love,
><> Elizabeth <><