Someone asked the other day about αρσενοκοιτης. They asked, “I see the argument that arsenokoitai is a made up word and could not possibly mean homosexual. How do we come about knowing what this word really means?”

First of all, all words are made up. God made up a lot at Babel, and humans have been making up words every since. Paul loves to make up words; “God-breathed” in 2 Tim 3:16 is perhaps the most famous. So just because a word is made up doesn’t say anything about whether or not we can know its meaning.

I have had a couple interesting experiences lately, and they culminated in my thinking about 1 Tim 6:17, which says that God “richly provides us with everything to enjoy.” Nothing special in the Greek. All things (παντα) are not just given but richly (πλουσιως) given for (εις) enjoyment (απολαυσις).

απολαυσις only occurs elsewhere in the NT in Heb 11:25, where the author says that Moses chose “rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures (απολαυσιν) of sin.”

I saw the strangest wording today. The pastor was reading passages on joy out of the NIV (1984), and he came to James 1:4. “Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” It was the “must” that caught my eye.

Why “must’ it finish? In what sense is there a necessity that perseverance finish? I pulled out my phone and started checking other translations.

Came across a great illustration in church today about the nuances and complexities of translation.

The pastor was preaching on John 17:17-19. “Sanctify (αγιασον) them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify (αγιαζω) myself, that they too may be truly sanctified (αγιασμενοι) ” (NIV).

In church today we sang the song, “the name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run into it and they are saved.” I checked the updated NIV text, and it has been changed from “strong tower” to “fortified tower.” (The change is in the TNIV as well).

This brings up an interesting issue. It is one thing to change people’s “favorite verse,” but to change a song’s text, now that’s serious.

I am only half joking. “The name of the Lord is a fortified tower” doesn’t quite fit the cadence.

We teach students in first year Greek that the subjunctive mood carries the idea of “should” or might.” But then they come to a verse like John 3:16 and read, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that (ινα) whoever believes in him should (αποληται) not perish but have eternal life” (ESV).

I can’t remember if I have blogged on this before, but I was thinking about it today during church.

I remember the first tie I heard someone say that there was a “normal” word order in Greek. I was shocked since I had not observed any patterns, but they are there.

The normal word order is conjunction, verb, subject, object, and modifiers.

My brother-in-law asked me a question that came up in his Bible study the other day, and it illustrates several interesting points of Greek grammar. Thanks Terry.

1 Cor 11:24 in the ESV reads, “and when he had given thanks, he broke (εκλασεν) it, and said, ‘This is my body which is for you (το υπερ υμων). Do this in remembrance of me.’” The interesting phrase is, “which is for you.”

My brother-in-law asked me a question that came up in his Bible study the other day, and it illustrates several interesting points of Greek grammar. Thanks Terry.

1 Cor 11:24 in the ESV reads, “and when he had given thanks, he broke (εκλασεν) it, and said, ‘This is my body which is for you (το υπερ υμων). Do this in remembrance of me.’” The interesting phrase is, “which is for you.”

I never got a chance to reflect on some of things that happened at the last ETS in Atlanta, but there is one thing of a personal nature I wanted to share.

Paul writes to the Corinthians, “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved (σωζεσθε), if you hold fast to the word I preached to you— unless you believed in vain” (ESV).

I was in a strange situation the other day. I ran into a couple who had been part of a difficult situation in my past. For the wife’s part, she had been actively involved in slandering me.

Someone asked me a while back about the word that begins Heb 2:11, ὅ (smooth breathing and accent). It looks like a relative pronoun, which is generally translated as “who(m),” “that,“ or “which,” but his translation used the personal pronoun “he.” He didn’t know if this was a possible way to translate the relative pronoun, or if it was possible for ὅ to be a personal pronoun.

One of the dangers of learning Greek is that after a while you feel like you have a handle on things and don’t need to keep reviewing grammar. Then over time you lose some of the nuances of the language and start letting a broad, general understanding govern everything you read.

I can still remember when I first came across Rom 2:28-29 (RSV) and wondered what a “real” Jew is, and is there such a thing as a “fake” Jew.

“For he is not a real Jew [ο ... Ιουδαιος] who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal. His praise is not from men but from God.”

Heard a fascinating piece of bad exegesis the other day. The Holy Spirit is a she.

The basis of this claim was that the Hebrew word for “spirit” (ruach) is feminine. The short answer is that if this is true, then the Spirit is also an “it” since the Greek word for “spirit” (πνευμα) is neuter.

We normally teach passives in a straight forward way. The subject of a passive verb receives the action of the verb. "The answer was given by Paul."

But the other day I was translating with my son and we came across one of those weird passives. In Matt 8:26 we read, "Then getting up (εγερθεις) he rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm." In what sense was Jesus "was raise" (passive)?

Lets talk about passives. There are several types.

My son Tyler is learning Greek at Biola University. Not many dads get to spend Skype time helping their son translate Greek. And who says knowing Greek isn’t practical?

We covered a passage this week that had me scratching my head. In Matt 8:23 we read, “Then he got (εμβαντι αυτω) into the boat and his disciples followed him” (αυτω). Why is the first αυτω in the dative? The second αυτω is easy; ακολουθεω takes a direct object in the dative. By why the first?

Jude writes to his church that they are to “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.” He wanted to write to them about their common salvation, but because evil people had snuck into the church, he was forced to write a different kind of letter.

Functional equivalent translations are used to taking exegetical positions. After all, they are committed to trying to convey the meaning of a passage, at least the meaning they see in the text.

Formal equivalent are less comfortable doing this. They tend to try and replicate the ambiguity of the original Greek/Hebrew and let the reader decide as to meaning.

In the early times of Greek, before Classical Greek, there weren't prepositions. Basic ideas were associated with the different cases, and it was left up to the rhetorical skill of the speaker and the listening skills of the hearer to determine from context what was the specific meaning of the case.

Prepositions came into the language in an attempt to be more specific, a fact that a student of biblical Greek might find almost humorous considering the lack of specificity enjoyed by some prepositions. I mean, what really does επι really mean?

I was asked the other day when you know a Greek sentence is a question. I don't think I have ever been asked that, which is a bit surprising since it is such an obvious question.

The quick and easy answer is, "Look at the punctuation." If it is a ";" in the Greek text, the editor is telling you that he (or she) thinks the sentence is a question.

But of course the punctuation is not original with the text, so the punctuation is just opinion; although, considering the competence of the editors of our Greek text, it is an opinion worth paying attention to.

I had an interesting experience in church today. The pastor preached an excellent sermon on John 14:22-24 using the NIV. “Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, ‘But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?’”

I had a fascinating experience this summer. I spent my first three weeks on the NIV translation committee, the CBT. We were locked away in Whistler, Canada, discussing, agreeing, and sometimes disagreeing on the nuances of the meaning of words and the meaning of biblical passages. It doesn't get any better than that!

Well, perhaps a week in Switzerland would be better.

I am just back from three weeks locked away in Whistler, Canada, with the rest of the CBT (Committee on Bible Translation). Three weeks of discussing, agreeing, and sometimes disagreeing on the nuances of the meaning of words and the meaning of biblical passages. It doesn't get any better than that!

Well, perhaps a week in Switzerland would be better.

Every once in a while I get a question that is so basic that it has never occurred to me to answer it. Someone asked me the other day, how do we know what Greek and Hebrew words mean?

The answers for Greek and Hebrew are somewhat different, so let me start with the Greek.

2 Pet 1:20-21 are important verses for our doctrine of Scripture, and so it should come as no surprise that there are some differences of opinion on the meaning of the passage.

Peter begins in v 16 by saying, “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty” (ESV). Peter is asserting his authority over the false teachers because of his direct experience with Jesus. One source of this first-hand knowledge is the Mount of Transfiguration experience (vv 17-19).

Last week's guest blog from Marc Cortez at Western Seminary was evidently interesting to many of you,so I thought I would post his followup blog this Monday. See you on Greek grammar next week.

Yesterday’s post, “The biblical languages in life and ministry,” sparked quite a bit of discussion. So, I thought it might be worth following up on that with a few more thoughts on the subject. Why bother with learning Greek and Hebrew? By the time you are done, you will have spent countless hours and probably a fair amount of money learning these languages. Was it worth it?

My friend Marc Cortez wrote this blog on the Western Seminary's blog site and I thought it is worth reporting. I look forward to your response.

Thanks to the NT Resources blog I ran across an interesting post on Original Languages and the Priesthood of All Believers. Since most of us have spent a fair amount of time with the original languages in our academic development, I thought his would be worth reflecting on.

The article begins with the following statement:

Some times it can be tricky to hook a preposition up to the word it is modifying. In the example of 2 Thess 2:13, in the commentaries I checked they did not even discuss it. This is one of the advantages of Phrasing, but I will get to that in a second.

The verse reads, “But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved (εις σωτηριαν) , through (εν) sanctification by the Spirit (αγιασμω πνευματος) and belief in the truth (πιστει αληθειας)” (ESV).