Monday with Mounce

I wish that people who do not know Greek would stop misusing it to prove a theological position. When I was writing Greek for the Rest of Us, friends warned me about misuse, so hopefully this last email I received doesn’t refer to those using my book.

I saw an atheists’ website that listed one of their favorite “contradictions.” God says he will punish “the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation” (Exod 20:54; cf. Deut 5:9). However, in Ezekiel 18:4 God says, “The person who sins is the one who will die.” So which is it? Are children punished for the sins of their parents, or does the parents’ punishment end with them?

As we all know, some information from Greek is often left out of an English translation. Usually, it is just nuances, but the information is a little more important in this passage.

Romans 13:9 provides several interesting points of discussion. Here is the verse with its critical apparatus.

Every once in a while, you have to guess as to what words have been omitted from a Greek sentence in order to explain the form of those that were included. Sentences are often abbreviated, and I have lost count of how many times I was stuck, trying to understand the form of a word, and the answer was that some word (or words) was assumed.