In first year Greek, we teachers need to make a bigger deal of Aktionsart. Meaning isn’t conveyed just by the meaning of the word, or its tense, or its aspect. Language gives us many tools to nuance what we want to say, and our students need to know that meaning can also help convey aspect.

For example, Mark 5:2. “And he opened his mouth and taught (ἐδίδασκεν) them” (ESV, also NRSV). ἐδίδασκεν is imperfective, but the ESV thinks that the meaning of “to teach” is sufficiently continuous that the verb doesn’t need to be expressly continuous. Most translations treat it as an inceptive imperfect: “he began to teach” (NASB, CSB, NIV, NLT), pointing forward to the Sermon on the Mount.

But what about Matt 7:7-8. A normal translation reads, “Ask (αἰτεῖτε) and it will be given to you, seek (ζητεῖτε) and you will find, knock (κρούετε) and it will be opened for you. For everyone who asks (ὁ αἰτῶν) receives, and everyone who seeks (ὁ ζητῶν) finds, and for everyone who knocks (τῷ κρούοντι) it will be opened.”

I just came home from Houston where we were recording Bruce Waltke’s class on Psalms for BiblicalTraining.org. We didn’t quite finish so I will be traveling to his house in a month or so to finish, so the class should be ready in a couple months. It will be a good companion class to his on Proverbs. But sorry I missed the blog last week.

I was looking at the NIV of James 1:6, and while the point I want to make may seemed nuanced, perhaps even picky, I think it becomes an issue when this same situation is repeated hundreds of times throughout the Bible.

Peter concludes a discussion on suffering with these words. “Therefore, let those suffering in accordance with God’s will entrust (παρατιθέσθωσαν) themselves (τὰς ψυχὰς αὐτῶν) to a faithful Creator, while continuing to do good” (1 Pet 4:19, NRSV).

Last week I raised the issue of anger, and whether it is ever appropriate. The Greek is in Eph 4:26 where Paul writes, ὀργίζεσθε καὶ μὴ ἁμαρτάνετε.

ὀργίζεσθε is, I think, clearly an imperative, although techniclly it could be an indicative. We are told to get angry. The other side of the coin, and a necessary side — have you ever seen a coin with only one side? — is that anger is to be balanced with not sinning.

I have been thinking about anger lately. I was raised in a traditional Christian home and church, and like many people believed that anger was wrong. Period. Anger was the response of people who who weren’t mature in their faith and had not experienced the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. I don’t remember being taught this explicitly, but I suspect it was part of our cultural environment.

One of the beauties of knowing Greek is that you get to see nuances of meaning that are often lost in translation. It’s not that the translators don’t see the meaning; it’s that they simply cannot bring it over smoothly into English.

A prime example is the many ways Greek can state a prohibition, each with its own nuance in terms of aspect, and sometimes a nuance of strength. There is quite a bit of difference between saying “No” and saying “Absolutely not!”

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.

(I still feel guilty about using my BibleReader iPhone app in church; afraid someone would think that I am not listening and am texting. But then I realized that before the days of smart phones, we did scribble and doodle and write notes. There have always been distractions; they are just more sophisticated now. But I digress.)