I was once on a train from Christchurch to Auckland, when a man in a seat near me noticed I was reading the Gospel of John.
Smiling, we came over to sit next to me. I suppose my alarm bells should have been ringing: Who chooses to sit next to a person reading the bible, except someone with an axe of some sort to grind. A frown normally means "I need to tell you why that book is junk, and why you Christians are ruining the world".
(Aside 1: I don't mind these conversations: we Christians have done our fair share of mucking things up. It's probably the only point on which +Richard Dawkins and I agree. So people are entitled to their best shot, and to have a Christian do the listening for a change.)
But a smile: that so often means: I have superior revelation than you, and you have the privilege of hearing it from me.
(Aside 2: this is one of the approaches that so often produces people with the frown in 'Aside 1'.)
So I should have pretended I was asleep, or busy, or had eaten too many baked beans; or something like that.
(Aside 3: some of the tactics non-Christians have used to avoid being talked at by Christians on public transport: it doesn't work for them, and never has for me either.)
But I didn't. I smiled back (Mr T. would have said "I pity the fool"), and was soon subject to a treatise on why the translation of the bible I was reading was flawed. The Greek was quite different, said my smiling assassin. Jesus isn't God: he's a created being with lots of power, but he isn't God.
My feeble response that surely 2,000 years of scholars couldn't be wrong was brushed away with the king hit: "But how do you know? Have you studied Greek?" To which I had to concede that no, I had not. It was a crushing blow. I was relying on others. I was totally defeated.
(Aside 4: he was too. I discovered that he knew no more Greek than me. What greater nonsense can there be than two ignorant people arguing over an issue with no true knowledge of any of the facts?)
And as he sauntered away, happy in the knowledge that he had won the argument, I resolved that day to learn Greek. Never again would such humiliation happen. Next time I would be ready.
And so I received a great gift from that fellow: not the gift of his wisdom (see aside 4), but something far better. It is a lazy way to live to only rely on second-hand knowledge or experience. Abundant life is lived only as we experience it ourselves. Learn Greek; climb a mountain; plant a tree; ab-sail: but get out and experience life for yourself.
Very good Mr Rimell. I have attempted to learn NT Greek about 4 times, but have always discovered that watching paint dry (or NZ play cricket!) is more interesting. :)
ReplyDeleteMy own thinking about Bible Greek is that knowledge of it does not stop one from twisting it, even in the original Greek. So it seems to me that knowledge of Greek is no remedy to word twisting. Moreover as it really does seem to me that the translations are essentially accurate one can reason from them soundly. Your interlocuter was never gong to be persuaded even if you had not forgotten more Greek than I ever knew (because I thought that your answer to the question "have you studied Greek?" would have been a confident YES).
ReplyDeleteAnyway that is my excuse for not returning to Greek :)
As to Life I am still too nihilistic for that, alas.
Aaaaaahhhhh! "Graecum non legitur". A common statement to which I cannot dissent
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