Biblical Greek - Lesson 1

Dr. Bill Mounce
Biblical Greek
nt202-01
The Greek Language
Lesson Transcript

[00:00:01] Well, good morning. I'm Dr. Death. Welcome to Greek Finance Week. The days I'll have the wheelbarrows and the aisles going up and down saying, Bring out your dead now. Welcome to Greek. My name is Dr. Mounts, otherwise known as Bill. I don't care what you call me. Politely, I guess. I've always been called Bill my whole life. I'm kind of partial to the name, but I know for some of you that's difficult. So choose which name or title you're comfortable with. No fear. A lot of what some of you are going to have to deal with is not real. It's fictional. Romeo and Juliet wasn't real. And Greek is not that hard. It's not. Now, you've probably been told that by a lot of people who are looking for an excuse for the fact they no longer null their Greek and the alphabets different. And so it kind of gives the appearance of being hard. But in terms of modern languages, it's much easier than German. If you've had German, it's probably a little harder than French, although it's extremely regular. And in that sense, it's easier than French. Nothing is as easy to learn as Spanish, though. So if you are. Most of you probably know who have learned in the second language have learned Spanish. You'll find Greek a little more challenging than Spanish, but not a lot. And the reason it's not is that we're such good teachers. No, the reason it's not is that it's a beautifully regular language. Very, very few exceptions. Technically, there's not any, but you kind of need to get over the hurdle. I talked to one of you at the retreat on Wednesday and just scared. It's not that hard. It really isn't. The secret, as you'll find out, is to study regularly every day.

[00:02:07] And if you can block out the time and do that and not get behind, you'll find that the language is quite enjoyable. I got a letter from a prisoner the other day and I wanted to read it to you. Send me his picture and let me just tell you what he he said. He identifies it, gives his name, and he said, I am a convicted felon, doing time in an Ohio prison for simple robbery. And I am a sinner saved by the grace of God in Jesus Christ, your Lord and mine. I am writing this letter to Thank you, sir doesn't know me for what you taught me. And then he lists the Greek books. Thank you very much. This guy is a felon in an Ohio prison. Okay, sir. I wish you wouldn't call me that. But in prison, what usually makes it in is the health and wealth. Name it and claim it error. It becomes heresy when they say Christians are, quote, little gods or that our Lord took on the nature of Satan on the cross. Now, listen to this. It was because of my study of Greek and the sounds theology. It pointed me to that. I was not taken in by the above. Also, I now teach a small Greek class so that other men in here will not. The best of all is the Gospel. Jesus Christ and Him crucified and knowing that I am called in Him from before the foundation of the world. In him is where lies the peace that passes understanding. I possess that peace because he possesses me. I do not need a theology of glory. To see the naked God. As Luther put it, I have the theology of the cross where Jesus died in my place and raised again.

[00:03:55] Amen. Your brother in Christ. Pretty cool, huh? So if you're scared, here's someone with almost no resources, no one to talk to who's gotten through two years of Greek on his own and is now teaching in an Ohio prison now. Next time you get discouraged about Greek, think about him. Anyway, I was really encouraged. Every once in a while we get letters often asking for books, but this one was just a really nice, encouraging letter. We have struggled with ways to help you see that Greek is not learned for Greek sake, but is a tool for ministry. And we've also struggled with how to build community in a class this size. So here's how we do it. Add ten after eight, I will be in here. Maybe no one else, but I will be in here. And we always have devotions every morning. And what I try to do is pick some Greek passage that you can kind of figure out or deal with. And we'll talk about it and we'll talk about how you moved from Greek into preaching and devotional issues. And it's a time to for you to see that. And it's a time for us just to pray together. It is not a required time. It is outside of the 30 hours a semester that I can require you to be present. It will not affect your grade if you don't come. I have to say that for the Dean, but I would encourage you to come. It's a good way to start the day. It's also a good practice to get into of seeing how Greek actually does mean something in real life. So I would encourage you to be here at ten after eight. I had a student come in last February had been crying.

[00:05:38] He's a nice guy. I mean, I knew him from other situations and he was really, really nervous to see me. And I'm not I think I'm kind of approachable. And so I couldn't figure out what was going on. And it took him about a half a minute to get composure. And then he said, I need to confess something to you. Well, normally in that situation it means that he cheated and God's been after him. But he looked right at me and said, I need to confess, I hate you. I said, Okay. He said, Your Greek class made my life a living hell. And I had been absolutely miserable and I've hated you for it, and I need to confess it to you. Now. What do you say to that? Yes, I am a rotten person. There are certain things within my control. There are certain things that are not within my control. The amount of time I have you and how far we have to get through the texts is not under my control. I have begged on my hands and knees, as I recall, for more time. I begged to do anything to slow down the pace with which we have to go on this class. And there's simply nothing I can do about that. Now, if that's passing the buck, then so be it. If you hate me, hate me for something else. The deal is I know what you all are going to an extra Jesus class, but you're going to have me for romance. And I'm going to say, okay, pick up Romans one 1617 and read it in Greek. And I know what the other teachers are going to do, too. And I know what's required for you to do extra.

[00:07:20] Jesus, I have to finish the textbook. I joke with my colleagues. You know, if you don't quite get to eschatology, it may not really matter which course all the theologians get very fast with me, but I know God will still come again if we don't study eschatology. Well, according to some knowledge, you can't do actual Jesus without me. Verbs. The last two chapters, you can't do exegesis Jesus without subjunctive and imperatives and infinitives. I have to finish the book, and so I have to keep the pace up that I do. I apologize for an up front. The secret is simple. Study every day because you will find that you spend. As the catalog shows, about 3 hours out of class for every hour in class. Some of you a little less, some of you a little more. But that's what we're supposed to require of you in all our classes. So I don't mean to scare you, but I mean to warn you, you do need the daily time. You can't cram Greek. It's absolutely impossible. So please build into your schedule. I'll do this every day. If you do that, you get through. Fine. So much of what I said so far was more of an introduction to the class. But chapter one covers some issues on the Greek language, and it goes through the history of classical Greek in Koine, Greek and modern Greek. And you can read. It's pretty straightforward. But there is something at the end of the chapters, kind of a hobbyhorse that I want to emphasize. Sometimes people say we should be learning Latin because English is based on Latin, and that simply is not true. There was a lot of borrowing on English's part from Latin, but Latin is not the parent language of English.

[00:09:12] There's basically several families. There's romance languages, that's Latin, French, Italian and so forth. There's Germanic languages, which is English and German and Danish and others. And then there's the Greek languages and then into Iranian. Now, please notice Latin is romance language. English is a Germanic language. English is not based on Latin. Doesn't mean Latin is not important, although I think it's of only some significance for Abubakar's studies. If I don't say in the book, I learn Latin and read Caesar's Gallic Wars. It was interesting. I learned Greek and read the Bible and it was life changing. So don't get sucked into thinking that English comes from Latin. It doesn't. Okay. Into my pet peeve.