Is Hebrew or Greek more important?
Comments
-
David Paul said:DAL said:
Bottom line, if you’re in ministry it won’t hurt to know at least the basics of Greek and Hebrew, but if you’re a lay person, then is not required to be well pleasing to God which has been my point all along
I probably felt the same way when I didn't know Hebrew or Greek, but having learned them to the extent I have, I don't feel comfortable agreeing with that statement any longer. It could be true, in some cases, maybe...but I have doubts. It's not that reading the Bible solely in English or some other non-autograph language is incapable of getting your head where it needs to be, but practically, it just doesn't.
Unfortunately, we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one 👍😁👌 My dad became a messianic jew and now all of the sudden we all need to learn Hebrew because that’s the language we’ll speak in the new earth to come 😂 Oh well! I still love my dad ♥️👍😁👌
0 -
Is the New Testament or Old Testament more important?
0 -
Josh Hunt said:
Is the New Testament or Old Testament more important?
Both are important and I can read them both in my two languages (English & Spanish) and still be saved without knowing one iota of Greek or an Aleph of Hebrew. Those who “think” or “feel” they’re essential to be saved couldn’t prove it even if their lives depended on it.
DAL
0 -
Josh Hunt said:
Is the New Testament or Old Testament more important?
I don't think you can even read the New Testament with any real comprehension without the Old Testament. But OT is a much tougher everything for Christians. I am in the middle of reading a book by Garett that doesn't pull punches about how messed up our grasp is of it.
The mind of man is the mill of God, not to grind chaff, but wheat. Thomas Manton | Study hard, for the well is deep, and our brains are shallow. Richard Baxter
0 -
Josh Hunt said:
Is the New Testament or Old Testament more important?
This question has been asked before, and the answer remains the same. If you only had access to one, the OT is the only one that leads to life. It is impossible to comprehend YHWH's will with just the NT. While that is absolutely true, we have them both for a reason.
ASUS ProArt x570s Creator, AMD R9 5950x, HyperX 64gb 3600 RAM, ASUS Strix RTX 2080 ti
"The Unbelievable Work...believe it or not." Little children...Biblical prophecy is not Christianity's friend.
0 -
As someone aptly stated: “The OT is the NT concealed and the NT is the OT revealed.” You need both unless your theology is different in which case we’re not supposed to discuss theology here 👍😁👌
DAL
0 -
Given that printing anywhere is the world is a eleventh-fifteenth century capability so that most scripture was transmitted aurally in a language known by the lector, I would say that for at least 70% of the history of Christianity and still in areas with low literary rates, the most important language is clearly the language of the lector i.e. usually the language used in worship. This is illustrated by:
[quote]All through the nineteenth century the project of establishing the Orthodox faith in American soil was struggling forward, but with the turn of the twentieth, two events knocked the plans askew. The first was the Russian Revolution, which derailed our spiritual mother’s ability to continue the project; the second was the arrival of wave after wave of Orthodox immigrants from Eastern Europe and the Middle East, all of whom wanted to start worshipping immediately in their native languages.
Frederica Mathewes-Green, At the Corner of East and Now: A Modern Life in Ancient Christian Orthodoxy, Second Edition (Ben Lomond, CA: Ancient Faith Publishing, 2008), 118.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
0 -
MJ. Smith said:
Given that printing anywhere is the world is a eleventh-fifteenth century capability so that most scripture was transmitted aurally in a language known by the lector, I would say that for at least 70% of the history of Christianity and still in areas with low literary rates, the most important language is clearly the language of the lector i.e. usually the language used in worship. This is illustrated by:
[quote]All through the nineteenth century the project of establishing the Orthodox faith in American soil was struggling forward, but with the turn of the twentieth, two events knocked the plans askew. The first was the Russian Revolution, which derailed our spiritual mother’s ability to continue the project; the second was the arrival of wave after wave of Orthodox immigrants from Eastern Europe and the Middle East, all of whom wanted to start worshipping immediately in their native languages.
Frederica Mathewes-Green, At the Corner of East and Now: A Modern Life in Ancient Christian Orthodoxy, Second Edition (Ben Lomond, CA: Ancient Faith Publishing, 2008), 118.
Great response MJ! That settles it 👍😁👌 Studying OL is good but not a must to be saved. Why have Pentecost (Acts 2) if everyone is going to be told they need to learn Greek and Hebrew to get it right! 🤦🏻♂️
I can’t believe I had not read this! 👍😁👌DAL
0 -
-
I'd love to get your opinion on something that occurred to me when pondering which language is more beneficial to the Christian. Firstly, I'd like to say that I'm more drawn to Hebrew. It holds for me a certain intangible attraction and fascination that I haven't yet found in Greek. That being said, there is an argument in favor of learning Greek primarily that occurred to me.
From what I understand about Hebrew, the words are generally more open to interpretation which is largely determined by the context. There are still some words to this day that the best Hebrew scholars still aren't totally sure of their meaning and/or what the context was. What you end up with is more potential for misinterpretation. Due to the amount of time since the Old Testament days, it can sometimes to be hard to be sure of the exact shade of meaning intended when a certain Hebrew word is used because of missing or unknown context. However, if one reads the LXX, it seems to me that a sort of commentary is built into the text by scribes from the ancient past (200-100 BC?). Greek is a very precise language with a different word for every shade of meaning, so basically we're getting Hebrew words translated into a very precise language with the exact words being chosen by scholars who were closer in time to the time and culture of the original writings. It seems they would be better equipped to pick the correct Greek word to reflect the correct shade of meaning intended by the more vague Hebrew word.
In other words, what if the LXX is basically the Hebrew but with the added precise translation that the Greek brings? What if it comes down to reading the Hebrew with its inherent ambiguity or the Greek, but more precise understanding of the Hebrew words?
Please someone debunk this argument so I can have my Hebrew.0 -
No need to debunk! Just compare the greek OT with the Hebrew OT, and see how far you get. Then, for extra credit, take a look at the early latin OT, and get a whiff of why Jerome decided to start all over (Hebrew).
Greek is like a sports car ... fast and easy to end up in the ditch. Need a good driver. Hebrew might use manual-shift and even a crank, but it gets you where you need to go.
0 -
DMB said:
No need to debunk! Just compare the greek OT with the Hebrew OT, and see how far you get. Then, for extra credit, take a look at the early latin OT, and get a whiff of why Jerome decided to start all over (Hebrew).
Greek is like a sports car ... fast and easy to end up in the ditch. Need a good driver. Hebrew might use manual-shift and even a crank, but it gets you where you need to go.
Thanks DMB! No need to debunk! In addition to that, some have said the koine greek was the most exact language that was able to accurately express human thought. But then again, why did the Thesalonnians needed Paul to explain 1 Thess. in 2 Thess.? Or why the things he wrote that were hard to explain were twisted? Same goes for Hebrew and the need for Aramaic.
Your own language is all you need to understand the word of God the rest is just extra. Everybody can know what they must do to be saved in their own language as much as the guy who only “speaks” sign language.
Learning Greek or Hebrew or Aramaic helps but I think it’s just another attempt to secularize the church and get you to go to school and get a degree, that way you can get paid more if a church hires you because, supposedly, you know the Bible better if you know those languages. What is it that some say…“we’re saved by faith…not by how much Hebrew or Greek you know?” There, that should answer without any debate which language is more important to christians. Any other answer is just trying to argue a point that cannot be defended even if their lives depended on it!
Merry Christmas! (Nobody said it this Christmas)
DAL0 -
They are both important. If one does not have at least a basic knowledge of Greek and Hebrew grammar, then it is most difficult to understand what the best scholarly commentaries and resources are discussing. Those who don't know what they don't know are often dangerously wrong.
I regret that it is now possible to get a Master of Divinity degree without studying Biblical languages. It frustrated me at the time, but I am now thankful that Asbury Seminary required me to take two semesters of Greek, without any credit toward my seminary degree. It benefits me nearly every day, and it prepared me for exegesis courses.
But to answer the question, it is likely that a Christian pastor will preach more from New Testament than from the Old Testament. Therefore, I would suggest that Greek is more important.
"In all cases, the Church is to be judged by the Scripture, not the Scripture by the Church," John Wesley0 -
Actually, the Hebrew aleph bet is surprisingly similar to our alphabet.
0
