My brand new Greek Bible!

by Wonderment 22 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  TD

  Earnest

  ..in general Greek speakers (whether they are JW or not) cannot deal with ancient Greek at all.

  I would be careful about saying that in a roomful of native Greek speakers The ancient dialects are often taught (starting) at the middle school level and are still used liturgically in the church. Many Greek speakers have more than a passing familiarity with them.

  Consider old English as an counter-example. Something like this might not be entirely intelligible today:

  Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes, from many a tribe, the mead-bench tore, awing the earls.

  ..but an English speaker is still miles ahead of a non-English speaker when it comes to the language in its ancient forms.
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  Wonderment

  TD: Very good observation of yours. No one will argue that Modern Greek and Koine Greek are two thousand years apart with great differences. However, as you noted, many modern Greek folks do have familiarity with ancient texts. And Greek has changed less than English has through the centuries. An educated Greek can follow quite a bit of Koine Greek even without formal training.

  See Paul L. Kaufman's comment on this on page one for those who missed it. Here's another one from Wikipedia: "Ancient Greek texts, especially from Biblical Koine onwards, are thus relatively easy to understand for educated modern speakers."

  And as Earnest indicated, it is not unusual for the WT Society (who have access to multiple resources) have someone specializing in both Koine and Modern Greek available to assist them in the translation process. Earnest said: "On the other hand, I do know of a brother in Greece who is equally at home in both ancient and modern Greek and who has been assisting the Watchtower Society in translation for the last 30 years so..."

  This is not surprising because to produce the NWT Greek edition required perhaps a bit more than other versions into other languages. The WT took seven (7) years to produce their modern Greek version.
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  Earnest

  TD, I accept your kind caution and analogy with old English. I based my statement on discussions I have had with Greek friends of mine but their education (in Greece) was some time ago so if my conclusions are incorrect I withdraw them. Nevertheless, if I may stick to the English analogy, while I can easily understand Tyndale and with a bit more difficulty follow Wycliffe and Chaucer, it does need a scholar of the language to understand the nuances which are no longer current.