Equipped For Every Good Work

Lesson 6

BIBLE LANGUAGES: GREEK

Hebrew was very likely the language that was spoken originally by man in the garden of Eden. It was spoken by Noah and his sons after the Flood. Through the line of Shem it was preserved unconfused through the time of confounding of tongues at the tower of Babel, and survived to be the language Moses used in starting the writing of the Hebrew canon. Hebrew was the tongue in which the

last book of the Hebrew canon was recorded, some eleven centuries later. Why, then, was not Hebrew used to finish the Bible canon? Why was it not used in recording the Gospels and epistles and other books of the so-called "New Testament"? Why switch to Greek after nearly three-fourths of the Bible canon had been set forth in Hebrew?

The answer is that God's purpose could be better served by changing over to the Greek tongue. Roughly speaking, some five hundred years separates the last book of the Hebrew Scriptures, Malachi, from the start of writing of the Greek Christian Scriptures. In that intervening period Hebrew ceased to exist as a living language of the people. Aramaic took its place. But before long, world political development dethroned Aramaic as the international language and seated in its place the Greek tongue. This change slowly evolved with the passing of the fourth world power, Medo-Persia, and the coming in of the fifth, Greece.

The Greek tongue does not belong to the Semitic family of languages, but to the Indo-European, which is spoken by the descendants of Noah's son Japheth. The name of one of Japheth's sons is "Javan", meaning "younger one", and seems to be the word from which is derived the Greek word Ionian. The Hebrews called the Greeks "Ionians", or, literally, "Javanim." The early Greeks first settled along the valley of the Danube river near the Black sea, but in process of time migrated southward, overrunning the Balkan peninsula and spreading out from there. As the Greeks spread out groups and colonies were more or less separated by physical features of the country, and naturally many dialects sprang up among the Greek peoples. The Greek language began to take shape about the time of the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, and continued in this formative period down till about 900 B.C.

From 900 B.C. to 330 B.C. is the so called "classical period" of the Greek language, when the Attic dialect came to the fore. Within this period, during the fourth and fifth centuries B.C., arose various Greek dramatists, poets,

orators, historians, philosophers and scientists, all using the Attic dialect.

From 330 B.C. to A.D. 330 is the period of what is known as the koiné, or common, dialect of Greek. Its development was due largely to the military operations of Alexander the Great. His Greek army was made up of soldiers from all parts of Greece, who spoke different Greek dialects. Through the common mingling of their various Greek dialects, a common dialect, having something of all the various ones, was built up and came into use. Alexander's conquest of Egypt and Asia as far as India spread the Greek language and culture over that vast region. Alexandria, a city in Egypt founded by Alexander, was Greek-speaking, even the Jews there speaking Greek. In time the Greek-speaking Jews in Alexandria and Egypt could not read the Scriptures in Hebrew. Happily, translating the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek began about the year 280 B.C. This version, completed sometime during the first century B.C., was called the Septuagint. It filled a vital need, in view of the growing prominence of the koiné Greek. Even the Jews in Palestine came under the influence of Greek culture.

In the days of Jesus and the apostles Greek was the international language of the Roman realm. Testifying to this fact stands the Bible itself. When Jesus was nailed to the stake it was necessary for the inscription over his head to be posted not only in Hebrew or Aramaic, the language then of the common people of the Jews, but also in Latin, the then official language of the land, and also in Greek, which was a language spoken just as frequently on the streets of Jerusalem as in Rome, Alexandria, or Athens itself. (John 19: 20) Acts 9: 29 shows that Paul preached the gospel in Jerusalem to Jews who spoke the Greek language, or Hellenists. (See The Emphatic Diaglott footnote on Acts 6:1; also Goodspeed's An American Translation.) By this time the Romans had come into dominance as the sixth world power, having many years previously brought the Greeks into subjection; nevertheless, the Romans were

themselves conquered by the Greek culture, and koiné Greek continued as the international language. Why, the Greek language was so common in Rome that when the apostle Paul wrote his epistle to the Christian company there he used the Greek language and not Latin, whether Latin-mumbling Catholic priests like it or not. Greek, not Latin, was the language of the Christian church assemblies in Rome and many, many other congregations.

From the foregoing it plainly appears why Jehovah God caused a shift to be made in the language for Bible writing. He did not purpose that his Word should lie concealed under the shrouds of the dead Biblical Hebrew that had served as the Bible language centuries previous, when it was understood and used. His purpose is that the truths of his Word be shed abroad as light for the world. Christ Jesus, just before his ascension, commissioned his disciples to do a preaching work among all nations. Hence it would be reasonable that the Gospels and epistles, Acts and Revelation, be provided in a language that would have widest understanding by all nations. koiné Greek was a language instrument ready at hand for just such a purpose, and Jehovah God inspired his servants on earth to use it in completing the Bible canon. Only Matthew's Gospel, especially for the Jews, was first recorded in Aramaic, shortly followed by a Greek translation.

Though the Greek and Hebrew alphabets do have a common source, the two languages are entirely different, the Semitic having had practically no influence on the Greek. Unlike Hebrew, Greek has letters in its alphabet to represent the vowel sounds. Greek has a definite article (the), which is used not only in connection with nouns, but also in connection with adjectives, adverbs, phrases, clauses, and even whole sentences. The definite article with a word shows that that word belongs to a particular person, object or thing. The definite article is used to make what it modifies outstanding from its surroundings; when the definite article is omitted it leaves the word in the field of generality and

draws attention to the quality of the word rather than particularizing it. (Examine John 1:1, Emphatic Diaglott, interlinear reading.) There are many other uses of the Greek definite article.

The Greek language possesses a large number of conjunctions or particles that perform a nice part in Creek expression. Practically every sentence in Greek had one or more of these particles, to show the attitude of mind of the speaker or writer, either before he thus expressed himself or his turn of mind as he thus expressed himself.

In Greek the verbs have active voice (as, I counsel another person) and passive voice (as, I am counseled). In addition, Greek: has a middle voice which does not indicate a merely that an individual docs something to himself (as, I counsel myself), but, rather, it expresses the relationship of the subject to the verb to show that he has a personal interest in the action or deed which is described or that he derives a benefit from it. (In the middle voice of the verb counsel the thought would be that of taking counsel with others and thus deriving benefit from others' counsel.)

Modifications of the Greek verb indicate whether the action is continuous (I write, I am writing), or is completed (I have written), or is a fact isolated by circumstances. This last one is called the aorist, which means having no limit, indefinite, unlimited. The aorist leaves the verb indefinite as to whether the action was continuous or was brought to a completion. It refers to the action or state described by the verb as merely a fact, as occurring, not as to its being an accomplished fact or completed. The aorist is frequently used in the Greek Scriptures. When the King James Version was being translated (1611) the aorist, as well as the koiné Greek in general, was not so well understood.

The proper rendering of the aorist makes a difference in meaning, as can be seen from 1 John 2: 1 (King James Version): "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." Accord-

ing to this translation, and also the Diaglott and the American Standard Version, the reference is to a course of sin or practice of sin. But in both cases the apostle John used the aorist form of the verb "sin", which calls attention to the fact of the action. It does not refer to it as a continuous thing, continually practiced, nor as an accomplished and completed thing, but refers to sinning as a fact. Hence the real thought of the apostle is: "My dear children, these things I write to you that you may not commit an act of sin. But if anyone does commit an act of sin, we have a helper with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous One."

Only a very little has been presented here on the structure of Greek. It is a very specific and exact language, and its grammar and construction is very complicated, more so than English. The koiné Greek was highly developed and therefore the best medium for exact expression of thought. It was suited to the presentation of the Kingdom truth, and Jehovah God caused it to be used for that purpose. In this medium the Greek Scriptures reached the most people directly without translations. Thousands of copies in Greek were made and widely circulated, of which there are extant today some 4,000 manuscript copies. Koiné Greek continued till A.D. 330, when it was followed by the Byzantine period of Greek. The modern Greek period began in 1453. But the later Greek never enjoyed the widespread use that marked the time of koiné Greek and which made the koiné so suited to succeed Hebrew as a Bible language.