Friday, March 11, 2011

How to Study the Greek New Testament

Here are the details on the upcoming Class:

Where: Paihia Baptist Church: 77 Williams Rd, Paihia.
When: Starting on Sunday 20th March at 1:00—2:30pm and for the next 9 Sundays thereafter (final class: May 22nd).

The goal of the class is to promote a greater appreciation and understanding of the original Koine Greek New Testament and to help Christians realise that we have a duty to familiarise ourselves with it.

I intend to do this through a combination of basic Greek language instruction, such as learning how to read the language, and a non-pedant’s (I'll TRY, honest!) introduction to the mechanics of its grammar; particularly as it relates to our English translations. We will also explore sound techniques and methods of Bible study, such as an exploration of exegesis vs eisegesis, the use of concordances & analytical lexicons, online resources, “considering the source”scepticism, and even a look at the history of the Greek texts. All this comes with a goodly helping of eye-opening surprises for the poor English-only Bible readers among us (surprises like the Greek word δαιμονιον [daimonion], which is translated as "devil" or "demon" everywhere in the NT except Acts 17:18; where the plural form is rendered "gods"--and it turns out that that is the only time the word has been translated "correctly"!). Basically, this class will inverse the Why Learn Greek to Language Study-ratio of the last class.

Sounds like fun, doesn't it!

I think it'll be especially enjoyable for those of you who attended the last class--after all, you'll get even more out of it, and much more quickly, than those who haven't got any Greek at all.

So, along with inviting you to come and join us again, I'd like to ask you to pass this ευαγγελιον on to any other Christians you know in the BOI area who might be interested in exploring How to Study the Greek New Testament!


Thanks and God Bless,
Ιακωβος