bottlebomber
Well-Known Member
TarVolon said:It's amazing once you start paying attention to it how many times you can read a verse and really wish you knew the original language so that you could understand what subtleties were trying to be portrayed that may be hidden by the translation.
I couldn't agree with you more. Let's take for example a well known scripture - John 1:1. In Greek: (The forum software totally is not digging my Greek, please bear with me)
Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ Λόγος, καὶ ὁ Λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν Θεόν, καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ Λόγος
Literally meaning:
In beginning was the Word, and the Word was toward the God(Θεό&nu, and god(Θεὸ&sigmafwas the Word.
Now without the Greek it would be easy to think that the two usages of the word "god" were the same. But one is god in the superlative form(God), while the other is a singular predicate noun, essentially meaning godlike, or divine. So yes, without the Greek translation it would be easy to make the mistake that the Word WAS the God whom he was with.
That makes it a lot easier to wrap your mind around scriptures like 2 Corinthians 4:4 which reads
In whom the god(Θεὸ&sigmaf of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God(Θεό&nu, should shine unto them.
So with this knowledge of the original language you can see that Satan is godlike in the same way that Christ is godlike - a powerful ruler.
To back that usage up, here it is used again in Phillipians 3:19
Whose end is destruction, whose god(Θεὸ&sigmaf is their BELLY, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.
So without a basic understanding of the Greek from which the Bible was translated, you wouldn't have a direct way of proving that God Almighty, Satan, Christ, and our stomachs aren't all the same thing. I get that. I just think that in spreading the word of God it is more important to be able to relate to people to whom we are preaching than to have a bunch of wallpaper.
Now how's that for