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October 8, 2010
Greek, Nietzsche, And The Subtly Of God
Via NT Resources Blog, Darrell Pursiful, Dr. Platypus, reproduces and comments on Dave Black’s “thirteen things Greek teachers won’t tell you.” Of course, these failures to communicate only apply to some teachers of the Greek of the Christian New Testament although a few of them have echoes in what classicists sometimes don’t say about classical Greek. Of the thirteen my favorite is #4,
Greek had to be the language in which God inscripturated New Testament truth because of its complicated syntax. Truth be told, there’s only one reason why the New Testament was written in Greek and not in another language (say, Latin), and that is a man named Alexander the Great. . .
Dr. Platypus’ source provides a historical explanation. Friedrich Nietzsche took a more linguistic approach,
It was subtle of God to learn Greek when he wished to become an author – and not to learn it better [Beyond Good and Evil, aphorism 121]
As I said one other time when I quoted this, “Friedrich Nietzsche was an accomplished classical philologist who, I am told, dabbled in philosophy.”
By the way, Darrell is correct that you don’t hear #4 and a few of the others much these days. It is still my favorite, largely because I wonder how anyone ever thought such a thing.
Posted by Duane Smith at October 8, 2010 2:21 PM | Read more on Odds and Ends |
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Comments
Maybe you don't give God enough credit. It's possible that he arranged for Alexander to have the career he did in order that God would have available, not just Greek, but the Greek he preferred.
Posted by: Gary at October 8, 2010 3:28 PM
I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the question of why God would have selected this planet and galaxy to write the Bible on. ;o)
Posted by: Glen Gordon at October 9, 2010 12:56 AM
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