Sunday, December 15, 2024

Greek to me?

Acts 22 begins, [1] Men, brethren, and fathers, hear ye my defence which I make now unto you. [2] (And when they heard that he spake in the Hebrew tongue to them, they kept the more silence: and he saith,)

Paul is standing on the temple of the porch and the Roman soldier, who speaks Latin, is talking to Paul in Latin. Paul then speaks to the Hebrews in Hebrew. They hear him and "they kept the more silence," which is an interesting expression. How do you have silence and then more silence?

I've always thought of that verse in I Corinthians 14 that says the woman is to keep silence: [34] Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law.

 People say, 'They can't talk." Well, if that's what it means, how do you have "more silence"? See, the "camp" gives you all these ideas you're supposed to have. You get out of the camp, you don't know what to do. Paul speaks in Hebrew. Luke, writing by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, records Acts 22. You know what language he recorded it in? Greek.

Now if Paul spoke Hebrew and God the Holy Ghost takes about 20 verses and translates it into Greek, and puts it into this Bible and says, "That's my Word; thy Word is true," do you think that God was able to translate it fully, completely, enough for Him to say that's what He said? Must have been. If He couldn't have done that, what He would had to have done is put it in Hebrew. 

You say how different the way God does it is? Can I tell you the better way to do it is doing it the way God does it.  

*****

Here is an old post:

Greek was the universal language at the time Jesus walked the earth and was replaced by English, which represents the only other universal language in modern world history.

Scholars readily agree that the English language is in its structure, grammar and the way words are formed and ideas communicated comparable to the accuracy and power of the Greek language.

Gail Riplinger, author of several critically-acclaimed books on the infallibility of the King James Bible, writes, “Scholars agree that the English language did not become fixed until the King James Version. Earlier editions, like the Tyndale and the Geneva, although practically identical to the King James Version, did not always contain the built-in dictionary found in the King James Version.

"They did not need it, because they were written at the unusual juncture in history when English was becoming English; the root languages of Anglo-Saxon, French and Latin were still familiar. . .

“One secular lexicographer admits, ‘About the beginning of the 17th Century, in the reign of James 1, our language had already begun to assume the form in which we now find it, and is from that date entitled to be called the English language.

"From the time the Bible was translated into English, and, by being printed and spread among the people . . . the language may be said to have been fixed.’ ”

***** 

Riplinger, in her 1994 book New Age Bible Versions, makes the point that while people in modern times like to comment, “Why can’t the Bible speak as we speak?” the answer is, “Because we are not speaking—GOD is speaking.”

She refers to this passage in Exodus 4: “And Moses said unto the LORD, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.
[11] And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD?
[12] Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.”

Riplinger writes, “God did not say to Moses, ‘Forget eloquence! Use plain talk!’ Rather, God said He would teach him eloquence.

“He truly did! Many linguists trace the origin of the alphabet to Mt. Sinai. (See Mysteries of the Alphabet by Marc-Alain Ouaknin, translated by Josephine Bacon, New York: Abbeville Press Publishers, 1999.)”

*****

Appearing on Fox News the other day to talk about the Declaration of Independence and our Founding Fathers, conservative radio talk show host Mark Levin said that while leftists look to the teachings of Karl Marx, people on the right “stand on the shoulders” of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, etc.

Of course, it was Aristotle, the student of Plato, who said, “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” Yeah, right.

A quick look at World History for Dummies clues the reader in on why the vast majority of Christianity adopts the Greeks’ allegorical approach to the Bible.

Under the heading Replacing Homer with the Bible, it says, “Another reason why furious interpretations and counter-interpretations marked Christianity from the beginning: Look at the places where Christianity sprang up. Christianity filtered through a world marked by Hellenistic (Greek-like) traditions, by the Greek teachings that followed Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander the Great’s empire.

“Early centers of the Church included Alexandria, Egypt, which was a capital of Greek scholarship, and Rome, where so many Hellenistic philosophies rubbed up against one another for a long time. . . As Greek thought shifted to Christian thought, the Bible took the place of Homer’s poems and the Greek-Roman pantheon as a general context for philosophical questioning.”

Jordan reminds, “Before the ink was dry on Paul’s epistles, efforts were under way to syncretize the truth he taught with Greek philosophy. The most influential school emphasizing this approach was Alexandria, Egypt. It’s the place where almost all of the corruptions of the Word of God available today originate from."

*****

The ancient Greeks were hyper-focused on how to accomplish the “summum bonum” (the supreme good) in life, or what they considered happiness, and in Acts 17:16, when Paul’s in Athens (the center of the Greek world and the intellectual center of the world of his day), it says “his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.”

Acts 17:18 reads, “Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.”

Of the disciples of Epicurus (B.C. 342-271), C.I. Scofield says they “abandoned as hopeless the search by reason for pure truth (cf John 18:38), seeking instead true pleasure by experience.”

Of the Stoics, the philosophy “was founded on human self-sufficiency, inculcated stern self-repression, the solidarity of the race, and the unity of Deity.”

*****

Jordan explains, “The Epicureans and Stoics divided the apostolic world and were the two dominant thinkers and culture-drivers of their day and the reason was there were two extremes on how to solve the contentment issue.

“For the Epicureans it was getting, acquiring, having, conquering, owning, achieving. They believed, ‘You get enough stuff and you’ll be satisfied.’ That was a big thing in the Roman Empire: ‘Go out and conquer, conquer, conquer and we’ll be satisfied.’ Of course, that’s the dominant thinking of the Western world. Certainly, it’s the way the West and America operates: ‘The more we can get, the bigger the better.’

“Now you know that doesn’t work because what you’re looking for keeps moving; it’s elusive.

“The Stoics were the other way. They said, ‘If you desire less and less, you can desire less and less until nothing matters. Just get disconnected from things.’ Now, that’s the Eastern thinking; the Buddhist mentality. ‘The way to get peace is to get less and less and be detached until it just doesn’t matter.’

“The Stoics’ big illustration was they’d take a valuable vase and break it and say, ‘It doesn’t matter.’ A child would die and they’d say, ‘It doesn’t really matter. Doesn’t hurt.’ It was just a grin-and-bear-it kind of a thing. That way it can’t impact you.

“But that doesn’t work either, does it? Somebody once said, ‘Stoics have made their heart a desert and called it peace.’ You can’t do that because things DO matter! God put a conscience inside of you and things do matter. Right and wrong does matter.

"In Chicago, a 12-year-old gang member shoots an 11-year-old kid and the commentary about it is, ‘How can you have children care nothing about life that they’re just willing to murder each other?!’

"That’s the Stoic mentality. You’re just more and more detached from anything that matters until nothing matters and so there’s no value in anything. But that just makes for more discontentment."

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