What Are Greek Classes In Seminary Like?

What is it like to take a Greek class at a renowned seminary? Well, I'll show you. [music] [music] >> Someone asked me, "What's it like take going to seminary and what's it like taking some of the classes, particularly Greek?" Folks want to learn Greek or know a little bit about Greek. And so, I want to kind of give you a little bit of insight. I can't show you too much, but I will show you a little clip that I said before. I told you before that this particular text seems pretty straightforward, but it really isn't straightforward. As a matter of fact, kind of gives you a glimpse into the mind of what happens when someone on a translation committee is trying to figure out how do we translate this text from English into Greek. Before I go there, let me just go show show you the the actual text we're going to look at. The the text you would think again it would be just straightforward, but it's not straightforward. And this is the text Galatians 2 chapter chapter 2:15. And look at the text. It says, "We are Jews by nature and not sinners from among the Gentiles. Nevertheless," now this is Paul speaking. He's rebuking the Jews or the Judaizers who's trying to cause the Gentile believers to convert to Judaism first and then become followers of Christ. But he says by but we are Jews by nature and not sinners from among the Gentiles. Nevertheless, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but through faith in Christ, even we have believed in Christ, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law. Since by the law, uh the works of the law, no flesh be justified. That seems pretty straightforward, pretty easy to understand. Or is it? We're not going to look at the entirety of it, but there are certain portions of it that can kind of lead you to different conclusions. Four, five, six different ways that this could be interpreted or understood. Now, before I get to some of the things that maybe you want to see, just an idea of what it's like going through the class, I'm not going to show you the syllabus. This is from a a class from last year, a Greek class from last year. Part of this class you have to do, you have to learn textual criticism, but you also need you're learning syntax. That is kind of the order of the words in Greek. Greek word order doesn't mean as much as it does in English, but it does [laughter] kind of one of those rules. This is the rule except for this and except for that except for that you have a lot of that in Greek also, not just in English. And so one of the things you've got to do first of all, you have to buy your books, right? So let me just show you the six books for this particular class. You have to have the BDAG uh this Greek English lexicon of the New Testament and early church literature or Christian literature. You you also have to have a Greek Bible that that stands to reason right and in this case the NA28. You also have to have uh a couple lexicons. This particular lexicon is from the instructor from the instructor my professor uh Michael Burr as well as Jeffrey Miller. is the excuse me uh the New Testament lexicon of the Greek New Test I'm sorry the what is this a new reader lexicon of the Greek New Testament and the New Testament text I'm sorry the text of the New Testament and then also you had have this book Greek grammar beyond the basics and interpreting the New Testament text not a lot of books I don't think for class I guess maybe there are six books but some of those books you're going to already have anyway you're going to already have a Greek New Testament you're already going to have probably the BDAG and lexicon, this particular lexicon because it is the instructor's uh class. And so he'll want you to have his lexicon as well as another lexicon. And then you've got these books from these brilliant Greek scholars. And I think all of them except for one or two are not from Dallas Theological Seminary. You'll notice in one of them, as a matter of fact, let's go back and look at this. Here's one, not that one. This one here, the one on the bottom. This is here's one where you have two people. One one has passed away. One is not a not a uh a Christian. Bruce uh Bruce Manning Mezer, renowned Greek scholar. We read his his uh opinions all the time even though he's passed away. And then here's one. Bartman. Why would you read a book from Bartman? Well, because he does he is still a Greek scholar. He is very well adept at Greek. He's just not a believer. So we're just after the truth no matter where it comes from. So if someone who is not a believer can offer something some insight on a particular text. Amen. As a matter of fact, Mezer was I'm sorry man was a student of Mezer I believe. So either way though it's still a a a good book to read. But these are some of the things that you have to have for this particular class. Other classes might have a few more books or some different books. But you also have to do this. And I'll show you what what uh what I was going to show you about with that particular text in Galatians. But one of the things among other among many things is I've got to go and I've got to go take this particular text John 4 I think through 26 and take from the Greek and translated in English in my own words. So that is something that you would have to do. Now there's a lot more you got to you got to do some uh textual criticism exercise how we get the text and things like that before we go let me show you something here on logos and these are the sort of things that we have to have when we are reading a particular text so as I go over to John 4 I'm going to have to look for any variants particularly those variants that might mean uh or may offer a little bit a slightly different translation meaning this. So in chapter 4 verse one here we've got a variant here uh from the word curios. Now this is uh as I go over to here rather in this particular text the NA28 and you'd see this also in uh well in the NASB it would say the Lord. Some translations would say Jesus. I wouldn't spend much time on this because we know what we're talking about. But which text will show that the word curios is used? Well, uh certain paparay and manuscript fragments things like that would show would have the word curios in there lord. Some would have Jesus. Which ones would have Jesus? The text p66 uh olive which is uh this would be codex sanaticus. But then you have Codex Alex al Alexandrinus and Codex Vaticanis that have the word Lord in it. Not a big deal because we're know we're talking about it's not going to change the text at all. But when we're reading a text, these are the things that we have to look at as we're going through the text to note all of the different or some of the different textual variants. Again, what is a textual variant? A variant is where one manuscript might have the word Lord. Another might have the word Jesus. That doesn't change anything, but it is still a textual variant. And you've got to note all the different variants or I wouldn't say all of them, but the more prominent manuscript, the more the more pro prominent evidence uh or excellent uh texts that we have such as Alexandrina, Sanatus, and so forth. So, you have to know those things. I'm going to show you why that's going to be an issue or could be an issue when you go to other texts. Let me type in here this particular text that we're going to look at. Galatians 2 verse 15 and 16. [gasps] There are some passages in here that or some some variants in here that are going to require your attention because it does change how we read the text. So without further ado, I want to play a little clip. Can't play all of it. Um but I do want to just play this little clip that is from that particular class. And I want you to hear what the professor is saying. He's dealing with something that we've got to learn to do as we handle the Greek text. This is coming from Galatians 2:15. This is Professor Michael Bureer or Dr. um Dr. Bureau. And I want you to hear what he has to say about this and see if you can kind of follow and see if you can see where the differences might be. a couple of issues that I think are worthwhile for you to uh to kind of get your your mental juices flowing on why we're doing um uh why we do syntax. I want to take you to a fairly well-known passage and talk you through some syntactical issues related to it that affect its interpretation. One of the the the things that I will try to do regularly is show you why this makes a difference, why we should be having this discussion. And so this I think is a is a great exercise. Let me uh do a a couple of things on changing the display. I actually upgraded to version 10 recently and it's created a couple of changes in the way they've put things together. But let's go to Galatians chapter 2 verse 15. Oops. Oh, yeah. It's got the asterisk in there. Now, here's what I I would like to suggest to you about this passage. Um you probably think you know what it means. And I'm not here to say that you're wrong, but I want you to think through a couple of things with me that could change fundamentally the way we understand this particular passage. Just for uh for the sake of clarity, let's remind ourselves what this passage says. And let's take a look at it in English first. Um this is a passage that we would go to to discuss salvation through faith alone. It's a very well-known passage that talks about how we are justified through faith in Christ. That's the pretty standard common interpretation that you're very familiar with. But what you may not realize is that there's a lot of debate about lots of issues in this passage and what they mean grammatically and syntactically. Let me start off first by pointing at this particular word de. Now, if you uh remember from NT 101, de is a conjunction in Greek that can mean a couple of different things. It can actually mean uh it it can be used to continue the discussion in the same vein that we were in before and that we would then translate it with the word and. Uh and so you're very familiar with that use of it. But you also know that de can be what we might call a mild adversative that it can actually indicate a change in our train of thought. Uh a good question is which is appropriate here? Let me translate this for you without uh the English and um see uh see see if you can kind of follow along with me. But we are Jews by nature and not sinners from the Gentiles and we know that no man is justified from works of the law. Now here's the question syntactically or I guess we could say lexically. Is Paul adding his knowledge about justification through faith to his experience as a Jew or is it in contrast with his experience as a Jew? That's a very fundamental difference. If Paul as a Jew is saying that I know that justification only comes through faith, that changes the tone of the argument. His Jewishness is in concert with that understanding. But if we translate this as but that would make an argument that justification by faith is in discord with his Jewishness with his Jewish understanding. Both of those are possible here because you know dad could mean either. It depends upon the context. So at its very level at a very rudimentary level this is a lexical issue relative to the whole flow of the argument. Which is Paul arguing here? And how is he arguing? You'll notice that there are some brackets around the word de that indicates that in the judgment of the editors of this text that this word is very likely the original word that Paul wrote, but it's a very hard decision. There is a lot of good evidence on the other side to show that it might not be there in what Paul wrote. Now, let me pause for a second because I I don't want anyone to get too confused, but this is what we have to go through. Let me go to that text, put it on the screen for you guys. Galatians 2:15, we are Jews by nature and not sinners from among the Gentiles. Let me move this over to the net Bible. And we we use the the net Bible a lot at the school because this is not a a total Dallas Theological Seminary translation, but there are a lot of people that are that are on the translation committee who are affiliated with DTS. And we are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners. Yet we know that no one is justified. Now, here's what he's speaking about about the word de. The word de is the word, if you see it bracketed here, you've got some uh if you look below me, you've got some that will use the word de and some that do not. You've got olive that is uh testifying that this is uh that the word des belongs. But you've got some that don't have it there. P46 um a which is CEX alex Alex al Alexandrinas they don't have it there. So it can really go either way. Some translations might have the some Greek translations might have the word death there. Some might not. Some English translations would show that they believe death belongs there or some would believe that it doesn't. And then it's also not just that the word belongs. If it does, if you believe the word dead belongs, how do you translate it? Is it and because dead can mean and but now uh but also it can mean in in many cases but but as though it's contrasting and so that's the point he was getting at is this contrasting um Paul's Jewishness to say that we are Jews. It's the difference in saying something like we uh know by being Jews that faith alone does not save you. But if it's contrasting, we don't know that. That's not kind of how we are as Jews. That's kind of that's why you might see it show up in many translation as but or yet because that kind of is in keeping that faith alone is not something that a Jew would have held to. But it's Paul saying something different. So now let's go back to the video. Listen to Dr. Buer and listen to what he says. The next part, this is where you're going to see a little bit of a change, a little bit of nuance here. So we have to answer this question as well based upon the presence or absence of this word. If it's not there, does that change the whole discussion about what Paul is trying to argue? A very famous debate is over the meaning of this phrase pisto. Does this mean the faith that we have towards Jesus Christ or does it mean his own faithful activity, his own attitude of faith? From NT1 and NT 102, you probably are used to translating the genative with the English word of. That's a very ready uh translation that covers a pretty wide variety of uses of the genative case. But the difficulty is is that it doesn't give us enough information. What you're going to learn is that that the genative case is very very flexible that it can mean lots of things. And for example, one meaning is what we call the objective genative. That the genative indicates the object of which the verbal idea contained in the noun is directed. And so that's where we get the translation faith in Jesus Christ. That this is faith that is directed towards Jesus that it is a faith that is acting and operating in the believer and Jesus Christ is its object. But it's also possible that the the genative here is a subjective genative. In other words, the word that's in the genative case is doing the action of that verbal noun. Uh and so if that's the case, then the the issue would be is that justification comes through Jesus's own faithful activity, through his faith, if you will. Faith broadly construed as his attitude of obedience and submission to the Lord uh in his ministry and his death and his resurrection. >> Now, let me pause for a second so I can kind of keep you up. Let's go back to the text so you can see what he's speaking of. Uh 16. Yet we know or and we know but we know that no one is justified by works of law but by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. Let me move this over. I want to show you this is the net Bible translation. But look at the NASB because if you're reading the NSB you'll see the difference how they are translating this. Uh nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. Whereas over here, it's not the faith in Jesus Christ, but by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. There's a little bit of a difference. So, we are justified by the works of the law through our faith through us on this portion over here, this side that we're looking from the NESB, the one on the on the left. We are justified by our faith in Jesus Christ. Or is it saying that but by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ? In other words, what he has doing. We become I'm sorry. Let me fix that. I don't know why I just did that. We become justified because of what Christ did. There's truth to both, isn't it? That is is is Paul trying to speak about our justification because of Christ's faithfulness. That's the point of the faithfulness or the faith of Jesus Christ, this genative here versus the faith in Jesus Christ. Therein lies the issue. And so, let me pull the Greek back over here and put it right here. So, the Greek here will show this what he's speaking of. Pistus Christ. So, these are both Yesus in the genative. But how do we look at this? Therein lies the issue. Both ways work grammatically. Now we've got to do some digging and try to figure out what's the better way to interpret that. There in lies our issue. That's where it becomes a little bit tricky. Amen. That that changes what we're talking about in this particular passage and that's a syntactical question, a syntactical issue. Um, take a look at this word right here, epistum. Now, I won't put anybody on the spot to parse this, but if I did, you'd be right to say that it's an aist uh it's an aist indicative. But what is he saying here? Is he talking about it as a past event? Who is the we? Ostensibly, based upon the flow of the argument, he's saying we Jews believed in Jesus Christ. But what is he talking about? Is he talking about uh his own personal faith? Is he talking about Peter and his faith? Is he talking about the early church? Why is a past tense used here as opposed to a present? Why is he referencing this as an action that's completed as opposed to something that is ongoing? We believe in Jesus Christ. That's a legitimate syntactical question that we hope to address as we think through this issue. My point in bringing up these examples is to help you see that syntax as we are going to help you walk through it is very important for exesus. It helps us understand what the author is trying to proclaim and trying to communicate. >> So I I'll leave that I'll leave that alone. We'll stop right there. And those are some of the issues we have to deal with. And so when you take a a class, especially at Diological Seminary, and I would trust that in many other seminaries as well. Uh DTS is not the only place that teaches Greek. But uh these are some of the issues that you have to kind of work through when you're looking at a text. You've seen me cover this in other places in other verses before. And so it's important to know these different things, the way that certain words are used, um how they're used, uh and if they're used differently, what would be the outcome of the translation. And sometimes you come across words that you can actually use it either way. Like we were talking about the faith of Jesus or the faith in Jesus, right? So, that's kind of what it's like going through through our classes there at at DTS. There's a lot of intensive work. We've got to do some lot of translations. There's always parsing. You've got to make sure that you know all the words. Sometimes the words look different. They uh they might change their appearance. The meaning is the same. But then you've got to account for the mood, the voice, the tension, things like that. It's a noun the case like we were talking about the noun the case of the genative but there are different nuances in the genative as we spoke about uh to determine is it's going to be the faith in Jesus or the faith of Jesus there's an issue as a matter of fact one day I'll share with you how the word of faith changes the genative to say that we have the faith of Jesus rather than uh the faith in Jesus or we have the faith of God or rather than the faith in God But it's kind of the same argument there. And so we have to know through using our our tools at our disposal what we know about the text, what we know about the context, how syntax changes things. Those are the things that they want to stress to us. And if you make an argument, fine, make your argument. They're not going to tell you what to think, but if you make an argument, be sure to back it up. If you come up with something that's different, hey, listen. I I disagree. I think this, I think that because of this, Amen. When you're doing textual criticism, they're going to ask you which one of these words do you think is proper? Do you think this translation is the better translation? Did the scribe error if the scribe if there's a if there's a textual variant? Which one do you think was the original? Because the goal is to get back to the original text since we don't have an actual original copy. We've got these different manuscripts, these these papri, we've got these fragments. How do we know which one is the au or close to authentic? Which one is closest to what the author is saying? How do we know what he actually said? How do we know what Paul actually said? So, did the scribe change anything? Well, some scribe somewhere somewhere down the road someone change something. Is this manuscript the accurate one or is this one which is the better reading which is the more difficult reading which is the easier reading which comes from a reliable line of manuscripts or family of manuscripts? Those are the things that we have to go through to look at the text. When I say that uh you read the text in English, you've heard me say before that it's a commentary on the Greek. That's what I mean. So when I read the Greek, how do I know if this particular text says what it's saying? Well, if you don't know the Greek, you are trusting the translators that they have given you what it says or as accurately because you've got a lot of different translations and they are all for the most part kind of in the range of what the others have said. You can pretty much rely on just about all of them. I should say all of them. There are some horrible translations out there, but the main ones, you know, King James, New King James, ESV, and NSB, LSB, NET, and so forth. You can rely on those because they one, they they've stood up to the to the scrutiny. We've seen the manuscripts that they use. So, but this is just something I want to kind of give you guys an idea of. You don't have to go that far in depth when looking at a uh learning Greek if you just had just a little bit of basic cursory understanding of it, which we're going to try to get to you guys as we go through. So again, I'll also um urge you guys to go over to Patreon. It is completely free. We're going to be doing some homework this week, as a matter of fact, on Patreon. And I'm going to have you guys go and look up some stuff in Greek so we can see if a particular text says what you think it says or what another person thinks it says. So anyway, you guys asked what it's like to be at a seminary and what are the classes like. This is what we go through. By the way, pray for me. These classes can be hard. Amen. [music] [music]