Well, thanks for your patience. As I promised here, I started working at publishing my Internet Bible Index this past weekend. NOT as promised, I failed to get any of it up until just yesterday. As it turns out, the fonts are a problem. I have to retype all the Hebrew and Greek passages in fonts that can be reproduced in PDF's. This isn't easy. Only being about one third done, it's already about 270 pages of text.
So for the next few weeks, no progress will be made on the reading and editing because I will be retyping it all and publishing each section as I complete that section. As of now, all I have up is Section A and Section B. That's because I'm currently working on Section C. But it's all coming, God willing, and I will publish each section as I complete them.
And by way of reminder, feel free to suggest your passages. Send them to philperkins99@yahoo.com.
Phil.
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4 comments:
Hi Phil,
I'm hoping you'd help me out again with the language problem. As I've mentioned before, I'm a Bible student but with no background of the original languages whatsoever. These days I'm doing a course on the basics of bible interpretation and I want to hear your opinion on this particular excerpt:
"A careful study of the Greek preposition discloses some precious truth that would otherwise
be obscured by reason of a wrong interpretation put upon an English preposition, and at the
same time saves the expositor from arriving at a wrong interpretation.
Take the difficult statement in Matthew 3:11, "I indeed baptize you with water unto
repentance." The word "unto" means "result." For instance, "For I am not ashamed of the
gospel,...for it is the power of God unto (resulting in) salvation" (Rom. 1: 16) Are we to
understand that a person's submission to water baptism results in his repentance? That is
exactly what the Authorized Version says.
The Greek student will find that the preposition eis appears in Matthew 3:11 and Romans
1:16. But prepositions in Greek are not confined to a single meaning in every context. Nor are
they to be translated in a uniform way in their every occurrence in the Greek text.
A preposition has root meanings, resultant meanings, and remote meanings. It also has
special meanings when used in composition with verbal forms. When the student is
confronted with a problem like this, he should consult Dana and Mantey on the word eis.
These scholars have classified the various uses of the prepositions in the New Testament.
They also give illustrations of their various usages. For instance they give "they repented at
the preaching of Jonah" (Matt. 12:41). Of course, one would not translate, "They (the men of
Nineveh) repented unto the preaching of Jonah." That is, it would be ridiculous to say that the
preaching of Jonah was the result of the repentance of the Ninevites. It was the other way
round. They repented because of the preaching of Jonah. The Greek student would say here
that this usage of eis would fit the context in which Matthew 3:11 is found. It would agree
with the teaching of other scriptures regarding the significance of water baptism. He would
translate, "I indeed baptize you with water because of repentance." That is, repentance
precedes water baptism, and baptism is the outward visible testimony of an inward fact, the
person's repentance. Thus, another problem is solved, a difficulty removed, and an erroneous
translation corrected, upon which translation is built the false doctrine of baptismal
regeneration. We have the same difficulty in Acts. 1:38. The same Greek preposition is used, and the same solution will meet the problem."
Do you think this argument holds water ?
In Christ,
Stu
Stu,
Yes, that's correct. As the passage in Matthew shows εις can indicate causation either way. Baptism as a result of repentance or baptism resulting in repentance.
The big lesson is that context determines the meaningful point in the lexical field of any word, phrase, or clause.
So why don't you just learn the languages? The way I teach it, we use immersion, not simply memorization. This leads to fluency, not just rigid rules-orientation. It's more natural and questions like the one you just asked aren't even asked because the student develops a feel for the language much like a native speaker.
Phil Perkins.
Thanks again Phil.
About learning the languages, I've seriously considered your offer before and I have no doubt that learning from you would benefit me as much as the best institutions, perhaps more. But to be honest and frank (as much as I want to grab this opportunity), I'm afraid I can't afford it. Two reasons for this:
First, there's the cost of the books; the price you mentioned - well, the price of just one book is almost a man's monthly wages out here.. :) .Secondly, there's internet connection problem. I'm not from the US and the internet here is not very reliable for this kind of purpose (video conference). I fear it would only be a frustration for both of us.
God bless you
Stu
Stu, I'm out of town right, but let's see if we can't do something about that.
Phil.
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