In my previous post, I took on a silly video that has more than a million views of different versions of it. The video centered on Jesus’ statement in Luke 10:18 that, after the disciples had come back from a preaching mission, Our Lord had seen “Satan fall like lightning from heaven” and claimed that if you back translated this statement from Greek to Aramaic and then to Hebrew that “lighting from heaven” would come out as “baraq o baw-maw” or “Barack Obama.” This, the nameless creator of the video suggested, might mean that Jesus was telling us the Antichrist’s name would be Barack Obama.
I greeted the logic of this video with a great big gift bag full of “Nope.”
Whatever Barack Obama’s role may be in the great scheme of things, whether he’s The One who will cause the oceans to stop rising and the planet to heal or whether he’s just the one who went golfing while the Gulf filled up with oil, Luke 10:18 doesn’t establish him as the Antichrist.
One reason, as previously explained, is that this passage isn’t a prophecy at all. On its face, it appears to be Jesus congratulating the disciples on a well done evangelization mission.
Another reason, as previously explained, is that if you translated “lighting from heaven” back into either Aramaic or Hebrew, you wouldn’t get “baraq o baw-maw.” Instead, you’d get something like “baraq min ha-shamayim” (Hebrew) or “barqa min shmaya” (Aramaic).
After posting my post, I thought, “Hey, this isn’t the first time somebody has translated this phrase into this pair of languages. Let’s see what we find if we look it up in a Hebrew New Testament an an Aramaic New Testament!”
Transliterating that from right to left, it reads “kbaraq min ha-shamayim” (ignoring the effect of a few Hebrew punctuation marks that don’t transliterate well into English). The “k” on the front of this is actually a different word. It’s a preposition meaning “as” or “like,” which is part of what Our Lord was just saying: “like lighting from heaven.” But if you just want the phrase “lightning from heaven,” you’d leave off the “k.”
So the translators of this Hebrew New Testament bore out what I said: If you translate the phrase into Hebrew, you’d expect to see “baraq min ha-shamayim,” not something that sounds like “Barack Obama.”
And if you don’t happen to know the Hebrew alphabet, don’t just take my word for it. CHECK ME OUT!
Of course the whole Hebrew thing is really just a red herring—or maybe that should be a red lox—because Jesus wouldn’t have been speaking Hebrew in this combination, but in all likelihood Aramaic. The video maker just jumped to Hebrew because he knew even less about Aramaic than he did about Hebrew.
So what happens if we check an Aramaic New Testament?
The standard Aramaic translation of the New Testament is the Pshitta, a version of which is online here. This version happens to be an interlinear, with the English words appearing over the Aramaic ones they correspond to. Just remember that the Aramaic letters read right to left rather than left to right.
Here’s the phrase from Luke 10:18:
This edition isn’t pointed for vowels, but transliterating it you get “barqa min shmaya” (there is no “k,” as in Hebrew because the Aramaic uses a separate preposition for “like” here).
Again, don’t just take my word for it. CHECK ME OUT!
(BTW, these other alphabets may look different, but they aren’t that hard to learn. Give ‘em a try!)
Anyway, either way you go—baraq min ha-shamayim or barqa min shmaya—neither sounds much like “Barack Obama.”
Consider the following video, which has been going around the Internet, with over a million hits on YouTube between different versions.
Okay. So that kind of settles it.
NOT.
I don’t know who is behind the video, but whoever it is clearly has only the most rudimentary understanding of the things he’s talking about, and he makes mistakes left and right. (Put another way: He’s totally out of his depth.) This is made clear by the annotations that start popping up in the video (you can shut them off with the controller in the lower right hand corner) that, among other things, advertise an updated version of the video, in which he tries to eliminate some of the most blatant errors that critics have pointed out.
The new one doesn’t work any better. It’s just got a few of the worst mistakes cut out.
Like this one: The claim that Jesus spoke Aramaic, which is the most ancient form of Hebrew.
NOT.
While Jesus did speak Aramaic, Aramaic is not an ancient form of Hebrew. It’s a related language, but neither is an ancestor of the other.
What he’s done is the equivalent of saying that English is the most ancient form of Dutch.
It reveals how utterly devoid of basic competence in the biblical languages this person is.
His overall strategy then becomes clear: He knows that the New Testament is recorded in Greek, but he wants to get back behind that to Aramaic so he can jump (quickly!) back to Hebrew. This is where his real interest is: Talking about Hebrew, because he’s got access to a rudimentary Hebrew dictionary. He doesn’t really know or care about Aramaic. It’s just a way of getting quickly to the Hebrew dictionary he’s discovered.
And by the way, it is evident that this man has no training in biblical Hebrew or he never would have made the mistake of saying that Aramaic was a form of it. You can’t take a class (or even read a whole book) on biblical Hebrew without learning how the two languages are related, since they’re both used in the Old Testament. He’s just some guy (possibly a minister, possibly not) who has access to a Hebrew dictionary.
A particularly, old, problematic Hebrew dictionary.
In fact, what he really has is a copy of Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance. As its name suggests, it’s not really a dictionary; it’s a concordance—a book that allows you to look up where words occur in the Bible. For example, if you looked up “faith,” you’d find a list of all the verses in which the word “faith” occurs in the King James Bible.
Strong’s happened to assign numbers to the words, and it offers a numbered word list to give a basic idea of what the original Greek or Hebrew word meant.
The problem is that Strong’s definitions are (a) more than a hundred years old, (b) extremely brief and lacking in detail, and (c) very, very prone to misuse.
Whenever I hear anyone starting to use Strong’s numbers when making an argument, I cringe because I know that misuse of the original languages is almost certain to occur.
The problem is so common that the Wikipedia entry on Strong’s Concordance devotes two paragraphs to warning people not to misuse the numbers:
Strong’s Concordance is not a translation of the Bible nor is it intended as a translation tool. The use of Strong’s numbers is not a substitute for professional translation of the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into English by those with formal training in ancient languages and the literature of the cultures in which the Bible was written.
Since Strong’s Concordance identifies the original words in Hebrew and Greek, Strong’s Numbers are sometimes misinterpreted by those without adequate training to change the Bible from its accurate meaning simply by taking the words out of cultural context. The use of Strong’s numbers does not consider figures of speech, metaphors, idioms, common phrases, cultural references, references to historical events, or alternate meanings used by those of the time period to express their thoughts in their own language at the time. As such, professionals and amateurs alike must consult a number of contextual tools to reconstruct these cultural backgrounds.
I don’t know who wrote that in Wikipedia, but whoever it was, God bless him (or them)!
So let’s see how the video manages to botch things with Strong’s numbers.
First, it cites Hebrew words number 1299 and 1300, which Strong’s lists respectively as meaning “to lighten (lightning)—cast forth” and “lightning; by analogy, a gleam; concretely, a flashing sword—bright, glitter(-ing sword), lightning.”
Okay, fine. Fair enough. But here is where not knowing what you’re doing comes in. It’s true that the Hebrew word(s) for lightning come from the root BRQ, but that is not where Barack Obama’s name comes from. It comes from a different root: BRK.
We don’t distinguish the sounds of K and Q in English very well, but in the Semitic languages, they do. K is pronounced towards the front or the middle of the mouth, while Q is pronounced toward the back of the mouth, on the soft palette. In other words, these are two different sounds in Hebrew and Aramaic, and you can’t count on a word derived from BRQ to have the same meaning as a word derived from BRK any more than you can count on the meaning of the word “cab” to have a meaning similar to the word “cap” (B and P being similar sounds that English speakers use and distinguish but that some, such as Arabic-speakers, don’t).
(There are also other variants on the K sound in these languages, but we won’t go into them for simplicity’s sake.)
So what is the real meaning of Barack Obama’s first name?
It has nothing to do with lightning. But if Mr. Video Maker hadn’t been so fascinated by Strong’s numbers 1299 and 1300, he might have looked up at 1288 which is the real source of the name: barak, which can mean a variety of things, but the relevant one is this: blessing. People see their children as blessings, and they want them to be blessed by God, and so variants on the root BRK have been used in Semitic and Semitic-influenced languages for thousands of years. Which is why lots of people from Bible days down to ours have had names based on this root, even in other languages than Hebrew.
So much for the Barack = baraq business. President Obama’s first name has nothing to do with lightning, and a native speaker of Aramaic or Hebrew would have distinguished the two words as easily as we distinguish “cab” from “cap.”
We already have plenty of evidence that the vid is a load of hooey, but let’s keep going.
To get the word “Obama” into the picture, Mr. Video Maker seems to reason like this: Jesus said something about the devil falling light lightning from a high place, so let’s find somewhere in the Old Testament (so it’ll be in Hebrew) where the devil falls in connection with a high place.
He settles on Isaiah, which he says is the source of the Christian concept of Satan (???), and specifically on Isaiah 14.
Now the thing is, Isaiah 14 is not about the devil. Certainly not in the literal sense of the text. It involves a series of prophesies against neighboring kingdoms that have been persecuting Israel: the Babylonians, the Assyrians, and the Philistines—all of whom the text explicitly names, so we don’t have to be confused about it. The verses that Mr. Video Maker applies to the devil are, in fact, part of a taunt song directed toward the king of Babylon, telling him that although he is high and might now, he’s going to die and end up rotting, with all his pomp and glory coming to nothing.
Over time, Christians have lifted some of the imagery from this passage and applied it to the devil, but that is not what the text is literally talking about. It’s talking about the death of a Babylonian king.
So: More problems for Mr. Video’s thesis.
Now, it’s true that the word bamah can mean height or high place. It’s also a term referring to pagan shrines, which were built on elevated platforms (that’s the kind of high place the prophets often rail against). But it’s not the normal word for “heaven,” in Hebrew, which is shamayim. If you took Jesus statement that he saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven (Greek, ouranos) and you translated this back into Aramaic or Hebrew, the word you’d use for “heaven” would be shmaya (Aramaic) or shamayim (Hebrew). Bamah would not be the expected word.
So: Another problem.
Then there is the bizarre things that Mr. Video Maker does with the conjunction waw- (or vav-). This functions as the equivalent of the word “and,” and it is prefixed to words in Hebrew and Aramaic.
Video Guy tells us that this is often transliterated “U” or “O” by some scholars.
Uh . . . no. Not when it’s used as a conjunction. (The same letter can be used as an O in the middle of a word, when it’s functioning as a vowel, but not when it’s on the front of a word functioning as a conjunction.)
When it’s used as a conjunction, it’s pronounced “veh-” in modern Hebrew, and it’s pronounced “u-” (as in “tube”) in Aramaic (and Arabic).
So this is just wrong. waw as a conjunction is not pronounced O.
Mr. Video then strings it all together: baraq + o- + bamah and suggests that this would be used “in Hebrew poetry” to mean “lighting from heaven” or “lightning from the heights.”
GAH!
Okay: Here is something Mr. Video should understand just from his days in grammar school. Just from English. Conjunctions are words like “and,” “but,” and “or.” “From” is not a conjunction. It is a preposition.
So in Hebrew and Aramaic, U- is a conjunction. It means “and,” not “from.”
What you want for “from” is min. “Lightning *from* heaven” would be something like baraq min ha-shamayim (Hebrew) or barqa min shmaya (Aramaic) or similar variants.
So things aren’t going well for this thesis.
But now let’s pull the rug out from under it entirely.
Consider the context. Read Luke 10, where the quotation in the video comes from. Jesus has sent out the Seventy-Two on an evangelization mission and when they come back . . .
17 The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”
18 He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. 19 I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. 20 However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
21 At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.
So what is the context of “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven”? Is it a prophecy referring to the 21st century? No! It’s a remark about the evangelization mission that the Seventy-Two have just completed!
The disciples went out, preached, worked miracles, and struck a blow against the kingdom of Satan. So Jesus congratulates them telling them that before their evangelistic effort, King Satan fell from his throne like lightning from the sky (which is where lighting falls from; “sky,” “heaven,” same word in all these languages).
He’s not prophesying the future. He’s congratulating them on the past and how effective they were by God’s grace.
So, Mr. Video Maker is just wrong on all kinds of fronts. There is no prophecy of the Antichrist here. His video is all bunkum.
. . . that when I first read about "abortion doulas," I wasn't sure about the meaning of the word "doula."
Well, I recognized the origin of the term. It was clearly derived from the Greek word "doula," which means "female slave" or "female servant" or "handmaiden" or things like that.
But I wasn't aware of what it meant in a twenty-first century, English-speaking context.
It turns out that doulas are women who aren't midwives but who assist pregnant mothers during the act of giving birth and/or after the child has been born.
Unfortunately, I'm not a father. My wife died before we were able to have children, so I'm not up on some of the terminology . . . at least in the home-birth movement.
I suppose my recognition of the origin of the term reveals me as a nerd, while my failure to know its current meaning reveals me as a n00b.
There are a lot of things I disagree with Arnold Schwarzenegger about–from abortion to immigration–but he was dead-on recently when he indicated the best way to learn a language.
EXCERPT:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told a gathering of Hispanic journalists that immigrants should avoid Spanish-language media if they want to learn English quickly.
"You’ve got to turn off the Spanish television set," the Republican governor said Wednesday night at the annual convention of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. "It’s that simple. You’ve got to learn English.
"I know this sounds odd and this is the politically incorrect thing to say and I’m going to get myself in trouble," he said. "But I know that when I came to this country, I very rarely spoke German to anyone."
Now telling a group of Hispanic journalists that Latinos should avoid media produced in Spanish was bound to provoke reaction, and it did:
"I’m sitting shaking my head not believing that someone would be so naive and out of it that he would say something like that," said Alex Nogales, president and chief executive of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, who called the remarks "preposterous."
Nogales said Schwarzenegger must have forgotten the challenges of being an immigrant in the United States. Hispanic immigrants need Spanish-language media to stay informed and "function in this society," he said.
"That doesn’t mean they are going to sit there," he said. "They are also going to learn English in the meantime."
I’m sorry, but it’s Mr. Nogales that is naive and out of it. You will have greater success in a country if you can speak the local language, and you will learn the language faster and better if you use a total immersion methodology, which means denying yourself access to material in languages you already speak. The more time you force yourself to spend interacting with the local langauge, and the less you use your native language as a crutch, the better you will learn the new language. Period.
To the extent Spanish-speakers–or speakers of any language (English included)–allow themselves to have recourse to their native language, it will slow their acquisition of a new one. Every hour a person spends watching TV in their native language is an hour that they’re not spending watching TV in the language they’re trying to learn, or studying the language formally, or talking to people who speak the new language. It hinders their ability to think in the new language, which is essential for language mastery.
Slowing (or stagnating) your acquisition of the language of the local environment is precisely what will cause one to have problems trying to "function in this society."
The longer you don’t know the local language, the longer your ability to function in the society will be limited, leaving you more vulnerable and exploitable by those who do know the local language. Getting the local language down is key to personal empowerment and the ability to succeed in a society.
The course recommended by Mr. Nogales would prolong and intensify the struggles that native Spanish-speakers in the U.S. have, potentially (especially for those who are here illegally) putting them or keeping them in situations of exploitation and danger.
If I relocated to a non-English speaking country, one of my highest priorities would be learning the local language as fast as possible, and the way for me to do that would be to spend as much time functioning in the new language as possible, denying myself the crutch of English at every possible opportunity.
Once I’d mastered the new language, I could indulge myself by reading English language newspapers or watching English language television or listening to English language music or reading English Internet sites, but during the crucial period of language acquisition, I’d avoid English as much as possible.
This is not a matter of identity politics; it’s a matter of how humans learn languages.
”How are these words of Jesus
[in the consecration of the Eucharist] to be understood? In the New Testament, the Greek word estin that is
used in Jesus’ saying ‘This is my body’, could mean either ‘is
really’ or ‘is figuratively’ (or ‘signifies’). Both senses of the
word occur in the New Testament."
Then he goes on to explain the
supports of the Catholic teaching. My question is he right about
this as a possible translation?
From a linguistic perspective I would consider it problematic to represent the Greek word esti in English with the word "signifies."
Esti (which sometimes appears with a nu after it as "estin") is just the Greek equivalent of "is." It’s the verb "to be" in the third person singular form (present tense, active voice, indicative mood), and it would translate as "(he/she/it) is."
Esti works just the same way that "is" does in English. In both languages, the verb "to be" can be used to signify existence (as in "God is") or predication ("the grass is green") or equivalence ("Bruce Wayne is Batman"). It can also be used literally ("Jesus is the Son of God") or figuratively ("King Herod is a sly fox"). The latter seems to be a special case of equivalence.
We do see passages in the New Testament where esti is used figuratively. For example, in Revelation 17:9 John is told, "the seven heads [of the beast] are seven mountains on which the woman is seated." The word for "are" here is "eisi(n)" which is just the plural form of "esti(n)," the way that "are" is the plural of "is." Here we have a figurative use of "is," and the seven heads do signify seven mountains.
However, I would resist translating eisi as "signifies." That’s not what the word means in Greek. What it means is "are." It’s being used to convey the idea of signification, but that’s its connotation rather than its denotation.
It would be legitimate to use the connotation of a word as a translation if the receptor language can’t express the same thought any other way (e.g., in languages that don’t have the verb "to be"), but if the receptor language (English in this case) has exactly the same usage of exactly the same verb (it does) then the thing to do is translate the word according to its actual meaning, which is "is."
To render esti in English as "signifies" is not actual translation. It’s paraphrase. Paraphrase is warranted when actual translation is impossible or when it would be misleading, but when the receptor language accomodates a straightforward translation, it should be used. We otherwise run the risk of the translator’s own biases distorting the message in the original. Whenever possible the original should be presented to the reader in the receptor language, and he should be allowed to determine the connotation of what is being said.
Yesterday there was a caller on the show who wanted to know about finding the Our Father in Aramaic. I mentioned that it’s found in the Pshitta, an Aramaic translation of Scripture, and it’s also available online. Unfortunately, the address of the site I had was too long, so I promised to put it up on the blog this morning.
Unfortunately, after the show, a closer inspection of the site showed it to be kooky to the extreme. The translation they gave of the Aramaic into English was completely wrong, so I decided just to print the text of the Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic.
First, though, here’s an audio file of it (.wav format):
After doing a little digging around, I found the following nice image, which contains the prayer in English and the Aramaic alphabet, with an Aramaic pronounciation also. Bear in mind that the English and the Aramaic pronunciation runs left-to-right, while the Aramaic script itself runs right-to-left.
Also bear in mind that the pronunciation the prayer is given in Aramaic will vary from one group of speakers to another, based on accent. For example, the first word of the Lord’s prayer in Aramaic is Abun, which will be pronounced by some groups as "Ah-boon," others as "Ah-woon," and still others (as in the transliteration below) as "Ah-voon."
Click to enlarge.
One word of warning about the above: What’s on the Aramaic transliteration line doesn’t always match up to exactly what’s on the English line. Because of word division and length, the lines don’t match up exactly. For example, on the third line from the bottom in the Aramaic column, you’ll see the word Malkutha ("Mal-koo-tha"), which means "Kingdom," but Kingdom is on the fourth line from the bottom in the English column.
I can’t go through the whole prayer line by line right now, but some folks might find it interesting to understand a little of how the language works.
The prayer is often called the Abun Dbashmaya in Aramaic, which are its first two words. This is similar to the way we call it the Our Father after it’s first two words. But in Aramaic "Abun Dbashmaya" means more than just "Our Father."
The "Our Father" part of it is just the first word: Abun. As you know, one of the Aramaic words for "father" (there are actually several variants) is Abba, which is just spelled ABA in Aramaic (it being understood that the B reduplicates in pronunciation).
In Aramaic, pronouns often take the form of suffixes on the ends of words, and the suffix -un is a pronoun suffix that means "our." When you stick -un on Abba, you get "Abun," meaning "Our Father."
The Aramaic word for "heaven" is shmaya, and you can see that in the second word of the prayer. The prefix b- (sometimes followed by a vowel, sometimes not) is the Aramaic equivalent of "in" (remember the in/on discussion we had recently?), so bashmaya means "in heaven." And the prefix d- is the Aramaic equivalent of "who," "which," or "that." Dbashmaya thus means "who (is) in heaven." (Aramaic sometimes omits the verb "to be," as it does here.)
Thus you can see how "Abun dbashmaya" translates as "Our Father, who art in heaven."
I’m seeking someone who speaks Latin well to help me out on something.
As part of an effort to be of service to the broader Catholic community, I’m trying to translate a number of documents that generally aren’t available in English and that aren’t likely to receive an official translation.
What I need, though, is someone to look over my shoulder and nitpick what I’m doing, because I want the translations to be as good as possible.
This AIN’T a secret project, though, so I can tell you exactly what I’m doing:
At the moment, I’ve got a translation I did of the old Rite of Excommunication and Absolution, by which a bishop would impose and rescind the sentence of anathema on a person.
It seemed to me that translating the rite would provide a tangible demonstration that a lot of what you hear about the meaning of anathemas is simply wrong. They aren’t sentences to hell. They aren’t things that take effect automatically. They were a special kind of excommunication that had to be applied with a special ceremony by the bishop and that were meant to prompt repentence (so they were lifted when the person repented). As a result, they almost never were applied to Protestants since Protestants made no pretense of being part of the Catholic community. When Trent said things like, "If anyone says X, let him be anathema" that meant basically "If anyone claiming to be Catholic says X then let him be ceremonially excommunicated" not "We hereby damn all Protestants to hell."
So it seems to me that this document would be a useful thing to have in English but, because it’s no longer used as the penalty of anathema has been abolished in canon law (Surprise! Anathemas also no longer exist!) it’s not likely to get officially translated by anybody.
So I did it.
It’s about 1400 words long in Latin and a similar (slightly longer) number of words in English. I’ve got it in a Word-readable document with the Latin and English in facing columns, lined up so that it’s easy to read one paragraph in Latin and then the same thing in English.
If you have significant Latin skills and would be willing to nitpick the translation for me, I’d really appreciate it!
Also, this is a one-time deal without a long-term commitment. I won’t come bugging you to nitpick future documents I translate.
Thanks much, and lemme know by combox or e-mail if you’d be willing to help!
I’ve been reading your blog occasionally and have noticed that you seem to be knowledgeable in a variety of areas (not just in apologetics),
Naw, I’m just curious about . . . y’know . . . stuff.
so I thought I’d ask you a question I’ve been having trouble getting answered elsewhere.
Okay, shoot!
I’m thinking of studying Greek in order to read the New Testament in its original language.
Good for you! I recommend William Mounce’s Basics of Biblical Greek as a starting point.
However, so far as I know, there are no editions of the Greek New Testament currently available that have ecclesiastical approval.
Yeah, I don’t know of any, either.
What are the Church’s regulations for reading/studying non-approved editions of Holy Scripture? Canon 825, §1 seems to indicate that it’s not permitted, but I’m not sure.
Ah, actually the canon you cite does not prohibit reading or studying such Scriptures. Here’s the canon in question:
Can. 825 §1. Books of the sacred scriptures cannot be published unless the Apostolic See or the conference of bishops has approved them. For the publication of their translations into the vernacular, it is also required that they be approved by the same authority and provided with necessary and sufficient annotations.
§2. With the permission of the conference of bishops, Catholic members of the Christian faithful in collaboration with separated brothers and sisters can prepare and publish translations of the sacred scriptures provided with appropriate annotations.
As you can see, the canon places the legal burden on the publisher of a book of sacred scripture. It is the publisher of the volume, not the reader, who has the responsibility to make sure that the needed approval is gathered (assuming it’s a Catholic publisher to begin with; Catholics are not bound by canon law).
For a reader, there is no prohibition on reading material that has not been granted ecclesiastical approval. There is a general moral requirement that one not read material that would be damaging to one’s faith or morals, but I am unware of any editions of the Greek New Testament that would do that. Not even the Jehovah’s Witnesses, as far as I know, have had the chutzpah to alter the original Greek text (though they have laced it up with erroneous glosses).
There really isn’t that much difference between different editions of the Greek New Testament, and what differences there are tend not to cut across confessional lines. It’s not like there’s a "Catholic Greek New Testament" versus a "Protestant Greek New Testament." The differences concern mostly minor manuscript variations that are neither Catholic nor Protestant.
For this reason, Catholic scholars tend to use the same editions of the Greek New Testament as Protestant scholars, notably the Nestle-Aland/United Bible Societies text, which is considered one of the better critical editions, though the differences between this and other editions are very small and would not be of concern to a person just learning the language.
The absence of confessional differences in the text of the Greek New Testament is one of the reasons that it’s hard to find an edition that has been given ecclesiastical approval. There may be some, and I did some poking around online looking, but I haven’t found any.
My advice would be to use any edition of the Greek New Testament that comes to hand. As a tool for learning the language, that’s all you really need.
And, as I said, I’d use Mounce if possible as an intro text.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid called a proposal to make English the official language "racist" on the Senate floor [Thursday].
"This amendment is racist. I think it’s directed basically to people who speak Spanish," the Democrat said during the already tense debate over immigration reform.
Moments later, the Senate approved the measure on a 63-34 vote. Virtually all Republicans were joined by 11 Democrats to approve the largely symbolic amendment. Immediately following that vote, the Senate approved a second amendment, declaring on a 58-39 vote that English is the "common and unifying language."
It comes as little surprise that as the Senate head of a party specializing in identity politics, Senator Reid would attempt to play the race card to get his way in Congress, but isn’t this particular card getting rather worn?
There was a time–in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement and the numerous injustices that it served to correct–that the accusation of racism was a potent thing, and playing the race card could be a powerful instrument for altering the state of a discussion.
But the race card has been played so often–and so inaccurately–that it’s getting rather worn and easy to spot as part of a political bluff (to keep with the card playing metaphor for a moment).
False accusations of racism have been made so frequently (as, for example, by Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney) that the potency of the racism charge is diluting. People no longer reflexivly assume that when the charge is made that it must be based on truth because those making the allegation have so over-used it that the situation has begun to resemble "The Boy Who Cried ‘Wolf!’"
Particularly noteworthy is Sen. Reid’s accusation that a move to declare English the official language of the nation to be "racist" on the grounds that it is "directed basically to people who speak Spanish."
For a speaker of contemporary, 21st century English, this may leave one scratching one’s head: "What does race have to do with language? They’re completely separate. People of any race can speak any language that they choose to learn. This charge makes no sense."
It would have made a little more sense in the 18th century, when the term "race" still had more of its original meaning, which was to refer to a family, tribe, culture, or nation, such that one could speak of "the English race" or "the French race" or "the German race" or "the Spanish [meaning: ‘from Spain’] race," but that usage has been virtually lost from contemporary English.
As a result of the history of racism in the English-speaking world, the term "race" has changed to refer in normal speech to particular genetic backgrounds associated principally with skin color.
Given that change in meaning, language simply has nothing to do with race because people of every genetic background have the same basic language genes and can speak any language they choose to learn. Saying, "In this country the official language is English (or Spanish or Mandarin or Swahili or Arabic or Hebrew or Russian or what have you)" has nothing to do with a person’s genes and thus has nothing to do with race.
People of every race can speak every language, as illustrated by the fact that there are already millions of Americans of every race who are native English speakers.
Now, you’ll note something interesting about the 18th century use of the word "race": in examples like "the English race," "the French race," "the German race," and so on the distinguishing terms ("English," "French," "German") are also the names of languages.
There’s a very good reason for that: Language is one of the most fundamental aspects of culture–arguably the most fundamental aspect of culture–and so people who are members of a common nation and its culture tend to share a common language.
It is not easy to maintain a nation that does not share a common language. If you don’t believe that, look at Canada.
If people don’t share a common language then from an important perspective they simply aren’t part of the same culture because they can’t talk to each other and thus can’t participate to any significant degree in common cultural life.
Nations that don’t have a common language thus fail to have a common culture. What they have instead are different, sharply-defined cultures within them which are separated by linguistic barriers. This leads to friction between the language communities and to identity politics.
Sen. Reid’s refusal to endorse the idea of English as the common language in America thus would have the tendency to foster more identity politics and more friction between groups in American society.
Whether you want to call that "racism" or not, it’s something that we don’t need.
