Project Gutenberg's series of Biblical exegeses continue to engross me. Most recently I've been working on the Gospel of Matthew, learning lots of Greek and enjoying the technical challenges--but I'm always brought up short by the verses when Christ says, "Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to Me." "I was hungry, and you fed Me. I was thirsty, and you gave Me to drink." I thought of this message again while watching a clip of an
interview with recently deceased Sidney Poitier, in which he recounts how a patron of the restaurant where he bussed tables taught him to read after hours. The man saw a need and addressed it personally with great simplicity. Six or seven decades later, Poitier could scarecely recount the story without choking up.
My Greek is quite limited, but I heartily encourage you to post some of what you've learned here. It's a very worthy language, just not one of the ones where I've spent much of my time.
ReplyDeleteI'm just starting to learn the basic words that are repeated often in the Gospels: come, see, gather, answer, speak, say, kingdom of heaven, life eternal, Verily I say unto you, mother, father, child, Lord, mercy, deaf, blind, demon, angel. Now and then there's a charming recognition of something like the root "therap..." for healing, or "paidi..." for child, or "phon..." for sound or hear. Greek is a highly declined language, like German, so for now I'm mostly ignoring the incomprehensible variety of prefixes and suffixes and sticking to the roots, and trying to learn the simple connectors like and, but, unless, only, not, then, when. There are sites that translate the Greek of the Gospels word for word, verse by verse, so you can follow along. Bible Hub is a good one. The text of the works I'm proofing casually assumes you speak Greek and Latin, among a lot of other languages, such as Hebrew, Aramaic, and Syriac, and never bothers to translate anything.
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ReplyDeleteTexan, I love to listen to the Pod casts of Fr. David Nix where he explains the Gospels often using Latin and the Greek to pull at the whole meaning of the Gospel passage. And he brings in commentary of Church Fathers and Saints
Listen and tell me what you think.
https://padreperegrino.org/2022/01/vlx97/
Greg