NT Resources Blog

Why do you have to learn Greek in seminary? Lots of reasons, but here’s a good illustration. I have my first year class of 26 students particularly in mind here. (They just took their final exams on Thurs. and are awaiting the verdict!) This is what you can do now with the Greek you’ve learned. You might not have everything figured out yet, but this is well within your grasp.

This morning I began a new series in the adult Bible class at my church. After spending the last two years in the Gospel of Mark, I’m now embarking on Hebrews. The past month was a survey of Exodus and Leviticus in preparation for Hebrews, but this morning we plunged into the first paragraph of “the anonymous homily.”

If you were reading that paragraph (1:1–4) in almost any English translation, you would probably conclude that there were four or five main statements—which homiletically you might want to convert into as many sermon points. For example, here’s ESV (you know, the one that is advertised as being “essentially literal”? But many translations do something similar):

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

But if you look at your Greek text you’d discover that the sentence is structured quite differently. There are really only two main statements—one of them is technically a relative clause, but since that is the one the writer develops, it’s fair to say two (also note the punctuation preceding it). In the text following I’ve bolded the two subject/verb pairs and used a strike-out for all the participles and two finite forms in subordinate clauses (not because they are to be deleted! but to show you which are primary and which are secondary statements).

Πολυμερῶς καὶ πολυτρόπως πάλαι ὁ θεὸς λαλήσας τοῖς πατράσιν ἐν τοῖς προφήταις 2 ἐπ᾿ ἐσχάτου τῶν ἡμερῶν τούτων ἐλάλησεν ἡμῖν ἐν υἱῷ, ὃν ἔθηκεν κληρονόμον πάντων, δι᾿ οὗ καὶ ἐποίησεν τοὺς αἰῶνας· 3 ὃς ὢν ἀπαύγασμα τῆς δόξης καὶ χαρακτὴρ τῆς ὑποστάσεως αὐτοῦ, φέρων τε τὰ πάντα τῷ ῥήματι τῆς δυνάμεως αὐτοῦ, καθαρισμὸν τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ποιησάμενος ἐκάθισεν ἐν δεξιᾷ τῆς μεγαλωσύνης ἐν ὑψηλοῖς, 4 τοσούτῳ κρείττων γενόμενος τῶν ἀγγέλων ὅσῳ διαφορώτερον παρ᾿ αὐτοὺς κεκληρονόμηκεν ὄνομα.

1. God has spoken.

2. He [Jesus] sat down.

Not only that, but there is no “but” connecting v. 2 to v. 1 as the ESV reads (and NIV, NRSV). By now you’re perhaps in the habit of seeing a “but” in your English Bible and assuming that it’s either ἀλλα or δε, but here you’d be wrong. Why did three major translations add a “but”? Because when you shorten long Greek sentences for English readers (and vv. 1–4 is one long sentence in Greek!), you then have to create connections. Given the transformations of the clauses into sentences and participles into finite verbs in many translations, you have to express the implied contrast somehow. Thus the “but.” In Greek the contrast is implied by the sequence of participle and finite forms. There’s no explicit ἀλλα or δε because it’s not proper to connect a finite and non-finite form with a coordinating conjunction.

If you’ve understood what I’ve just summarized, and you committed to preaching sermons that reflect the structure and meaning of the text, then your sermon on Heb 1:1–4 will have two points rather than four or five.