While not an absolute, it's a truism whenever someone intones, "If you look at the original Greek", invariably they're introducing some new heresy.
The clever deception employed is implying "the original Greek" has only one absolute definition, namely their own.
This is not true.
"The original Greek" was just like any other language, including the ones used today. Most words have several shades of …More
While not an absolute, it's a truism whenever someone intones, "If you look at the original Greek", invariably they're introducing some new heresy.
The clever deception employed is implying "the original Greek" has only one absolute definition, namely their own.
This is not true.
"The original Greek" was just like any other language, including the ones used today. Most words have several shades of meaning and sub-definitions, just as any language does. When such scholar "look at" the original Greek, they pick one of SEVERAL definitions, whichever most closely corresponds to their preferred heresy.
Case in point. Observe this new member "Primate". Their user-name can be taken to mean a religious leader, yet also describes a class of mammal. In contemporary English, "primate" typically refers to various species of simiians like monkeys, gorillas, apes, baboons, animals that are noted for their laziness, noise, carnal self-abuse, and an unhealthy fixation with their own feces.
If we "look at the original Latin", we'll find both definitions are supported since the term is derived from the nominative use of the Late Latin adjective primas "of the first rank, chief, principal,"
So which definition is correct in this case? That's kinda obvious, ain't it? ;-)
What scholars like Primate are actually doing is a selective and highly biased re-translation of "the original Greek".
More amusingly, very few of these scholars are ever functionally fluent in the language, as in able to debate the issue entirely in "the original Greek."