It's All Greek to Me
By Tony Nuñez (TSBC’s new Lecturer of Bible Languages and Advanced Theology)
Having been nurtured in a church that preaches the Word of God, perhaps you remember the time you realised that the Bible you hold in your hands is actually a translation. God did not deposit His eternal truth for mankind in what we hold today, but in ancient dialects. Somewhere along the line, we learn that the Old Testament was written in ancient Hebrew, with portions in Aramaic, and the New Testament was written in first century Koine Greek. And for the most part, believers are content simply to know that there are people, ‘out there somewhere’ that understand these languages enough to produce the version of the Bible they so love.
That is, until perhaps that believer is placed in a situation where he or she must discover the meaning of a passage himself! Perhaps it is a teaching opportunity, or an occasion to defend the faith, or even at a time of extraordinary curiosity about a baffling text. It’s at this time, almost invariably, that he or she becomes driven to seek for answers among the multitude of Bible study resources available in print, software, or online. Once the Christian enters this realm, though, the original languages of the Bible may no longer be viewed with a mere distant awareness. Now, the Bible-lover must come into contact with them. Suddenly a new world is opened! And although there is a dense fog amidst the new and confusing grammatical ideas, a world of richness, clarity, and beauty peers through. And it is at that moment, the thought enters, ‘I would love to learn Hebrew or Greek!’
The Shepherd’s Bible College exists to equip all believers . . . even in the original languages of the Bible. Being for all believers, and not just seminarians, we take a unique approach that is simple but not simplistic, functional and yet accessible, that brings the student through the fog and into the brilliant light of understanding the text with a clarity only possible from the original languages.
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