Reading and discussing John 2 in Cana - all in Koine Greek

On day two of BLC's "With Jesus in the Galilee" we went to the historical site of Cana. Most people think of an Arab village just outside Nazareth, Kfar Cana, as the location of where the miracle took place. However, Kfar Cana was "introduced" in the Byzantine period so as to allow pilgrims walking from Nazareth to the Sea of Galilee to commemorate the event somewhere along the way, rather than having to make a long detour to the historical site. Because of the convenience of modern transportation, we went to the historical site, an archaeological tel ("ruins" in Hebrew) on the top of a hill, overlooking the fields of the Beth Netofa valley. And of course, once on top, we read John 2, in Koine Greek.

The video below has us sitting in the ruins of a large building (we would like it if it turned out to be a synagogue). Enjoy hearing the story in Koine Greek, and then see if you can follow our conversation (also in Koine Greek). The footage is unedited.

BLC's "Jesus in the Galilee"

At a guest house in the modern town of Migdal, overlooking ancient Migdal on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, about twenty individuals have come together for ten days of intensive Koine Greek. We are attempting to do something that has rarely, if ever, been done in modern times: speak only Koine Greek from sun-up to sun-down. BLC has been running "Koine Greek only" evenings for the past few years, with the result that several here already have varying degrees of "fluency" in the language, and their job is to pull the rest of us along. Participants are a mix of professors and PhD students, but also individuals who are simply interested in acquiring a higher proficiency in the language.

The typical day begins with prayers shortly after sunrise. The liturgy we are using is a collection of biblical texts from the Septuagint and the New Testament, some which are read in unison and others by designated readers, with a brief moment for extemporaneous prayers. A page in our workbook gives us some helpful suggestions of different sentences we can string together or use to begin a sentence or a thought.

For meal times, our workbook includes a short lexicon with the various foods and utensils we may wish to use in our conversation with one another. Conversation at this point (three days in) is still very simple: "give me the juice," "what is this?" etc. Those sitting near the leaders may have more involved conversations about their life, studies, or some other topic still.

The day is spent doing a variety of "activities" that keep us in Koine Greek. A usual first activity in the day is learning or reviewing less known vocabulary that we will encounter in the readings assigned for the day. In keeping in line with the time of the year (Passover and Easter) they are all dealing or relating in some way to Jesus' last week. The vocabulary is taught using the technique of Total Physical Response (TPR): no English is used, but with the help of props and actions (by both the instructor and the participants) as well as repetition, we discover and internalize the meaning of the words being reviewed. We then read the assigned texts for the day in small groups, for the purpose of discussing together - in Koine Greek - matters of exegesis.

Another activity is called "verb practice." By focusing on only a few verbs, and using a lot of actions and repetition, we seek to internalize the various forms. Being able to recognize the form in writing is one matter, but being able to come up with it in speech is a much more difficult challenge. Still, the benefit of this drill is already being felt in our other conversations. To help us out, BLC has prepared a book of verb charts, so that if an instructor is not at hand, we can turn to the page and find the proper form and use it.

These ten days are not all spent inside the classroom. First of all, spring weather at the Sea of Galilee is as gorgeous as our surroundings, so that we spend as much time outside in the guest house's gardens as in the classroom. But there are also field trips: on day two we went to Cana to read and discuss John 2 and to the Yiftahel winery. Today it will be to Capernaum.

Today is Easter Morning. Jet lag as me up well before dawn; early, like the women who went to visit the tomb. As a write, it is beginning to be light, and shortly we will be meeting for a sunrise service. A couple nights ago we "re-enacted" a passover meal (all in Koine Greek). This morning, we will celebrate the Resurrection together, with readings and songs - all in the Greek of the New Testament.

I don't know when the BLC will do this again, but the experience so far has been most amazing.

The Theme of Egypt for the Believer: Personal Participation in God’s Redemptive Acts

Matthew 2:15 “I called my son out of Egypt” is often read at Christmas time. It is sometimes puzzling because it comes from Hoshea 11:1 where it refers to the exodus of the people of Israel from Egypt. However, it reflects an important spiritual principle that relates to the coming Passover season.

In the passover Haggadah, there is a section of the four sons and four questions. The wicked son asks, “What is this religious ceremony to you all?” The haggada then explains, “he said, ’to you’, and not ‘to him’, accordingly he has excluded himself from the group and denied a principle of faith. Blunt his teeth and say to him, ‘for this the Lord did this for ME in my going out from Egypt’ (Ex 13:8). The scripture says ‘for me’ and not ‘for him’. If he had been there he would not have been redeemed!”

The passover tradition expects a later generation to vicariously share in redemption through faith. Retelling the story is supposed to be as if the celebrants themselves were included in the original exodus. This same theme is picked up by Paul and applied in the opposite direction in 1 Corinthians 10:1-2, “Our fathers all were under the cloud and all went through the sea. They were all baptised in relation to Moses in the cloud and in the sea.” More explicitly vicarious is Galatians 2:19-20, “I was crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who am living, but Christ is living in me. What I now live in the body I live through faith of the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.”

How can a person living in the 21st century claim to be crucified with Christ 2000 years ago? This is a similar question that the son asks on Passover night. How can the person celebrating Passover claim that God redeemed him from Egypt? And how can Paul claim that the people of Israel were 'baptized in relation to Moshe'? The answer comes through a linkage of faith. A person puts their faith in the same God who acted mightily in the past or will act mightily again. That action is then considered as if it had been done for both the ancient and the modern person. The person celebrating Passover is joining the people of the ancient Passover redemption through faith.

This idea of vicariously joining a spiritual redemption across generations can help us understand Matthew’s thinking in 2:15. Just as God took Israel out of Egypt, so he takes the Messiah out of Egypt. When the young Jesus came out of Egypt God was spiritually repeating and extending a mighty act from the past, across generations. In this sense Jesus' trip out of Egypt parallels the scripture Hoshea 11.1 and Matthew brings out this added dimension based on a wordplay of "son" to refer to both the people of Israel and the Messiah. Matthew describes this as a 'fulfillment' of the scripture. This is similar to rabbis in midrashic literature who call an interpretation of scripture a 'fulfillment'.

[מה אני מקיים "ואכלתם בחפזון"? זה חפזון מצרים. "How do I establish/fulfill/interpret the scripture 'and you shall eat it in haste'? This is the haste (confusion) of the Egyptians." Mekhilta dePischa 7.9. At Qumran, scriptural applications like Matthew's were called pesher 'explanation (prophetic realization)', which is not Matthew's more rabbinic term (Matthew wrote: ἵνα πληρωθῇ 'that it might be fulfilled'), though 'pesher' interpretation is very similar to Matthew's method, to describe a spiritual, prophetic realization based on some aspect of a text.]

The important point for believers is to be able to personally join God’s people through faith across generations. God works across generations. This is the principle of faith that the believer affirms at Passover.

Pre-release preview of BLC's MP4 Companion

Here at Fresno Pacific University, I have been working together with a team of student workers at developing an MP4 Companion to BLC's Living Biblical Hebrew - Introduction Part 1. It is almost finished, and we hope to have it available soon. In the meantime, I thought it would be nice to give you a sneak preview of what it will look like.

In the video, you will see the beta version for the quiz after lesson #2. In the first two lessons (end of week one in a three-unit semester course), students will have been introduced to basic vocabulary through the medium of pictures, all in Biblical Hebrew, without ever relying on any English. In the quiz, as they hear a word or sentence, they need to identify to which of the three pictures it relates. After a brief pause, the correct drawing is revealed.

An advantage of this method is that it bypasses the need for English glosses, and helps the student internalize the language as Hebrew, not as a translation of an English term. Students like it, because it is way more fun than going through vocab lists or flash cards, and as a result, much easier to assimilate and retain. It's a win-win!

Additionally, students are already becoming intrinsically familiar with basic sentence structure while they are learning vocabulary. And after a few lessons, tenses are introduced so that students can begin "feeling" the patterns that mark tenses.

Keep checking the Biblical Language Center's website for when this MP4 Companion will be available. In the meantime, one can always purchase the book with the audio CD (mp3) and get started already. One can start learning Biblical Hebrew or Koine Greek in this way.

The Hebrew Language Academy on lamed-yud pi``el: גִלִּיתִי and גִלֵּיתִי

Yesterday, 27 Jan 2010, the Hebrew Language Academy confirmed that alternative 1st and 2nd person suffix tense (‘past’) forms of pi``el lamed-yud roots will be officially acceptable in modern Hebrew. גִלֵּיתִי will be acceptable, and apparently even גִלֵּיתָ. The reason for the confirmation and acceptance is that forms with both [i] and [e] occur in the Hebrew Bible, גִלִּיתִי and גִלֵּיתִי. This is also a good illustration for language learners that there are places in a language where ‘close’ is good enough, where sounds that in other contexts might cause problems can be acceptable.

The sounds in question revolve around [i] and [e], written Hiriq and tsere in the Hebrew writing system. This involves the vowel of the second syllable in pi``el ‘suffix tenses’ in the first and second persons, where the ‘third root letter’ was a “yod”. Current Israeli Hebrew as a majority dialect prefers the [i] sound גִלִּיתִי . According to the Hebrew Language Academy, both [i] and [e] forms will be officially acceptable in the pi``el pattern.

This issue is of interest to those studying Biblical Hebrew and for those who would teach Biblical Hebrew. What form should be used in teaching materials?

A majority dialect is typically recommend in language learning. A student needs to start somewhere, even if they will end up responding to more than one form of a word.

Below are two lists of some common verbs of the pattern described by the Hebrew Language Academy. The left Hebrew column would be the ‘newly accepted’ forms, while the right Hebrew column has the current majority. Both columns here are limited to occurrences in the Hebrew Bible, so as to be directly applicable to discussions of biblical Hebrew. Underneath each line are the numbers of occurrences in the Bible of the [e] form and then the [i] form.

Lamed-yud pi``el (1^st and 2^nd person suffix tenses)

Eng. gloss [e] [i]

‘I discovered’ גִלֵּיתִי and גִלִּיתִי

4 and 2 (occurrences in HB)

‘you discovered’ גִלֵּית and גִלִּית

0 2

‘I compared’ דִמֵּיתִי and דִמִּיתִי

0 2

‘you compared’ דִמֵּיתָ and דִמִּיתָ

0 1

‘we compared’ דִמֵּינוּ and דִמִּינוּ

0 1

‘I winnowed’ זֵרֵיתִי and זֵרִיתִי

0 6

‘you winnowed’ זֵרֵיתָ and זֵרִיתָ

0 1

‘I finished’ כִלֵּיתִי and כִלִּיתִי

4 1

‘you finished’ כִלֵּיתָ and כִלִּיתָ

0 1

‘I covered’ כִסֵּיתִי and כִסִּיתִי

2 4

‘you covered’ כִסֵּיתִי and כִסִּיתָ

0 2

‘we covered’ כִסֵּינוּ and כִסִּינוּ

0 1

‘I cleansed’ נִקֵּיתִי and נִקִּיתִי

3 0

‘you cleansed’ נִקֵּיתָ and נִקִּיתָ

0 1

‘I commanded’ צִוֵּיתִי and צִוִּיתִי

5 30

‘you commanded’ צִוֵּיתָ and צִוִּיתָ

0 13

‘I waited in hope’ קִוֵּיתִי and קִוִּיתִי

2 6

‘you cleansed’ קִוֵּינוּ and קִוִּינוּ

0 3

‘I compared’ שִוֵּיתִי and שִוִּיתִי

0 6

‘I cleansed’ זִכֵּיתִי and זִכִּיתִי

0 2

‘I waited’ חִכֵּיתִי and חִכִּיתִי

0 1

‘we waited’ חִכֵּינוּ and חִכִּינוּ

0 1

‘I satisfied’ רִוֵּיתִי and רִוִּיתִי

1 0

While the above list is not complete for all pi``el lamed-yud verbs, it does include those with 3 or more examples of a form, plus some random examples. [rivveti] 'I satisfied' was included in order to show how accidental statistics can produce a verb with a supposedly 'opposite' pattern.

It is immediately apparent that the forms with [i] are the majority.

In fact, in the second person singular ‘you,s.’ and first person plural ‘we’ the forms are always with [i]. This statement is true for any pi``el pattern lamed-yud root in the Hebrew Bible, not just those listed here.

Also, when these verbs have object suffixes they always have the [i] vowel.

For example:

צִוִּיתִיךָ ‘I commanded you.’ This may relate to preserving an earlier form of the verb.

So what should we do and what do we find?

In books like Living Biblical Hebrew, volumes 1 and 2 the patterns that students use are based on צִוִּיתִי not צִוֵּיתִי.

Then when students encounter an alternative form when reading a text they can be informed that [e] was an alternative vocalization.

Galilee Greek Immersion April 2010

Greek inscription at Hippos

One of many inscriptions in Sephoris synagogue. Notice spelling of και.

Overlooking 'parable bay', a nice place to preach from a boat

Imagine breakfast to bed overlooking the Lake of Genneseret, all in Koine Greek. Reading the gospels, discussing them in Koine Greek, some fluency pedagogy, and visits to sites around the lake. 31 March to 11 April 2010. Keep those dates open and watch the Biblical Language Center website for details.

Art and a message

How does this picture make one feel
about listening to the gospel and letters of John in Greek?