I saw a documentary saying that all Bible scholars don’t know Greek and are lying. In the documentary he went to Greece and he talked to like teens and every day people from Greece and they all said Koine Greek is the exact same as modern greek.
He said he challenges anyone to ask someone from Greece to confirm it and that they will. Is it true?
Full documentary here if anyone is interested:
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As far as I remember the Bible is in ancient Greek and usually translated in modern Greek. They are not exactly the same but but in general you can read it and understand it without many problems. Also the translation between ancient and modern Greek I think is in general more accurate.
The exact same? No. A modern greek, with decent understanding of his own language (more rare than you think), *can* understand the biblical texts in Koine, but it’s *not* the same as everyday language and they’re bound to get lost in translation here and there.
So yeah, *can* they read it? Sure. Perfectly? Eeehhh
so you took the challenge or. you are interested in it?
>I saw a documentary saying that all Bible scholars don’t know Greek and are lying
Many Bible scholars understand Koine. So the documentary is either lying or misleading its viewers by cherry-picking those that don’t know Koine.
>they all said Koine Greek is the exact same as modern greek.
Again, the documentary is lying or misleading. It’s not “exactly the same”, but it is pretty close. Like a Modern English speaker trying to read Shakespeare. We can make sense of a lot of it, but be thrown off by some words.
Older forms of Greek are harder. But Koine is *relatively* easy. But “exact same”? No.
>Do some words in modern Greek not mean the same thing in biblical greek?
Yes some words have slightly changed meaning over time. But the more common issue is word *endings* have changed (like verb conjugations), while the root has stayed the same.
>Well he’s saying that the Ancient Greek you took in school was invalid because those teachers are lying.
The *documentary* is lying.
Which “Ancient Greek” are they talking about? Homeric Greek? Classical Attic Greek (like Plato)? Or Koine?
Koine is the *most* recent of these. Koine unified the existing Greek dialects (at that time) and simplified them, and Modern Greek is a direct descendant of Koine. Additionally, because we were in the Roman Empire during most of the Koine era, a lot of the Latin loanwords into Greek came during Koine times. (And a lot of the original Greek words replaced by Latin loanwords were *not* discarded; they just took new meanings).
So, Koine is closer to Modern Greek than, say, the Classical Greek that Plato wrote in. So “the Ancient Greek you learn in school” depends…were you reading the Iliad and the Odyssey? That’s Homeric Greek. Plato, Aristotle, etc? That would be Classical Greek. Or were you reading Marcus Aurelius, Plutarch, the Bible…anything from the Alexandrian and Roman eras would be Koine.
Your professors are *not* lying. That’s the Greek of the specific time period they’re teaching. Like Old English vs Middle English vs Modern English.
>That anyone who understands modern Greek can understand biblical Greek
Like you understanding Shakespeare. Not perfectly, but *pretty* good. Definitely not conversational, though.
>He’s trying to say people who teach Ancient Greek in colleges are lying since they pronounce words differently then Greek speaking people
We don’t *exactly* know how it was pronounced then. Like English, pronunciation of Greek has changed over the centuries.
There’s tons of evidence of that in English: why are some spellings (like “laugh”) funky? Because they represent the way it was once pronounced. Or, for example, look at the divergence of British vs American dialects, and the accents *within* those countries as well. Which one is closest to the original?
So, the same has happened to Greek over time.
University professors in, let’s say, the US, pronounce Ancient Greek (Classical or Koine) with a “reconstructed” pronunciation that we *think* is accurate, but -of course- they also don’t get rid of their American accent.
Modern Greeks, OTOH, study Ancient Greek with Modern Greek pronunciation. This may sound strange to some non-Greeks, but Modern English speakers, when reciting Shakespeare, don’t think twice about the accuracy of their pronunciation.
We know some things have definitely changed. Like “laugh” in English, Greek also has some funky spellings that represent the way a word was once pronounced.
But long story short: Greek pronunciation has changed over time, over the centuries. It changed between 500 BC and 100 AD. And between 100 AD and 600 AD. And between 600 AD and 1400 AD, and so on. Your professors are taught a “reconstructed” pronunciation that has some accuracy in it, but also some assumptions, and with the accent of their native language thrown in there as well. But that doesn’t mean they’re lying to you and not teaching you an actual historic form of Greek.
The documentary, by the way you’re describing it, says *some* things that are true. But also some misleading or misinformed things. And that’s because the makers of the doc sound like they don’t *quite* know what they’re talking about.
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Let’s put it this way. Most Greeks don’t know what some verses of the Lord’s prayer say.
Actually you will see many people “mumbling” certain verses, but they won’t be able to write them down or say the words separatively.
Fuck no.
Most Greeks cannot even understand the language of Παπαδιαμάντης.
Those guys are cult leaders(who are giant pieces human waste by the way) who have been banned from multiple countries including the Schengen area(which Greece is in).
But to answer your question, yes we can more or less read and make out the general gist of it.
Other people have answered already but I can also confirm their POV. Greek is a language that is evolving, The language to which the Old Testament was translated by the Evdomikonta (the 70), was the Koini. The same language was used to consolidate the Bible with the new testament. Modern Greek is the evolution of Koini. Many words changed meaning, new loanwords have been introduced (Latin, Turkish, English, French, Italian) or have been deprecated, but it’s the same language.
Whether you can understand it or not, is a matter of education and knowledge of the language. A fairly educated Greek can understand the majority of it, without “google help”. Some stuff may not make sense directly, but if you exercise a bit of etymology you can usually get it. In any case, Modern Greek is more close to Koini of 1 century BC, than Modern English is to Shakespeare, which is astonishing considering the time elapsed.
Cantankerous Greeks will object, but Greeks understand Koine the way Americans understand KJV Elizabethan because once a body of literature appears, the language greatly slows down change. Also both KJV/Shakespeare and Koine/Classic are quoted daily in church, literature and home. Beware the confusion because Greeks call Classical ‘archaic’ which confuses with ancient