Greek Luke Highlights in a Semester

Greek classes in Kansas City are fairly hard to come by; I took my first course online through a seminary in New Orleans (which is a mistake—never, ever, ever, ever, EVER take an online Koine class, especially if it's your first time), then had to take a specially designed intermediate course put together by my friend and New Testament professor at CBTS, David May. This spring (2013), there are no local NT Greek courses being offered in Kansas City, to my knowledge. However, I am eagerly looking forward to a class on the Greek text of Romans being offered by Nazarene Theological Seminary in the fall. In the meantime, I've decided to keep my Koine fresh by designing my own little study program on the Gospel of Luke.

For the first 17 weeks of 2013, I'll be working through selected passages of Luke using Martin Culy, Mikeal Parsons, and Joshua Stigall's Luke: A Handbook on the Greek Text (Baylor, 2010). I had originally planned to work through the entire text, until I realized that the Gospel of Luke contains 1,151 verses—which would mean I would be translating roughly 68 verses of text each week for a 17-week semester. At my friend Patrick's suggestion, however, I decided to select important English passages and translate the Greek text of those selections, instead. Below is my reading plan, in case you're interested in following along with me (or if you want to send me a better suggestion for one or more weeks). It's admittedly a rough overview of one of the most theologically intense narratives in the New Testament, but one that I feel will keep my Greek skills from getting too rusty before my Romans course next fall.

Week 1—January 1-6

Luke 1:1-4, 46-55, 67-80

Week 2—January 7-13
Luke 2:8-20

Week 3—January 14-20
Luke 3:1-23

Week 4—January 21-27
Luke 4:16-21, 5:33-39

Week 5—January 28 – February 3

Luke 6:17-38

Week 6—February 4-10

Luke 6:38-49

Week 7—February 11-17

Luke 7:11-17, 8:4-8

Week 8—February 18-24
Luke 8:26-39

Week 9—February 25 – March 3
Luke 9:12-17, 23-36

Week 10—March 4-10
Luke 10:30-37, 11:1-4

Week 11—March 11-17
Luke 12:22-34

Week 12—March 18-24 

Luke 15:11-32

Week 13—March 25-31
Luke 17:20-21, 18:31-34, 19:29-40

Week 14—April 1-7

Luke 20:45-21:6

Week 15—April 8-14

Luke 22:14-23

Week 16—April 15-21
Luke 23:32-56

Week 17—April 22-28
Luke 24:1-7, 28-32, 50-53

Read Through LXX Isaiah in a Year—Part 1 of 356

Even the donkey knows where its food comes from (v.3).

Okay, so I'm not actually going to make a post every single day on the Greek text of Isaiah. You can now emit a sigh of relief. However, unless it becomes too taxing on my time, I do plan to occasionally post an update on how translation has been going. With my still-limited knowledge of Greek, it's going to be tough, but my hope is that this reading program will strengthen my ability a bit. Especially exciting is the fact that I get to be a part of a large group of participating scholars and students whose skills far outshine my own, so I have quite a reference network at my fingertips. I'm working on Isaiah 1:1-25 this week. Below are verses 1-5 with my own translation. If something doesn't look right, feel free to leave a comment.

HSAIAS

(LXX Isaiah)

Chapter One

¹O”rasiV h}n ei‹den HJsai¯aV uiJo;V Ajmw;V, h’n ei‹de kata; thæV IjoudaivaV kai; kata; IJerousalh;m, ejn basileiva÷ Ojzivou, kai; Ijwavqam, kai; A[caz, kai; Ejzekivou, oi’ ejbasivleusan thæV IjoudaivaV.

The vision that was seen by Isaiah son of Amos, that he saw concerning Judah and concerning Jerusalem, during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Ezekiah, rulers of Judah:

²A[koue oujrane;, kai; ejnwtivzou ghæ, o”ti KuvrioV ejlavlhsen, uiJou;V ejgevnnhsa kai; u”ywsa, aujtoi; dev me hjqevthsan.

Listen, Heavens! Pay attention, Earth!

For the Lord has spoken:

“I have raised and brought up sons,

but they have set me aside.

³E[gnw bouÆV to;n kthsavmenon, kai; o[noV th;n favtnhn touÆ kurivou aujtouÆ` Ijsrah;l dev me oujk e[gnw, kai; oJ laovV me ouj sunhæken.

The ox knows the one who owns it,

and the donkey [knows] where his owner feeds him[1];

But Israel does not know me,

the people do not understand me!  

⁴Oujai; e[qnoV aJmartwlo;n, lao;V plhvrhV aJmartiwÆn, spevrma ponhro;n, uiJoi; a[nomoi` ejgkatelivpate to;n Kuvrion, kai; parwrgivsate to;n a”gion touÆ Ijsrahvl.

Ah! How horrible!

A nation of sinfulness,

the people totally immersed in sin,

spawn of evil,

children of wickedness!

They have abandoned the Lord, and

they have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel.

⁵Tiv e[ti plhghæte prostiqevnteV ajnomivan~ paÆsa kefalh; eijV povnon, kai; paÆsa kardiva eijV luvphn`

Why do y’all continue to be smacked around?

Why persist in wickedness?

The whole head in pain,

the whole heart in grief!

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[1] Literally, the donkey [knows] the manger of his lord. I translated this phrase differently to avoid problematic and de-contextualized Christian parallels.

Work Through The Septuagint Text of Isaiah in a Year

With a nod to Septuagint blogger John Meade, a group of scholars, students, bibliobloggers, and Greek-lovin' laity has formed an online community to work through the Greek text of Isaiah over the course of a year. The read-through plan seems pretty feasible: roughly five verses a day, five days a week. Check out the Facebook group here.

Summer Reading List: Theology and Activism

Whew. It does not seem like a year ago that I first posted my summer reading list on this blog. Actually, I'm surprised at myself that I've kept up this blogging thing for over a year now. But here we are: time for another list of books that I'm aiming to read this summer.

Alyssa and I will be in Liberty, MO, by the end of this month, done with our undergrad degrees and on hiatus from seminary for the summer. So I'm expecting to have a little more free time than usual on my hands, other than the time spent working for 2BC Liberty and in our new little ceramics studio, to get some reading done.

So here it is. My summer reading list. It looks like a fairly daunting sampling of literature, but most of the books are fairly short, so I think it's feasible. Look for a personal review on each of the books sometime toward the end of the summer.

Divine Rebels: American Christian Activists for Social Justice, by Deena Guzder. 2011. 320 pp.

This just came in the mail yesterday, and I can hardly wait to tear into it and write a proper review. It is the story of America's Christian activist giants: environmentalists, communists, anarchists, unionists, and radical priests alike who have fought for decades for the dignity and rights of the oppressed and overlooked.
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Beyond Smells & Bells: The Wonder and Power of Christian Liturgy, by Mark Galli. 2008. 142 pp.

I'm already a few chapters into this one. It's a book about the power of liturgy: need I say more?
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Money and Power, by Jacques Ellul. 1984. 173 pp.

I was first introduced to the works of Jacques Ellul a few years ago in the writings/literature associated with the Christian anarchist folk bands Psalters and The Illalogical Spoon (on a semi-related side-note, I have also recently been discovering the life of Simone Weil. Check out her wiki page and prepare to be amazed--and spend lots and lots of time wiki-surfing). Ellul was a French theologian and sociologist who wrote a lot about his suspicion of technology and our perceived notion of progress, but also about his rejection of our contrived efforts of government. In Money and Power, it looks as though Ellul tries to draw parallels between modern government and the warnings by Jesus against "having two masters." Mammon and political power go hand-in hand.
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Tendril, poems by Bin Ramke. 2007. 130 pp.

I first heard of Bin Ramke a few weeks ago in a poetry workshop I'm taking part in at the university. We read a poem of his called "Birds Fly Through Us," and his dense but compassionate and empathetic imagery just blew me away. Ramke's are some of the most complicated and intricate poems I've ever read, at times confusing (if not utterly losing) the reader, but there is a definite beauty to his language and a genius to his poetic mechanism that speaks to your brain and to your heart.  Think of him as a more human John Ashbery.
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Gandhi, an Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth, by Mohandas K. Gandhi. 1927. 560 pp.

I'll be honest. This is not one that I plan to completely finish this summer--it's massive. I've wanted to dig into this one since about 7th or 8th grade, when my parents first showed me the film based on Gandhi's life, starring Sir Ben Kingsley. This semester, I took a wonderful course called Religion and Violence, and during the last week of class we all got together and watched the film and ate authentic Indian food at the professor's house. I hear that food plays a large role in the early development of Gandhi's spiritual "experiments with truth," and as someone who has struggled with his weight and the meaning of fasting for almost as long as I can remember, I hope I might find some sort of comfort in reading Gandhi's struggles, as well.
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Bright Shoots of Everlastingness: Essays on Faith and the American Wild, by Paul J. Willis. 2005. 192 pp.

I bought this book at the AWP conference in Chicago a few years back and still haven't gotten a chance to read it. It's a shame, too, because it seems right up my alley.