Why Greek Matters (Part 1) – The Joy of Jesus (Matthew 28:9)
This is from a series paintings depicting the entire passion/resurrection cycle on the walls of medieval church in Oxfordshire, UK. This scene is Jesus appearing to Mary.
Since I teach New Testament Greek, I am often asked why one should invest the time to learn a whole language just to study the Bible. It is commonly phrased as, “do actually need to learn that to understand the Bible?” Of course, the answer is no. The modern English translations are reliable enough to not lead you into heresy and to give you understand of the Bible’s main points. So then, why study Greek (or Hebrew for that matter)? Rather than give a drawn out philosophical argumentation, laying out all the benefits of learning Greek, I’ve decided to give an apologetic that goes right to the text. This will be the beginning of a series of (hopefully short) posts which will look at specific texts and explain why its helpful, illuminating and/or exhilarating to know whats “going on under the hood.” The point will not be that “these are the six passages where Greek is helpful, therefore you might consider learning it.” Rather, this is just a sampling of what will happen nearly every time you read the NT in Greek – you see things in fresh ways and from fresh angles, very often in a manner that is at once exciting and heart-warming 
To start, I’d like to take a quick look at the first resurrection appearance in Matthew (apropos, since we are in Easter Season). The women arrived at the tomb, only to find it empty, with an angel sitting on the stone that had once concealed its interior. Instructing them that Jesus had risen from the dead (just as he said), and that they were to go report the news to the disciples, they ran off quickly in fear and great joy. Suddenly, Jesus “meets them” and says to them…according to the NRSV, “Greetings!” according to the KJV, “Hail!” and the NASB simply says, “he greeted them” without telling us what he said. However, in Greek, Jesus literally says “Rejoice!” Granted, this was a common greeting in first century Judea (ironically, earlier in Matthew, Judas greets Jesus with the same words as he betrays him), however, I just love that the first words out of Jesus’ mouth to another person after the resurrection are about gladness. I can only picture Jesus saying this with a huge smile on his face. What he or the women should be happy about is not specified in the text. While, there were undoubtedly many things to be happy about (see my previous post on the resurrection and the renewal of the earth), I think Jesus was, amongst other things, simply happy to see them. After the agony of the preceeding weekend, Jesus’ heart was thrilled with delight to see his friends and for them to see that he was well (and indeed, far more than well…).
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« The Relationship of Christianity to Other Religions
Why Greek Matters (Part 2) – New Creation (2 Corinthians 5:17) »
