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Sometimes first year teachers simplify the dative and have you use the one keyword “to.” This works until “to” makes no sense. I am thinking that it is better from day one to keep five basic definitions of the dative in mind. It's not that hard.

People often say the Greek manuscripts behind the New Testament are so corrupt that we can’t trust them. Ehrman is famous for his line that here are more errors than words. The problem is that these numbers are irrelevant if you do not, at the same time, discuss significance.

Paul can sometimes make broad statements that are open to misunderstanding, especially when read out of context. In some of these cases, we see later scribes trying to qualify what he said so as to clarify -- in their minds -- what Paul means. Enter the wonderful world of textual criticism.

Sometimes translators have to make a decision; sometimes there is no ambiguous option. In 2 Cor 4:6, is the gospel glorious or is the gospel about the glory of Christ? It is one or the other, not both.

Paul ends his list of the fruits of the Spirit with the general, “against such things there is no law” (Gal 5:23). Most likely, it is meant to parallel the conclusion to the list of “the works of the flesh in v 21. “Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God!” But what exactly does v 23b mean?

Why do translations all say that Jesus gave up “his” spirit when the Greek behind “his” is the definite article, “the”? This is a good example of why knowing a little Greek may not always be helpful and why I wrote Greek for the Rest of Us.

The KJV gives us an unfortunate translation of the genitive in Galatians 2:7, which can be easily misunderstood as teaching that there are two different gospels. One gospel is for the Gentiles, while the second gospel is for the Jews. Speaking of the leaders of the Jerusalem Church, he says, “They saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision (τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τῆς ἀκροβυστίας) was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision (τῆς περιτομῆς) was unto Peter.” (τὸ εὐαγγέλιον is assumed from the previous phrase.)

Paul uses a grammatical device called “epexegetical” to explain what the “mystery” is. There are several ways of doing this, but in Ephesians 3:6 he uses an epexegetical infinitive to show that Jews and Gentiles alike are fellow heirs.

Because Greek is an inflected language, the grammar contains meaning that often is lost in translation. This is why translators have to add in words at times. They aren't adding to Scripture; they are trying to convey the full meaning of the grammar. The use of the word “all" in the NIV of Romans 3:24 is a good example.

We just finished recording a 20-hour class on Isaiah by Dr. John Oswalt. What an amazing lecturer, and what an amazing book. The class will be available on BiblicalTraining.org in about 6 months. But John pointed out an interesting passage where concordance was not kept.

We teach students to translate ἐάν as if, but often in a third-class conditional sentence doing so misleads. Sometimes "if" brings in an element of conditionality that was never intended by the speaker/writer."

Sorry I have been absent for so long. Between finishing the third edition of Greek for the Rest of Us, the laminate sheet, the workbook, building a pole building (that will house the new studio for BiblicalTraining.org) and bedroom addition, and moving to the cabin and trying to sell our home -- life has been a bit crazy. I won’t start M w/ M back up until September, but I do want to continue the discussion I began in Why I Trust the Bible. So the rest of that discussion will continue on Mondays.

What does it mean to "quench the Spirit"? Do you use the word "quench" other than to quench your thirst? Do you quench a candle? Satan's fiery arrows?

Every once in a while I come across a phrase that makes no sense in English, even in the NIV. I expect it more with translations like the NASB and ESV, but not the NIV. When this happens, it is often in a traditional and well-known passage.

There are a few places where the order of Greek words is really significant, and Paul's instructions for communion are one of those places. If you know the Greek, you will know how to read 1 Corinthians 11:24–26 publically.

Prof Bart Ehrman is famous for his rhetorically powerful statement that there are more differences among the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament than there are words. It is true that there are about 400,000 differences among the 5,500 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, but the real question is one of significance. How many differences could be authentic, and how many do impact the meaning of the verse?

I heard a popular preacher the other day say that he will not accept any theology that allows for suffering. All suffering, he says, is outside of God’s will and the experiences of an obedient Christian. There are few things that are more wrong than this absurdly non-biblical statement.

There is a thin line between translation and commentary. All Greek and Hebrew sentences need some level of interpretation to make sense in English, but sometimes translators go past that line and become commentators. Here are a couple examples.

Sometimes participles are turned into indicative verbs, especially when the translator feels the sentence is too long. But in doing so, important information on the meaning of a verse can be obscured. Is anyone out there able to just "cast" their anxiety on the Lord? If the participle in 1 Peter 5:7 is left as a participle, it contains a clue on how to do this.

Adverbial participles are capable of a wide range of meanings, and the translator has to use context to make a decision. In addition, Eph 2:1–7 is one long sentence, and sometimes subjects and verbs need to be moved around as the sentence is broken down into more manageable chunks.

Jesus asserts that unless a person’s righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees and scribes, they will not enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:20). He is not calling for more obedience, but for a deeper obedience that comes from the heart. He then covers five examples of this deeper obedience (murder, adultery [including divorce], oath-taking, retaliation, and loving your enemies). V 48 then concludes this portion of the Sermon on the Mount with the admonition, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (NIV),. This is probably a citation of Leviticus 19:2, which uses “holy” and not “perfect” (Deut 18:13 speaks of being “blameless”).

“Begotten” is the KJV translation of μονογενής in John 3:16. It describes the unique relationship of Jesus to the Father. However, the KJV “begotten” is based on a misunderstanding of how the word was formed. μόνος conveys the idea of “one and only” (“being the only entity in a class,” BDAG) and γενός refers to a specific “class” or “kind.” From γένος, English derives its word “genus,” i.e., “species.”

There are two words in Mark 1:12 that can be translated two different ways, and they both produce a different translation. Is Mark really picturing Jesus as a man in charge, "immediately" going from one thing to another? And did the Holy Spirit need to "drive" Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan, as if Jesus didn't want to go?

Matthew and Luke have two different genealogies for Jesus, not even agreeing on the name of his grandfather. Is this a contradiction? I will look at three possible solutions and the problems of each. The whole issue of genealogies is compounded by the fact that they can skip generations, the same person can have different names (or different spellings), and levirate marriage can result in a physical father and a legal father.

Matthew 5:19 illustrates several aspects of Greek. Perhaps the most interesting is how Greek can drop words out of the second half of a sentence that is parallel in structure. But it also shows the different meanings of οὕτως, and how a long clause can be the subject of the verb and also have it repeated with a demonstrative pronoun. I still remember in second grade a poster of a man with two hats, and the caption said, "The man he." That's poor English, but acceptable Greek, perhaps good Greek.

When the biblical writer sets of a parallel structure, I think it is important to try and keep that parallelism in translation. But there are times when doing so obscures the meaning of a word, and you have to choose between parallelism and accurately conveying the meaning of the word. In Matthew 7:13–14, is the path of discipleship “narrow” or “difficult”?

We are used to reading that "moth and rust" destroy earthly treasures, but some translations have "vermin" or a "devouring insect" (NET). BDAG says the reading "rust" "finds no support." Apparently, "rust" made its way into English through Tyndale and was made popular by the KJV.

There is meaning in Greek word order, but it is normally so nuanced that it can’t come out in translation. Ephesians 2:8–9 is one of the rare exceptions, illustrating how to emphasize a word or phrase by changing its normal position in the sentence. You can also watch this vlog on YouTube.

Sometimes the translator just has to make an interpretive decision. The Greek can mean one thing or something else, and you have to choose. Hebraic (or attributive) genitives often force this type of decision. 2 Corinthians 4:4.

Have you ever noticed that when you see something, perhaps something new or different, all of a sudden you start seeing it everywhere? You see a yellow car, and all of a sudden there are yellow cars everywhere? That’s how I’m feeling about the common belief that formal equivalent translations are better because they show the underlying Hebrew and Greek structures. My point is that in almost every (if not all) verse in the New Testament, the Greek has been altered in come way, and the only way to know when a verse reflects the underlying Greek is to know the Greek.