{"id":1555,"date":"2017-11-04T05:16:10","date_gmt":"2017-11-04T02:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/?p=1555"},"modified":"2017-11-04T05:16:10","modified_gmt":"2017-11-04T02:16:10","slug":"opening-the-new-testament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/1555\/opening-the-new-testament\/","title":{"rendered":"Opening the New Testament"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is my preface from Elpenor’s edition of the New Testament<\/a>. I’m publishing it here because Amazon will not always show the complete text. [You can read it also in Greek<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

OPENING THE NEW TESTAMENT<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

THE LANGUAGE of the Bible is not considered sacred in Christianity \u2014 however, two recognitions prevail.<\/p>\n

Any translation of the most important philosophical texts creates original forms, more or less giving birth to new meanings. Besides this, common in the Orthodox, the Roman Catholic and the Protestant Churches is the appreciation of all forms and periods of Greek, the whole organism of Greek thinking, as enormously important.<\/p>\n

Reading in Greek the New and the Septuagint Old Testament (cf. what I write about this in The Ancient Greeks<\/em><\/a>, Athens 2012, p. 12 ff), prepares conditions that support a deeper understanding of the biblical meanings, while in itself a contact with Greek elevates thinking abilities.<\/p>\n

Several ways to approach the text are possible, and to evaluate the prospects a certain precondition besides anything else should not be neglected, an awareness that the main foundation of all meaning lies in the Church, not in the biblical text alone, since the Church decided even the text. Without the Church or before the Church the Bible does not exist and is unthinkable. This truth may not please the Protestant soul, where the authority of the Church sinks in painful memories of the papacy, yet it remains accurate and unavoidable.[1]<\/p>\n

[1] The authority of the Church over the formation of the text regards mainly the Greek\u2013speaking Churches, since anywhere else a translation is used. As is obvious, a Greek edition can not be prepared by comparing manuscripts written in German or Latin \u2014\u00a0 and, if indeed the common understanding of the Church as a whole, not just of scholars, is the most important factor that determines the authenticity of the text, this understanding too should speak Greek. However, when changes occur in non Greek\u2013speaking Churches, they can be incorporated in the Greek text, provided that in the course of time they are ecumenically accepted. This is the reason, for example, that 1 John 5, 7\u20138, the passage about the \u2018three witnesses,\u2019 is accepted in the current edition, after the decision of the Holy Synod of the Great Church, although it is missing from all known Greek manuscripts written independently of the addition that was introduced in the Vulgate. The Churches are not free to re\u2013write the text at will, however, when decisions are necessary regarding the importance of the available manuscripts, probable deletions, etc \u2014 all those decisions that scholars make preparing a \u2018critical\u2019 edition \u2014 the opinion of a scholar is not the most important factor, but the opinion of the Church.<\/p>\n

_____________<\/p>\n

Any possible experience of the biblical text is established in the quality of Church life, wherefrom one learns even that the Bible exists. Our relation to everything, with most crucial and fundamental being the personal or potentially personal relationships, determines in the most essential dimensions how we read the Bible. In the first of John\u2019s epistles (4, 20) this primacy is obvious: \u1f41 \u03bc\u1f74 \u1f00\u03b3\u03b1\u03c0\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u1f00\u03b4\u03b5\u03bb\u03c6\u1f78\u03bd \u1f43\u03bd \u1f11\u1f7d\u03c1\u03b1\u03ba\u03b5, \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u0398\u03b5\u1f78\u03bd \u1f43\u03bd \u03bf\u1f50\u03c7 \u1f11\u1f7d\u03c1\u03b1\u03ba\u03b5 \u03c0\u1ff6\u03c2 \u03b4\u1f7b\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u1f00\u03b3\u03b1\u03c0\u1fb6\u03bd\u037e Something similar happens in the study of the biblical text \u2014 the quality of personal life determines the quality of the interpretation of the text, beyond what can be drawn by a disciplined intellect alone.<\/p>\n

The fundamental inferiority of so called \u2018critical\u2019 editions, the difference between the text that the Orthodox Churches recognize as genuine, without even official proclamations, and the texts various scholars try to establish under this pompous term, as if the life and the tradition of the Church were uncritical, becomes apparent in the same way. Those who are supposed to care the most, \u2018critical\u2019 scholars, suffer a surprising carelessness. Is a method established in classical philology the right or the best one when we try to determine the biblical text?<\/p>\n

In Platonic dialogues, for example, a \u2018critical\u2019 edition \u2014 even if research results sometime in a single and certain text \u2014 may have a priority, since Plato alone is the criterion of the genuineness of the text. If the criterion of authenticity lies in Church life, because the Church decided even the identity of the authors, only the Church can really discern the valid text, in a judgment that extends in centuries of a whole tradition of collective understanding.<\/p>\n

\u2018Critical\u2019 editions can contribute possible variations of meaning, perhaps even equally important alternative meanings \u2014 however, the text that is formed and shared in the tradition of the Church is always the most important and authoritative.<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t mean that the Church is continuously free of errors or that errors cannot persist even for centuries. History shows how such errors are traced in the Orthodox world.<\/p>\n

Anyone may have objections, and in the course of time the common understanding of the Church realizes what to keep or change. This shared understanding is followed always, whether it finds a formal expression in synodic decisions or not. Differences suggested by \u2018critical\u2019 editions can be evaluated too and be accepted or rejected.<\/p>\n

Here is an example of a significant difference between the text as formed in the tradition of the Orthodox Church and the text of a \u2018critical\u2019 edition. In the Gospel of Matthew (5, 22) \u03c0\u1fb6\u03c2 \u1f41 \u1f40\u03c1\u03b3\u03b9\u03b6\u1f79\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u1ff7 \u1f00\u03b4\u03b5\u03bb\u03c6\u1ff7 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03b5\u1f30\u03ba\u1fc6 \u1f14\u03bd\u03bf\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f14\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u1fc7 \u03ba\u03c1\u1f77\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9 (=everyone who is angry against a brother without reason will be found guilty in the Last Judgment). The \u2018critical\u2019 edition of Aland, Black, Martini, Metzger and Wikgren removes the adverb \u03b5\u1f30\u03ba\u1fc6 (=without reason): everyone who is angry will be found guilty…<\/p>\n

Accepting the \u2018critical\u2019 edition we have to infer that the distinction between bad and good anger does not belong to the first Gospel, being a later addition. This in itself, as we saw, is not a problem, if the \u2018augmented\u2019 version agrees with the common understanding of the Church \u2014 we are thinking now the importance of the meaning itself. The \u2018critical\u2019 edition prohibits absolutely a feeling that the text of the Orthodox Churches<\/a> rejects only under certain conditions.<\/p>\n

Conceding the hypothesis that an addition indeed occurred, the text established in the Orthodox Church can be judged according to literary criteria, according to its use by the Fathers of the Church, etc, \u2014 above all according to the traditional understanding of biblical truth. This way the Church perhaps will reject the adverb in the course of time.<\/p>\n

As it is, the New Testament of the Orthodox Churches<\/a> won\u2019t remove anger completely from human life, only the absurd form of it, keeping anger as a rational force, a power that denies forcefully the dark self of a person. Will a saint never feel angry, for any reason whatever? Then Christ is not a saint, because He entered the synagogue and threw all the tables and idols all over the place, as Salinger notes in Franny and Zooey, reminding that the Son of God in the New Testament has nothing to do with syrupy figures of a constantly meek teacher or with the foul mildness rightly rejected by the hero of the novel Catcher in the Rye:<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t even stand ministers. The ones they\u2019ve had at every school I\u2019ve gone to, they all have these Holy Joe voices when they start giving their sermons. God, I hate that. I don\u2019t see why the hell they can\u2019t talk in their natural voice. They sound so phony when they talk.\u201d<\/p>\n

It would be a contradiction to adopt uncritically the \u2018critical\u2019 editions, the claim that they offer a reliable version \u2014 even if they agree sometime with each other on a single text. They can\u2019t enjoy greater authenticity than the original New Testament used in the Greek\u2013speaking Orthodox Churches, approved by community life and a whole tradition that starts in the first churches of the Apostolic period and reaches without interruption to our days.<\/p>\n

However, one should care mainly about what Paul says (Cor. I, 2, 15) \u2014\u00a0 personal thinking is not to be replaced by the authority of any text whatever.<\/p>\n

In the absence of personal thinking all texts become useless, while thinking as formed in the experience of the Holy Spirit is able to suggest the truthfulness of a particular text without external support. Even beyond this, one must not forget that in ideal conditions the Bible is absolutely useless: how could have ever existed time or reason for reading, if a person\u2019s mind always kept the greatest possible contact with God?<\/p>\n

The New Testament Canon was formed to support the memory of the Church, like when we try to keep and strengthen our memory of a friend by reading letters, seeing photographs, etc: it is a body of texts \/ testimonies for the Incarnation of Christ and the life of the first churches. However, it is not a picture of some distant past: it contributes to the contact with the heart and living truth of the present time, it regards our constant spiritual birthday.<\/p>\n

The New Testament is a precious collection of personal memories, a book that is active even when closed, since it heals a mind even if only in the awareness that it contains something so close to a beloved person as His words, His Disciples, emotions, thoughts and wishes. A Church is not a remote audience, we are close to Him getting even closer day by day \u2014 to the most real self of ours, to the relationship that defines each of us personally in and beyond any other relationship.
\nOn this foundational understanding of the New Testament as a Place, where we arrive expecting a great help in order to recover memories of our most intimate relationship and genuine existence, intermediate developments may occur too, attempts to think on religious problems, etc.<\/p>\n

It is great to open the Bible having specific questions each time to ask, this way gaining a singular strength and inspiration in our reading. Two or three chapters each day can also offer a sort of refreshment, just to breathe the biblical spirit, sometimes before sleep, even to find a phrase to end our day with, to invite its Meaning in our dreams.<\/p>\n

Whatever the way one may prefer in reading the Bible, the urge of the Orthodox Liturgy remains always important: Wisdom upright let us listen! The Holy Book reveals its most essential value only when a mind is elevated beyond any particular question and answer.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

I would have respected the traditional formation of paragraphs, if one existed, but it does not, perhaps because manuscripts are divided only by chapters. Of course, grammar, syntax, vocabulary and any other aspect of the text is the one used by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (1904\/12 edition) and all Greek\u2013speaking Orthodox Churches, as corrected by the Church of Greece.[1]<\/p>\n

The present edition aims at personal study, which is the reason of using a relatively large typeface contrary to pocket editions that facilitate reading in the liturgy (something rather uncommon in Orthodox Churches), when one needs to stand up. Delenda are enclosed in [brackets,] but there is no reason for passages finally accepted, even after some doubt, to be printed in different font size or in any way marked and suffer some suspicion.<\/p>\n

To gain a familiarity with the method used in the preparation of the text, the identity of manuscripts compared, etc., you are welcome to read the introduction of the 1904 edition, published here in Greek, but supported also by a rather extensive summary in English, right after the first introductory text of the volume.
\nThe current edition is illuminated with images of Byzantine manuscripts, photos of churches in Athos Holy Mount and in other places in Greece, Orthodox Icons and various Orthodox drawings.<\/p>\n

_______________________<\/p>\n

\n

[1]\u00a0You can read more about the text in the Preface of the 1904 edition<\/a>\u00a0published here in Greek, with a summary<\/a> in English.\u00a0 Cf<\/em>.\u00a0also on\u2013line The 1904 New Testament Edition of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and Future Perspectives<\/i><\/a>, and Corrections to the Antoniades Patriarchal Greek Text of the New Testament<\/i><\/a>. I have silently corrected the name of \u0392\u03b5\u03c1\u03b5\u03bd\u03af\u03ba\u03b7 (instead of \u2018\u0392\u03b5\u03c1\u03bd\u03af\u03ba\u03b7\u2019) \u2014 cf. Acts 25, 13 and 23, Acts 26, 30.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

George Valsamis\u00a0 — Holy Easter 2012
\nPreface from Elpenor’s edition of the New Testament<\/a><\/p>\n

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This is my preface from Elpenor’s edition of the New Testament. I’m publishing it here because Amazon will not always show the complete text. [You can read it also in Greek.] _____ OPENING THE NEW TESTAMENT   THE LANGUAGE of the Bible is not considered sacred in Christianity \u2014 however, two recognitions prevail. Any translation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_disable_autopaging":false},"categories":[8,5,9,13,317,11,10],"tags":[332,3689,2027,1852,1775,94,100,778,2163,3682,3062,3676],"class_list":["post-1555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church-of-greece","category-education","category-europe","category-greek-history","category-greek-language","category-elpenor-greek-library","category-orthodox-christianity","tag-bible","tag-greek-bible","tag-greek-new-testament","tag-koine","tag-learning-greek","tag-new-testament","tag-old-testament","tag-orthodox-churches","tag-personal-relationships","tag-reading-the-bible","tag-salinger","tag-text-of-the-new-testament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1555\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}