Watchtower Greek where the mumbo meets the jumbo

Terry

Take a look at this photo of a now long extinct publication!
Ain't she a beauty?

Around 1976 I got the wild idea I'd like to learn Greek.
WHY?
Gosh - just look at the gorgeous purple book up there!
Actually - there was a reason for my study of the Christian Greek language.
Think about it.
This religious group has resorted to toying with the ~~"original meaning"~~ ploy over and over again.

Pastor Russell (at the urging of a reader named Keith) browsed his Emphatic Diaglott for (PAROUSIA) in regard to the language of the "original meaning" of Jesus 2nd "coming" and Russell just fell in love with an alternate meaning: "Arrival or presence."

A flimsy foundation for cult interpretation had been born.

BINGO!

I was actually wrestling with BELIEF in the JW structure and theology as a crisis of Faith at the time.
I was doing the infamous ~~private research~~ thingy.

Well, this story I'm about to tell has very little to do with the seriousness of that particular motive.
Nope.
The purple book proved - in the long run - to be quite disastrous for Jehovah's Witnesses as we all now know.
A comparison of the literal words side by side with the WATCHTOWER words was a Before and After comparison that exploded the myth of "Truth".

This little essay is more about how bored I was with the whole project and how I turned it into a way of showing off.

________________

It's really easy to learn the Greek Alphabet rather quickly after I started reading the purple INTERLINEAR (English/Greek) Bible aloud.

I set to practicing my enunciation. I'm a NERD, you must realize. Showing off a huge vocabulary is a Nerd idea of being admirable.
(Big joke as it turns out).

Who do I think I was kidding? Myself, I guess.

I could actually ~~read~~ the text (without a clue in the world what I was saying, of course.) I can still do this. It means nothing - but it sounds impressive.

I was eager to show off my profound linguistic ~~mastery~~ of Greek.

Where else to begin than the local Greek Restaurant in Redondo Beach, California where I lived at the time with my Jehovah's Witness wife and three small kids.

I had memorized The Lord's Prayer in Greek straight out of The Kingdom Interlinear Bible.

I know what you're thinking:
"What kind of nut does this?" I told you: I am a Nerd.
I memorized the digits of Pi to 50 decimal places and the entire Rime of the Ancient Mariner to show off in the 8th grade.

So many years later, I was 29 years old in 1976 and still up to my old tricks. My Plan?

I'd try and gain an audience of 2 Greek restaurant owners, Basil and Nicos. The opinion of experts would be a feather in my imaginary cap.

Conversationally I dropped a hint here and there I was a student (self-taught) of Greek.

Suddenly, Nicos was profoundly attentive!

He called his brother over. Apparently Greeks take their language VERY SERIOUSLY - with extraordinary emotional pride!

These guys really wanted to hear my recitation.

Gulp.

Filled, as I was, with enormous confidence and a bit of swagger, I began reciting phonetically but conversationally - the Our Father prayer ....

(Mind you - I had never HEARD Greek being spoken - I'd only read the dictionary pronunciation guides.)

I imagined I'd sound rather scholarly - if not authentically Greek as a - man- on -the-street of Athens might do in my speechifying.

Basil and Nicos listened intently - both slowly nodding ... following closely ... rapt attention all the way through.

I finished without a hitch ...awaiting the inevitable applause

and - likely a FREE MEAL or a vow of brotherhood. Greek citizenship by proxy.

Basil looked at Nicos.

Nicos peered back at Basil. They both stared at me...

Straightaway, they burst into laughter ...uproarious guffaws

rollicking belly laughs that just went on

and on ...

Big red face on me - and I knew the jig is up.

Finally, panting for air, Basil shook his head and placed a hairy paw on my shoulder.

"You must never do this again!

No my friend, stick with English.

If not for Greek's sake - for God's sake!"

This pretty much ended my ~~Greek scholarship~~. My fate paralleled Watchtower's embarrassment, I suppose you could say. They tried to fake it too.

EPILOGUE

I did manage to find use of my memorized prayer. Now and then, when telephone solicitors and bill collectors catch me with a phone call -- I resort to recitation. I sound - at the very least - like a non-English speaking imbecile. I immediately launch into a recitation of Greek (yes -mangled Greek). "Paw tur ho en tois hooran ois ..."

The person on the other end of the phone call will usually sputter and hang up on me.

That is solace, I think you'll agree! I get more use out of fake Greek than the Watchtower will. I'm a genuine idiot and they are merely phony ones.

dropoffyourkeylee

Funny, I did some of the same things, learning the Greek alphabet and a few words to be able to use the Interlinear. I even had a special copy of the Bible bound which had the NWT from Genesis to Malachi and the Interlinear for Matthew to Revelation. I still can't actually read the Bible in Greek (wish I could), but I can sound out the letters and use a lexicon.

eyeuse2badub

What is the greek word for bull shit? As in the Greek interlinear translation of bull shit?

But I really do like Greek yogurt!

just saying!

pseudoxristos

Ha! I did the same thing, except I somehow knew not to embarrass myself by trying what you did.

I wanted to be able to read the bible in the original language. I memorized the alphabet, learned the pronunciation and was beginning to be able to get the gist of what was written.

Now, I think that I can still probably read Greek aloud, but like you I would have no idea what I was saying.

Anna Marina

I tried to learn Greek and when I went on holiday I went to a Greek congregation. It was very difficult to understand. After a while I realised I was in the Albanian congregation.

BluesBrother

The Kingdom Interlinear NWT is not defunct... It is alive and well and digitised on their website.

dropoffyourkeylee

Yes, it is on the website, as well as the app that is used in the meetings.

I always wondered why the WT bothered to publish the Interlinear. At the time, they mostly were publishing books that were intended for offering at the door, ie: for sale, and the Interlinear wasn't something you could sell at the door. Only the JW's would be interested, and only a minority of them at that. The Interlinear had to be a loser money-wise.

It was patterned after Wilson's Diaglott, of course, which had been originally published in the 1800's and was often referenced by the Bible Students.

BluesBrother

It was released at a time when the Society had pretentions of being a Bible Study organization. Thia was 1969 at the week long Convention. I can remember Bro Knorr saying tbat we could use the volume in our ztudy and have " Fine Bible discussions"

Times have changed...

TD

I think you're being a little hard on yourself, Terry.

First, the pronunciation of most scholars will make native Greek speakers laugh, (Which is why some end up learning Modern Greek too) but then, ancient Greek and Latin are not learned as spoken languages.

Second, Ancient Greek and Modern Greek are not the same thing. -No more so than Old English and Modern English are the same thing.

Here for example is the Lord's Prayer in Old English:

Fæder ure

ðu ðe eart on heofenum

si ðin nama gehalgod

to-becume ðin rice

geweorþe ðin willa on eorðan swa swa on heofenum.

Urne ge dæghwamlican hlaf syle us to-deag

and forgyf us ure gyltas

swa swa we forgifaþ urum gyltendum

ane ne gelæde ðu us on costnunge

ac alys us of yfle.

The Greek of the Bible is even older than this.

Since that time, the sentence structure has changed, some of the inflection has been lost, spellings have changed, an indefinite article eventually evolved and many new words have been coined.

If you had kept at it to the point where you could read the classics and enjoy them, you would would have been ahead of Nico and Basil, who would have struggled.

SadElder

Didn't you just love those old WT studies where they had Greek and Hebrew words? Most of the readers at the meeting never bothered to make any effort to find out the proper pronunciation. At one point I wrote the teaching and writing committees and suggested that if we were to continue to put such words in the Watchtower, why couldn't they at least put in the phonetic pronunciations as well. Of course they never bothered to respond.

Watchtower Greek where the mumbo meets the jumbo

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