The writing of the New Testament of the Bible is an interesting story. Written by a group of Jewish men and one Greek doctor (Luke) it was written entirely in Greek. Yes, that is right! Jews who wrote in Greek. What you have to keep in mind was that Greek was the language everyone knew in those days. Today English is the world's most dominant language, but back then it was Greek. The particular form of Greek was called "Koinonia Greek" which basically meant "Common Greek". While it is very possible to understand the concepts of the New Testament without knowing Greek there are some words and background that help enrich the passages. What this blog proposes to do is to look at a few Greek words and explain them in a Greek cultural viewpoint. The reason I call them Athenian words is because Athens, the most famous of the Greek cities is the most well known and understood and we can use the lens of Athens to explore what these terms mean in the Greek language. They are not specifically Athenian words, we just understand them because of the Athenian writers in ancient times.
This is the Parthenon, the temple to Athena. Athena was the patron goddess of Athens known for her wisdom.
The first word is church or ekklesia in Greek. The word means assembly and it was a word that had a legal background. The city of Athens is famous as being the first Democracy in the world. This meant that all male citizens could come the assembly meeting and debate and vote on the laws and other matters that the people of Athens found important. The idea of Christians setting up a church or assembly was not something they made up on the spot but a word with a tradition. A word that meant a gathering together of the people to take care of the important matters in community. The people gathered on a hill called the Pnyx, and there they elected generals and city officials, as well as planned for the coming year and it had the powers of peace and war. There was no thought of individualism in this word. It was a word pregnant with meaning and it pointed to the glorious Greek past and carried on the tradition of Democracy in a new, religious way.
Next is the word boule, this word means council. According to Aristotle in his book The Athenian Constitution , the boule was a group of citizens who looked over all the matters of state with a fine tooth comb and decided which matters were the most pressing. From there they took these matters and brought them before the assembly and gave advice on the proper policy before the voting occurred. This council came to play a major role in defining what the city did, in fact they normally laid out the agenda and unless there was a heated issue or some other problem they usually got the suggestions they put forward. They were not all powerful and could be ignored by the assembly, but in reality they set the destiny of the city.
This brings us back to the New Testament:
" In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will" Ephesians 1:11
The word counsel there is that Greek word boule. It means that not only did God suggest we have an inheritance it means that he laid out the agenda. God is not merely an advice giver, he is a plan maker, an agenda setter and we should remember that when we see God "giving advice" we are really seeing a word that means God is setting up the plan he has always had in mind.
This is the Pnyx hill where the assembly met, you could look across and see the Parthenon from here.
Not really of spiritual value, but interesting none the less. The Parthenon is actually the Greek word for virgin. It was the temple to Athena the virgin. The story of the virgins in Matthew 25 refers to them as Parthenois, the plural form of Parthenon. ( That word was discussed just for fun).
Well I hope you have enjoyed our brief look at Greek culture seen through the prism of the New Testament, if you have any questions be sure to make a comment or send me a message. I would love to hear from you.
-Jason
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