Valuable Resource for Learning Greek: Singing Grammarian FREE!

During my days as a student learning Greek, one of the challenges is in trying to memorize the Greek alphabet, various word endings, and to be familiar with the grammar of Koine Greek. For students in the English speaking world, it can be a weird experience speaking a different language. A helpful tool for me was music and singing. By letting the melodies guide our memorization, we can not only learn the grammar faster, we can also have some fun in it to loosen up. The list of 17 videos covers:

1. Articles
2. Greek Alphabet 
3. Aorist Active and Middle
4. Future Active and Middle
5. First Declension
6. Second Declension
7. Third Declension
8. Imperatives
9. Infinitives
10. Liquid Verbs
11. Participles
12. Passives
13. Present Active Indicative
14. PluPerfect
15. Present, Middle and Passive
16. Secondary Endings
17. Subjunctive

When this grammar resource was launched in the first quarter of 2013, I was among the first to review the songs. Due to some recent changes, the author, Danny Zacharias has decided to make his whole work available for free on Youtube. If you want to support their work, you can download/purchase a high-quality video here.

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Midweek Meditation: "Mark 4:38"

One of the key Greek teachers that I have learned from is from Dr Bill Mounce, whose texbook on learning biblical Greek has been used in many seminaries. During my Greek classes, there will be a short application of a Greek passage, where the nuances of the language are highlighted, making our commonly used English translations less accurate when we have the original text at hand. Remember again that every translation in itself is an interpretation. This week, Mounce shared on Mark 4:38 which reads differently among various translations.

Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?" (Mark 4:38, NIV)

But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (Mark 4:38, ESV)

Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, "Teacher, don't you care that we're going to drown?" (Mark 4:38, NLT)

These translations raise a problem. Are the disciples already drowning, or are they simply worrying about drowning? The NIV basically inserts the word 'if' that suggests a possibility of drowning. It looks analytical. The ESV is a better translation but falls short of the drama of drowning. The NLT also does not escalate the actual fear as well as the original Greek. Mounce observes that there is a blatant absence of the Greek word εἰ (“if ”) in the original text.

 Mounce writes:

That makes sense, until you start looking at the Greek and the other translations. Word for word, the disciples say, “Teacher (διδάσκαλε), is it not a concern to yo (οὐ μέλει σοι) that we are perishing (ὅτι ἀπολλύμεθα;)? It is the present tense ἀπολλύμεθα and the absence of εἰ (“if”) that caught my eye. (link)

The word "perishing" is in the present continuous, which means the disciples were actually in the process of drowning, highlighting the urgency of their cries to Jesus. This is a significant with regards to those of us struggling through life. It tells us that Jesus is smack at the center with us, in the midst of our struggles through this life. We are not alone. For God is with us, not in terms of a distant promise, but a near reality. God can be trusted.


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