It Sounds Good But…

One of the most important things I have learned in my studies of the Biblical languages is that one of the most dangerous persons on earth is one with a little knowledge of the languages. Here is a blog post that shows just how true that is when Rob Bell employs some Greek to shore up his point about anger. In the most simple terms I’ll explain what he does that is so wrong. Take the following sentence

I read the red book.

What Bell does is the same thing as calling “red” a past tense verb when it is clearly an adjective. Except what Bell does is call wrath an aorist verb when it is the object of an adverbial prepositional phrase that modifies an aorist verb in Mark 3:5,

After looking around [περιβλεψάμενος; nominative aorist middle participle] at them in anger [μετ' ὀργῆς; genetive singular feminine noun], grieved by the hardness of their hearts, he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.

Like I said, a little knowledge of Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic can kill a soul real fast. What is worse is that this kind of “exegesis” really undercuts the credibility and trustworthiness of the point Bell was making. I don’t watch Bell’s Nooma vids so I don’t know the point he made about anger. The blog post seems to look favorably on it and that is what hurts so much. A good point cut down by sloppy exegesis. Hopefully Bell can fix his misunderstanding of the languages and not undercut what he is saying.

The Post: Greek 101 with Rob Bell. This comment and this comment do a good job of putting out the nuance of the Greek in Mark 3:5 if your interested.

H/T: Ancient Hebrew Poetry