I am seeking to connect the people to a deeper knowledge of the Scriptures. A knowledge of the original languages will only aid that further and take one deeper than just reading all available translations on the market.

I think just about everyone here is in agreement in that with you.

I am a pastor. There are some people in my church who don’t know that the Bible was written in languages that are no longer used today. They had no clue. When I was in high school, many people–both in the youth and older–didn’t know about the Greek and Hebrew. They just had no clue. Others think that the translations are just as inspired as Paul or James or Moses or David were. They aren’t. So people will assume bad translations, found in all translation philosophies, are what God had inspired. Teaching the people about the original languages and to acquaint the people with them will help them learn where the Bible came from and to actually study up on a passage and ask questions that go deeper than just what the English conveys.

Reading multiple translations will always be of great benefit. But there are some terms in the original languages that are too hard to translate, even in a dynamic translation. The best known example of this is the Greek term “love.” We all know that there are multiple Greek words for this English word. Only by on original language study can one fully understand all the forms of love and the type of love in a given context. Pretty much every translation I have read never really distinguishes between philadelphos agape.

I am seeking to connect the people to a deeper knowledge of the Scriptures. A knowledge of the original languages will only aid that further and take one deeper than just reading all available translations on the market.

The original sayings and teachings of Jesus were in Aramaic and at some point were translated into Greek.

God inspired Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John to write them down in Greek. So while that is a good point, I don’t think it has much weight in this. God inspired the Gospel writers to write Jesus’ words in Greek, not Aramaic.

I think it is important to read up on the various translations and realize the issues that surround each one.  Armed with that knowledge and using multiple translations will reduce those issues.

We are not Muslims. The Bible is translatable and remains the Word of God when translated. If the Septuagint was good enough for Paul and for many (most?) of the other early believers, why shouldn’t the ESV or NIV or NRSV or whatever be good enough for us?

This, to me, is about the priesthood of the believer. Let the people read the original languages. Let them discern for themselves whether their translation was right or not. The translators should just worry about getting the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic into English with as much precision as possible and let the readers discern its meaning. Let us empower the people to read the whole Bible for all its worth.

You have seen why I don’t like Sunday School in the church today: it is just an hour long devotion. Originally Sunday School was a school. It is time that it gets back to being a place of learning, not cheezy devotions that really do not challenge the mind and soul of believers.

Yes Greek is very hard to learn, I am finding out right now. But before I sat in a class room and was trying to memorize different paradigms of the different declensions and verbs, I was using online resources to get a better understanding of the original texts. That is what I am proposing, using Sunday School to maybe teach the different concepts behind a perfect tense verb or an aorist tense verb. Teach them how to recognize the tenses or a declension. I’m not talking about memorizing vocabulary but just an understanding of how the language works. Wednesday night would be another good place to teach the languages as well.

There are some excellent textbooks to teach biblical Greek and Hebrew. Bill Mounce has a book out that doesn’t have you learn paradigms but rather shows how the endings and stems work so that a person can pick out a verb or a noun or an adjective. I am really enjoying the book.

Perhaps not in Sunday school as we know it, but that does not exclude the general idea. Perhaps you set aside another time for it, like Wednesday night. I know in a lot of churches this would be hard to introduce and implement. However, the hardship does not take away from the need.

While I might disagree with this idea solving the translation issues, I think that it is very needed. I have said for a long time that churches need to be educators of the congregations and this is an excellent topic.

Back 30ish years ago I had 3 semesters of Koine Greek. To get a working, halting reading skill with Greek took 2 hours a week of classroom work, much study and relentless vocabulary work with flashcards.

(To my great regret now I let that skill slide then.)

Sunday School as I know it now is an hour each week, half of which in our case gets used for prayer requests. It’s very hard to get any traction in the material.