Are these 'claims' about Koine Greek correct?

[CoxRox]

Hi guys. I need some help please: I was checking out a web site, and one of it's 'claims' is:

''Prior to the twentieth century scholars had never come across any document that was written in the same type of Greek as the Bible. So they assumed the Bible was written in a special language; a language made specifically and only for the Bible itself. But at the turn of the twentieth century, so many original Greek manuscripts were pulled from the sands of Egypt that the mass of material was measured in the tons. And it wasn’t long before archaeologists realized these tons of materials were all written in the very same Greek as the Bible itself.'' http://theunhiddenbible.org/

What the author goes on to claim, is that NT manuscripts were translated using classical Greek meanings, rather than Koine Greek meanings and so the Bible translations we have today, contain many errors that obviously cause the original meaning to be lost.

Upon trying to check out these things I noticed this book being recommended on some web sites : 'A Grammar of Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research' A. T. Robertson. Has anyone checked this book out? I'm wondering if this book would verify what the above website claims? Any help regarding this would be most appreciated.

[Markos]

No. The discovery of the papyri helped us pin down some nuances of a few Greek NT words, but they do not fundamentally alter our understanding of Ancient Greek in general or the Greek NT in particular. And anyway, several translations including the NIV and the NASB do make use of the papyri and/or lexcons (BDAG) that do so.

[CoxRox]

No. The discovery of the papyri helped us pin down some nuances of a few Greek NT words, but they do not fundamentally alter our understanding of Ancient Greek in general or the Greek NT in particular. And anyway, several translations including the NIV and the NASB do make use of the papyri and/or lexcons (BDAG) that do so.

Thanks for your help Markos.

[LSorenson]

You can download Robinson in a MS Word format from http://www.letsreadgreek.org/resources. An html version of it (in an entire file) can be found at

http://www.letsreadgreek.org/resources/robertsongrammar/wordcleaner/robertson_greekgrammar.html

This path will change some time in the future, but it is there for now.

The discoveries of the papyri told us that the Greek of the New Testament was not 'Special' Greek. Before then, many of the words in the Greek New Testament were hapax legomena (ἅπαξ λεγόμενα), words which were hitherto unattested in any Greek literature (Attic, Homeric). The papyri show us that the language of the New Testament was that of the common folk -- 'Street Greek', not that of erudite literature and not Attic.

Look at Robertson and read the relevant chapter.

[CoxRox]

You can download Robinson in a MS Word format from http://www.letsreadgreek.org/resources. An html version of it (in an entire file) can be found at

http://www.letsreadgreek.org/resources/robertsongrammar/wordcleaner/robertson_greekgrammar.html

This path will change some time in the future, but it is there for now.

The discoveries of the papyri told us that the Greek of the New Testament was not 'Special' Greek. Before then, many of the words in the Greek New Testament were hapax legomena (ἅπαξ λεγόμενα), words which were hitherto unattested in any Greek literature (Attic, Homeric). The papyri show us that the language of the New Testament was that of the common folk -- 'Street Greek', not that of erudite literature and not Attic.

Look at Robertson and read the relevant chapter.

Thank you so much. I've downloaded Robinson and saved it.

[refe]

Wallace has a great history of Koine Greek and what we know about it in his intermediate grammar Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics. It also includes a discussion of the level of Greek found in the various books of the New Testament, which he believes range from vulgar - or 'street-level' as someone else put it - such as the writings of John, conversational as in most of the writings of Paul, and literary Koine (not to be confused with Classical Greek) which you can find in Luke's writing, as well as 1 Peter, James, and Hebrews.