Month: November 2017

Coming Soon(ish): Historical and Theological Lexicon of the Septuagint

/ Fr. Thomas Sandberg / Leave a comment

Abrak K-J with some great news.

Words on the Word

From publisher Mohr Siebeck:

Edited by Eberhard Bons and Jan Joosten (Université de Strasbourg)

This large-scale collective and interdisciplinary project aims to produce a new research tool: a multi-volume dictionary providing an article of between two and ten pages (around 600 articles in all) for each important word or word group of the Septuagint. Filling an important gap in the fields of ancient philology and religious studies, the dictionary will be based on original research of the highest scientific level.

This project has benefitted from funding from the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (French Research National Agency), the Maison Interuniversitaire des Sciences de l’Homme – Alsace (Strasbourg), the Melanchthon-Stiftung (Tübingen), and the Armin Schmitt Stiftung (Regensburg).

The first volume is projected to be published in 2018.

You can check out a lengthy PDF sample here, with a “Wordlist of the First Volume,” as well as some sample articles.

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How to Read Greek (and What to Read)

/ Fr. Thomas Sandberg / Leave a comment

A funny thing is that Evangelicals, Protestants, and Catholics who actually know some Greek (as opposed to the “codebreaker types within those religions) answer the question of how to improve one’s Greek with something along the lines of “Read, read, read; and then read some more.”

The Greek Orthodox Church in North America, on the other hand, will teach Neohellenic Greek in their Greek schools (to be fair, I’ve found three Greek parishes in all of North America that teach “New Testament Greek”) to keep the culture alive while the Orthodox Church in Greece commends ignorance of Koine as “Koine has contributed to the “mystery” of the liturgy” The Fathers of the Church would be livid, as anyone familiar with St. Basil can assure you.

Lets us of the Greek Orthodox tradition remember that all Greek—from Homeric to Attic to Hellenistic/Koine to Medæval/Byzantine to Katharevousa to Demotic to Neohellenic—are all very much and absolutely an inextricable part of our Modern Hellenic culture, but more importantly, a part of our Eastern Roman religious heritage.

With that said, here are some suggestions on how to improve one’s Greek that I’ve found helpful and of which I implement:

9 October 2012 – N.T. Wright on learning Greek, and a review of A Reader’s Hebrew and Greek Bible by Zondervan

24 November 2012 – Do You Need to Speak Greek in Order to Read it?

1853? – The Greek of Homer a Living Language

11 December 2013 – Daily Greek Reading Setup

5 August 2015 – Keep Your Greek: Don’t Lose Your Vocabulary

17 September 2015 – 5 Ways to Improve Your Greek Speaking Skills

27 June 2017 – A Strategic Approach to Reading Background Texts of the New Testament (tangent to this is Increase Your Brain Power with Classics)

4 July 2017 – This Is Why You Should Study the Apocrypha Alongside the New Testament

6 July 2017 – Practice Greek Like a Master Violinist

Greek New Testaments: Spoiled for Choice!

/ Fr. Thomas Sandberg / Leave a comment

Byzantine Text.

Larry Hurtado's Blog

Those who want to read the New Testament writings in Greek are now spoiled for choice, with several recent editions published.  Most recently, there is the edition just published mentioned earlier this week here, a project based in Tyndale House (Cambridge), edited by Dirk Jongkind.  A few years back now, there appeared the edition prepared under the auspices of the Society of Biblical Literature (edited by Michael Holmes, my posting on that edition here).  And, of course, there is also the most recent (28th) edition of what has become the standard hand-edition, the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament (my posting here, and the edition’s home page here).

As indicated briefly in my earlier postings, each edition has its own character, layout, editorial policies, and intended uses.  The SBL edition and the brand-new Tyndale House edition both offer free digital forms.  The Nestle-Aland 28th edition can be read…

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Reading in 3s

/ Fr. Thomas Sandberg / Leave a comment

This is excellent advice, and after reading this, I suggest reading this from The Patrologist as well. The comments especially, where it is asked of him, “Having finished elementary Greek, would you suggest any particular Greek grammars/authors? Just start reading Greek? Where should I begin in moving out to classical Greek?” To which he responds with,

“I’d say just get on with reading a lot of Greek, as much as possible. If you’ve finished elementary (NT) Greek, then start working at reading the New Testament, as much as possible. Start easy – John, Mark, and get to harder texts later. Try out Reading in Threes (https://thepatrologist.com/2017/05/22/reading-in-3s/). Then branch out to the Apostolic Fathers, they are a good bridge out of New Testament Greek.

At some point, depending on your goals, it’s worth branching into some Classical. In terms of texts, anything on Geoffrey Steadman’s site (geoffreysteadman.com) is great. A grammar is not a terrible idea, but for now I’d just say read, read, read.”

 

The Patrologist

This was mentioned to me by a student recently in a small group class that I am kind-of mentoring, and I think it’s worth adapting and sharing. The original idea, or at least where the student got it from, is Daniel Wallace, here. It’s the idea that you should translate each chapter of the New Testament three times, and rotate chapters in and out of rotation.

Now, I don’t really think you should be translating, I think you should be reading passages at a level you can comprehend with just a little bit of help. But I do think this idea has a lot of merit. Here’s how I’m implementing it in my own readings: the rule of 3s (see also Where Are Your Keys technique: Three Times)

So, say I’m reading a text, like Ørberg’s Roma Aeterna (which I happen to be. Everyone raves about the first book, Familia…

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Freemasonry: Antithetical to Orthodox Christianity

/ Fr. Thomas Sandberg / Leave a comment

Preamble

Recently a priest asked me for some information on the Freemasons. He had an Orthodox Christian who was thinking of joining. Below is the response I sent him based upon my knowledge and experience; and just as I prefaced my emailed response to him with “Freemasonry, and I warn you this will be crazy” in the “subject” box, so also I want to make this clear to my readers. However, since you’re reading a blog about demonology you are aware of these things or at least prepared to be made aware.

Freemasonry

The biggest obstacle when addressing the Masonry issue is the fact that if one goes beyond the first three common “Blue Lodge” degrees, it gets more seductive, even in theoretical exploration. Obviously, this is so, because the source behind it is demonic.

There are basically two ways to view the history of Freemasonry, and which of the two one follows ties into how one views the world and who runs it overall. Those who follow the worldview indoctrinated into us by government schools and forced government curriculums will usually believe we as a collective global species are in some form of democratic control of our societies; along these lines fall the belief that Freemasonry essentially appeared out of nowhere on June 24th, 1717 with the founding of the Premier Grand Lodge of England.

Another view is that the world is controlled by a ruling elite (Kings) who answer in some form to beings who came down from above (gods) and that there has been a deliberate attempt to obfuscate the origins of the Craft, origins which go back to the Antediluvian period of human history, and the secrets of Freemasonry are contained within their rituals (or at least were at one point), these secrets being the pre-Flood knowledge. So looking at this as an Orthodox demonologist, I would ask two things: what is the point of Freemasonry for/upon its Initiates? And further, what do we the uninitiated, but Orthodox Christians, know about the Antediluvian knowledge and its source?

The answer to the first is that the point of Freemasonry is to make “better men out of good men.” Now, of course, this makes no sense to those not ensnared, especially since how much better than ‘good’ can one possibly be? But of course this is the honey which though sweet, traps the fly: it lures by appeal to vanity, it tells one that one is good. It is easy to see how when one is alone with one’s thoughts, or the thoughts that one perceives as one’s own (λογίσμοι), one could think it would be good to become better: who wouldn’t want to become more than what one already is? So essentially one becomes better not through Christ, but through the ritualized lessons which instill the Antediluvian teachings upon the Initiate. And this leads us to what we know about the pre-Flood knowledge, which is that it was taught to mankind by the Fallen angels. The Church Fathers knew this, the author of Jude’s epistle knew this, the books of Genesis, Enoch, and Jubilee’s teach this, and every single significant culture which records a flood also records an Antediluvian period where gods came down, interbred with us, gave us heroes who gave us Kings, and then a higher diety causes a flood to end the heroes and corruption of the species. It’s in the Egyptian and Sumerian king lists and seen in the Hebrew and the Hellenic cultures.

That’s basically the only way to approach it. The two options listed above. Acceptance of the first is what they want you to do, and warning someone not to join due to the second will increase the seductive pull of what is known, at least in the Western Esoteric Tradition, as “the secret teachings of all ages.”

It goes without saying that this is the “Cole’s Notes” version of the history and dark force behind not just Freemasonry, but all Secret Societies that have kept the ancient Antedivulian teachings and continuously passed them on. But we can see from this that the real history of Freemasonry ultimately goes hand in hand with the idea that the Church is mistaken, that Christ is unnecessary, and at best that He is simply one among many of the world’s Teachers.

I’d say it is safe to say that Freemasonry is a religion of its own, and I believe Freemason Albert Pike even wrote of it that way. The ritual material and symbolism, and introductory material which is available make it clear that on the surface level Freemasonry is a Deist-syncretic religion, which of course is congruent with the public history of Freemasonry appearing in the 18th century when Deism became popular. Knowledge of the commonly accepted history of Freemasonry has been enough for it to be condemned in 1821 by Pope Pius VII in his encyclical Ecclesiam a Jesu Christo (however Vatican II I think lifted the automatic excommunication of Catholics who took the oath(s) and joined the Craft, and the reasons behind that are far beyond the scope of an email); by the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church of Greece around 1930, and even condemned by name by ROCOR in the Anathemas of the Sunday of Orthodoxy since at least the year 2000, according to my research.

Further to the point of the incompatibility of the two is that, as far as my understanding of canon law goes, since ROCOR has condemned Freemasonry to the point of anathematizing Freemasons in the Church, all other churches recognize the rulings of local Synods until the time a Great Synod gathers and includes among its points to be discussed subjects such as though ruled on at local Synods. As an interesting tangent with that last point, I think ROCOR condemned Ecumenist as a heresy in 1983, so this too is to be respected until a Great Synod.

Further Reading