Does the Greek Really Say?
Be careful when a pastor says: “It says in the Greek …” In this video clip:
Around 39 minutes in, the pastor says (according to the transcript):
John didn’t tell us but I tell you what John did do John gave us the Greek word … and I will give credit to David Guzik who did my homework for me as he does everybody’s homework. David Gusik points out the use of a Greek word Katagraphini, not graphine which is like just generally writing. Katagraphine is somebody writing a charge against you. It’s kind of like in modern culture when somebody breaks out their phone and they start videoing you in traffic what are they doing? What is Karen up to? Forgive me if your name’s Karen. I’m sorry what happened to your name. But what are they doing? People want to get you on video cuz they want to use that against you you. That is kind of graphini in written form. Whatever the Lord wrote was between him and those wolves, and so gracious is he that he kept it discreet between him and them. Can you picture them? What sayest thou? And then he starts writing start looking at each other and then you got to get around there to see what he’s writing and then find somewhere else to be. Goodness look at the time. He wrote what triggered their memory. That tells them that he knows their participants they’re guilty …
What Jesus wrote in the dirt has been a mystery for 2000 years. It seems like if the answer were this easy, there would be some journal article, some commentary, or some ancient writer who would have picked up the distinction made here—between writing and recording—and solved this mystery. In fact, if that is what the Greek says, why is there no single translation that uses the word “record” rather than “write” in John 8:6?
- Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. —ESV
- But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground. —NASB95
- But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. —NIV
This is one of those things that makes me go: “Hmmmmm?” What does the Greek actually say?
Egraphen is translated as “to write,” but the word stands alone in the original text. There is NO katograhen here. There are alternate Greek readings, of course, available in an apparatus. However, none of the alternate readings have katographen—they all have egaphren.
This entire section of the sermon—which this pastor has given many times—is entirely wrong.
The emphasis on Jesus “taking out his cell phone to record the Pharisees for us in court later,” is based on something that is not in the Scriptures.
Maybe this isn’t a significant point—we don’t need to know what Jesus wrote in the dirt. But then … why emphasize it so strongly? Why not check such a basic thing in the text itself? Not knowing Greek is not an excuse here—you can see it in the original text above, even if you do not know Greek.
If this pastor didn’t check this fundamental point, what else hasn’t he checked?
A single error of this kind undermines the entire sermon. It should, in this case—because there is a lot of bad theology in this sermon and a lot of reading into the text things that are not there.
How did this mistake happen? While we cannot know, there is a plausible answer. In many Bible study software programs, there is a reverse interlinear tool. Rather than placing the English gloss or surface translation under the Greek, a reverse interlinear places the Greek source under the English gloss or surface translation. Instead of following the order of the words in the original Greek, a reverse interlinear follows the order of the words in the English translation. The image below is what the reverse interlinear looks like in this passage:
“Bent down” is kato, and “wrote” is egraphen. The ESV—places these two words next to one another. This ordering is perfectly acceptable—Greek word order is often far different from English because the languages work differently.
When you reorder the Greek words to match the English, these two words are placed next to one another, and kato egraphen appears.
A sloppy reading can now remove the word “down” (because, after all, where else would one “bend?”), join kato to egraphen, dropping the extra “e,” and produce the magical katographen so much is made of in this sermon.
When a pastor says: “But it says in the Greek…” be careful.
You can often add richness to the depth of a passage by looking into the original languages–but if you think you’ve found a meaning no one else has ever found, you are probably wrong.