From her comments it seems she cannot get her mind out of the gutter and somehow she just cannot connect the dots on any subject.

The most frightening thing is that she used to be a high school teacher.

why are all loud stupid air-head women fat? Is it somehow related? The only reasonable babe on the view is thin.

Roger Waters on January 10, 2008 at 11:23 AM

And she just had a baby, too.

But seriously, nice to see a post on Hotair that isn’t full of a bunch of people attacking the Catholic Church.

WillBarrett on January 10, 2008 at 12:00 AM

Not very many 11-year old boys here, I presume.

/puts on Kevlar vest.

I don’t like the focus on latin personally. I can understand a Catholic Theologian focusing on it because all of the documents in the Vatican are in Latin. But as a protestant, rummaging through Vatican libraries isn’t my interest. Besides, why read Virgil when I can read Homer?

And since I’m bad at languages, I do have to be selective.

What an ignoramous. I guess Moses, Jesus, St. Paul et al were psychotic as well…..Mother Teresa who changed India because of her benevolence was pychotic? Goody Proctor

that ? is extremely misplaced… please do some research b/f you opine as if it’s fact.

I’m not Eastern Orthodox, and living in Wisconsin there are few near me. As far as Icons go, if I remember correctly, they pray through the icon to God or Jesus. It’s supposed to be like a window to heaven, you aren’t looking at an exact representation, you’re looking into the beyond and it helps focus your prayers.

Keljeck on January 9, 2008 at 11:39 PM

That is basically what I was taught growing up in the Eastern Orthodox Church – there is no worship of icons, but rather they are used as a point of focus during prayer. Even though gestures are routinely made of kissing an object depicted on the icon (perhaps a bible being held by Jesus) or a blessing given to the icon by a priest, they are not worshiped.

Well, I need to learn Koine Greek eventually. But Homer isn’t in Koine Greek.

Keljeck on January 10, 2008 at 12:53 AM

It has been my experience never to have met a theologian, other than an Orthodox one, with good Greek. This is because they only (or nearly only) study New Testament Greek. (And this in turn because their passion is not for the language itself, but they study the language as a vehicle to something else.)

The problem is that one would get a warped view of the language by studying only the Late Antique version. Words will come up which are hapax legomena as far as the Scriptures are concerned, but common in other texts. Same goes for constructions. You can look the words up, of course, but you only get a feel for them after reading, well, page after page after page of Plato. And Modern Greek as well, which in many ways in closer to Alexandrian Greek than is Classical Attic.

Further, theologians come to the texts with lots of preconceived ideas (maybe good, maybe bad, but certainly a priori), which they seek to validate by an appeal to the text. Thus, there’s a lot of wresting of natural meaning in the service of dogma. And this is made possible because theologians never take the long, long, long time it takes to become really comfortable in Greek (much more than in Latin or German), so it’s always something unnatural, analytical, debatable.

So, the thing to do is not to learn Koine Greek, but simply Greek, in all its forms but with emphasis on Homer and Classical Attic (Xenophon, Plato, Thucydides). Enjoy the language for its own sake. Then, later on, the New Testament and Septuagint will come easily, as a bonus.

And I do highly recommend Modern Greek. For a start, learn the correct pronunciation of Greek, the pronunciation used both by the Orthodox church and by millions of Greek schoolkids, who learn the ancient forms of their mother tongue with ease. It’s also, as shown by mispellings in the papyri, very very close to the pronunciation of the language during Late Antiquity.

All the best. Sorry to fly, but it’s after 8:00am here and I gots to go…

The major point of contention with Arianism is that they said Jesus wasn’t God incarnate, he was a creature of God. It was declared a heresy.

Tzetzes on January 10, 2008 at 12:48 AM

Well, I need to learn Koine Greek eventually. But Homer isn’t in Koine Greek.

I have a friend here who absorbs languages. He’s going for a minor in every language at this college. I wish I had that ability.

When I was doing my viva (my oral defense), someone asked me why I didn’t do any translations into English, to make my work useful to, say, undergraduates. The main reason was that an already-huge thesis would have become all the huger. But another reason is that undergraduates should be spending their time reading Homer, not commentaries on Homer.

If you want to get good at Ancient Greek, read Homer and Plato and learn to speak Modern Greek. But, boy, what an undertaking. Better to do Icelandic and Anglo-Saxon, which are much easier but still give great literary yields.

Tzetzes on January 10, 2008 at 12:40 AM

Sorry, I wrote that too fast and didn’t proofread. In that sentence I was referring to John Tzetzes’ work.

And if I ever become proficient enough in Ancient Greek I’ll try to remember that book.

Keljeck on January 10, 2008 at 12:21 AM

No need: Viscount Norwich writes in (very good) English.

What I do know is that they produced Ulfilas, with his totally bitchin’ Bible translation!

I was taught that you pray through the saints. I liken it to asking a friend to go to bat for you with someone you don’t know well, but need a favor from. Also, you can’t become a saint based on actions while you are alive. You become a saint after death. Typically it is a person who lived a holy life like Mother Teresa. After death, at least 3 miracles need to be attributed to them. Saint Katherine Drexel comes to mind for a U.S. Saint.

You sure you’re Methodist? ;)

Well, I don’t believe in the Assumption of Mary, the Immaculate Conception, Transubstantiation, that Mary is Co-Redemptrix, the Primacy of the Pope, Mary’s Perpetual Virginity, mortal and venial sins, Purgatory, Indulgences…

I just know a lot about them. But remember, John Wesley was the first guy to translate Thomas Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ into english. And I have far more respect for the Catholic Church and their rich history and tradition than other commenters here.

Tzetzes on January 10, 2008 at 12:01 AM

I took Ancient Greek last year thinking that it would be a good idea to get it out of the way before Seminary, while having my languages done with fast (I’m a Sophomore now). Problem is that I’m bad with other languages, and I didn’t attack Greek the way I should have. Since it was so foreign to me (“What do you mean it declines!?) I ended up passing with a B+, when it should have been a D or C given that my final was a 50%

He told me it was a “promise.” I quit the class. Hopefully I can do better in Seminary, and I still have the books so maybe I can go through it again in my free time. But that’s me, one semester of Attic Greek. At least it’s enough to make out John 1:1. Take that Arians!

But I’m going to bookmark that book. When I get some money and time I’ll pick it up. I’ve got my reading list full right now, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms is going to take FOREVER to complete.

And if I ever become proficient enough in Ancient Greek I’ll try to remember that book.

Its good to see Joy Behar reaffirming her complete lack of redeeming qualities though. E.H. is still a hottie…

Simple guy with an old rulebook for greek on your name? :P

Not a rulebook exactly. John Tzetzes was the greatest scholar of the twelfth century. The work I wrote my thesis on (my fiancee and I met where true love usually happens–over copies of Nicetas Choniates) was his Iliad Allegories. He wrote these for Bertha von Sulzbach, a German princess who had come to Constantinople as a diplomatic bride. (Her fiance Manuel, the third of four sons, ended up becoming emperor.) She was very pious and wanted also to become a patroness of the arts, but knew Greek only as a foreign language and hadn’t grown up with the ancient authors. So Tzetzes was engaged basically to give her a crash course in Hellenic learning: everything a body oughtta know about the Trojan War, in an easy form of Greek.

So, I compared what he tells her with what he says to more advanced audiences in higher-register language and how he interprets Homer (with his three kinds of allegory: historical, anagogical and physical, and his critiques of other writers). Mythology, oratory, philosophy and lies. Excellent fun! And honestly much more straightforward than all that theology stuff.

By the way, if you want an excellent political history of Byzantium for the general reader, you can do no better than John Julius Norwich. Get the three-volume one, not the condensed. (Even the big one is only an average of a page per year!) Of course, I never let anybody see me reading this at Oxford, but the fact is that, popularizing is not a bad thing and Norwich writes wonderfully, based heavily on primary texts and with the language of a current-day Gibbon, though rather more sympathy for his subjects.