General

A poem

Of old did Noah speak to his chosen,
To Shem and after him Japheth, his sons;
And from Japheth the isles of the gentiles,
His lordly son, nam’d Ashkenaz becomes!

Were they a little people so despised?
And yet rough caterpillars multiply,
Ancient Troy, the eastern guard of Asia,
Until Woden, to northern fastness fly.

Expand upon the shores of the Black Sea,
And then beyond boreal bounds their hand,
In icy wood and marish, axe men born,
Against iron Rome came they to England;

To Christ they turn’d, and to the world they rose;
Far by sea have they spread out, strong stand we,
Our tongue to give God’s Word to all nations;
Rising up with eagles’ wings, unweary.

(In honour of the faithful Protestants
And martyrs as recorded by John Foxe;
For still their blood speaks more than monuments,
Their deeds endure beyond the need for clocks!)

Vain Gog and his brigands despise and rob,
They fall to us in their shaking last end,
Melt down the scimitar! conquer darkness!
It is the call for Shem, to them we send.

By Matthew Verschuur

Editorial

Greek is bowing to English

In the computer age, English is the standard, and Greek not. One evidence for this is the fact that the diacritic symbols required for Greek are more complex than the standard English (i.e. US) (i.e. Latin character) keyboard, and are down deep in the unicode set for font characters/symbols. Even if a font were to substitute the normal alphabet for Greek, the two different symbols used for “s” cannot both be used, “σ” (sigma) and “ς” (stigma).

The fact is Greek is not more holy, nor is Greek more conversant than English. It was a Reformation principle to bring the Scripture from Greek to English. It’s in English now.

All those Christian materials that are being made that say, “now the Greek word at this place is ____ and that means _____ and _____ or ______” are really needless statements, especially considering that the Scripture already has been translated from Greek since the Reformation, makes sense, and has served the Church for centuries. This “I know Greek” attitude seems akin to the Mediaeval pride of knowing Latin. The Protestant Church needs to get this issue fixed up, otherwise the Russians will say, “We know Greek better than you, your understanding and interpretation is wrong”, and many be sword-cut, flamed, captivated and spoiled.

Despite the efforts of Greek immigrants, the succeeding generations are no longer retaining the use of Greek. This progressively strengthens the argument that English can be used in preaching to them.