The Greek Says What? How to Evaluate Claims About the Biblical Languages When You Don't Know Them
25 Jul 2025 - Michael Hess II
You’re sitting in church. The speaker is preaching passionately from a beloved Bible passage. You follow along in your Bible as he reads aloud the next verse. He then calls your attention to a particular word in the text and says, “Now what the Greek word here really means is…”
If you know Greek, your immediate reaction is probably to look at the Greek text, whether on your phone or with a physical copy, to check out the claim for yourself. But what if you don’t? If you’ve never had a chance to study the biblical languages—Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek—how can you evaluate claims other people make about them?
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| A Greek New Testament open to John 9 & 10 |
First, there’s something you should know: Not everyone who stands behind a pulpit and pontificates about the “true meaning” of the Greek1 word behind an English translation has actually read the Greek text, or even can read it. In many cases he or she may, at most, have looked up a definition using a tool like Strong’s Concordance. It takes a knowledge of how the language works, and the ability to read the text as a whole, to make informed use of a dictionary entry. Many people who cite the original languages don’t have that background knowledge.
Even people who have studied Greek can still make mistakes. They are not immune to reading too much into a verb tense or etymology and reaching conclusions far removed from the author’s intent.
On the other hand, many legitimately valuable insights can come out of the biblical languages, and those who can read the languages can edify their listeners and readers by sharing them.
So how can you tell which is which? Without investing many hours of time learning to read Greek for yourself, how can you sort out the worthwhile insights from the spurious claims?2
In this blog post, I’ll share three questions you can ask to help yourself think through the next biblical language claim you hear, using only English translations. In a follow-up post, I’ll illustrate them by applying them to claims I’ve heard in real-life sermons.
- How much does it matter?
- What do Bible translators think?
- Does it fit?
Question #1: How much does it matter?
Not all claims have the same bearing on the meaning of the text. When compared to your English translation, an insight from the original language can affect the meaning in two basic ways:
- It can strengthen or enrich the meaning already found in the English text.
- It can suggest a meaning different from that found in the English translation.
The first case is less critical. If the insight from Greek enhances what you can already see in English without changing the basic meaning, it’s unlikely to lead you astray even if it’s wrong. It may still be worth investigating further, but there’s little need to worry about falling into error because of it.
The second case requires a little more care. If you’re going to believe that the Bible you’re reading is incorrect in its translation of this passage, you should expect a good reason for doing so.
Some claims may fall in between these two cases. For example, if the English version can be understood more than one way, a preacher may appeal to the Greek to narrow down the range of possible meanings.
As a first step, then, when a speaker tells you “what the Greek really means”, ask yourself this: How does this claim affect the meaning of the text as I read it in my English Bible? Use the answer as a guide for how critically you need to examine the claim.
Question #2: What do Bible translators think?
This principle goes hand-in-hand with the first one. Remember that if you’re using one of the major English translations, it was prepared by a team of scholars with deep knowledge of the biblical languages. This is true of the KJV, NKJV, ESV, NASB, NIV, NLT, and many others. If a Greek word could mean something different from how they chose to translate it, there’s a good chance they considered it.
If your Bible has footnotes, check to see if they mention the claim you’ve heard as an alternative reading. Then, check a few other translations. Bible translators are smart, but they’re also human. They don’t get everything right all the time. But if you compare several versions from different translation teams with different theological biases and translation philosophies, you’ll likely have a solid overview of the range of possible meanings of a passage.
If you can’t find a translation that supports a claim, even in the footnotes, that doesn’t always mean the claim is wrong. But you would be wise to have a healthy dose of skepticism until you’ve done further research.
Question #3: Does it fit?
Words mean little in isolation. They work together with their context to create meaning. Read the entire passage under consideration. Does the proposed interpretation make sense within the passage? Does it contribute to what the text as a whole is saying, or does it introduce a disjointed idea that doesn’t fit?
Beyond the immediate passage, also consider more big-picture aspects of the context. What is the genre? Who is speaking or writing? How does this biblical author tend to express ideas? All of these will help you evaluate the insight you’ve heard.
Try it!
These three questions will help you filter out a lot of uninformed claims about the biblical languages. They can also give you confidence in accepting claims that are well-substantiated. While there is no substitute for learning Hebrew and Greek yourself, you can go a long way with a solid English translation or two (or five!) and a bit of common sense.
If you find yourself wanting to dig deeper into a particular passage, check out the translation notes of the NET Bible, which discuss original language issues in greater depth than most Bibles. Also consider looking up the passage in a good commentary to see what other scholars have to say about it.
Stay tuned for my next post where I’ll discuss a few examples!