Koine Commons: A New Project...

Chanting the Greek New Testament

Here's something I've been wanting to do for a long time, without really knowing how to begin. It gathers a few different ideas together. Maybe a few too many.

I've wanted some kind of liturgy for a while that hums truthfully in a messianic, anarchic, ecological kind of tenor. Something that would give form to a rule of life rooted in a kind of messianic piracy.

I've wanted to find ways of absorbing New Testament Greek into my body and thought. Learning some Koine Greek over recent years has been a great opening for me. By looking beneath our translation traditions, I’ve found words are sometimes liberated from long-worn and unthinking patterns. They're de-familiarised, decolonised even. There is another land and another horizon, a little further in.

I've wanted beautiful things to sing and chant as I go, with others, in the woods and under the stars and round the fires, in car parks and under bridges. Alone, in a closed room, on a bus, doing dishes… all these times and places.

I would like to get the hang of my oud.

I suppose I've put the idea off because it sounds ambitious. I don't expect to make all the above happen. But here is a small and simple beginning; a little thing to add to the broth of a living culture in the ruins, as my friend

Dougald Hine

would say.

This is Romans 10.4, chanted in the original Koine Greek.

For your pleasure, the recording includes the hammering of some builders gutting a bathroom downstairs. The oud, which I can hardly play, is only really keeping the key. You could accompany with anything or with nothing. The recording is very simply done, because it is indeed merely a recording, and not the thing itself. The thing itself is something that you sing with your own voice in real life and in real time. 

So what is this? 

This is a way by which you may—if you wish—learn some parts of the messianic texts in the original language. We might call it a tool, but I hope it is also modestly beautiful. Beautiful tools make better things happen. Naturally, it'll be hard to bear the repetition required for memorisation if the chant doesn't run with ease. I trust no one will torture themselves (or others). But in any case, this is intended as a way to memorise, with the body, messianic texts in their original language.

How to be involved?

I'll publish one of these each month, thereabouts. They will be for paid subscribers: paywalled after this introductory post. If you deeply want to engage with them but can't afford it, please message me. I don't want cost to be a barrier. If you can, I appreciate it. You make this possible, along with everything else I produce here. 

I also appreciate your help in other ways.

• Are you a Koine Greek scholar? I’m not. How’s my pronunciation?

• Is it easy to chant? Is the key ok?

• Did you sing it with friends? Can you make harmonies? Does it work as a round? Did you record it on your phone?

If this is good resonance for you, your participation is good resonance back.

I will say once more, I am not a scholar of Biblical languages. I’ve learned off my own back and I am not an authority. (“I’m not a scholar, I’m a lover…” I once heard Sophie Strand say).

And now to the text itself…

Τελος γαρ νομου Χριστος

εις δικαιοσυνην, 

παντι τω πιστευοντι

By singing the words and reading the text in Greek, you'll begin to get a feel for the half-familiar phonetics of the Greek alphabet.

If you’re new to Koine Greek, you’ll be glad to discover that you probably half-know some of the words.

Telos — end

gar — for

nomou — of law             (as in nomos, as in norm)

Kristos — Messiah [is]    

—So, “For the Messiah is the end of law”

eis — into 

Dikaiosunén — arightedness    (traditionally translated righteousness or justification)

panti — all     

to — the/to

pisteunti — of good-faith / the believing  

I translate it like so:

For the Messiah is the end of law, for the arighting of all [creatures] of good-faith.  

For me, these words are at the anarchist heart of messianic faith. But I'll hold back from adding interpretations here. There’s quite enough going on. My Creature Politics Notes will begin to give some pointers if you want them. For now, being able to remember, to sing and to pray these ancient words, is a start to making them your own; and perhaps a gateway through the body into new visions of the old.

Χαρις και ειρηνη