Bonehead moves in translating Greek AND "Thank God there are no original manuscripts"

Because neither of these thoughts were really long enough to mandate their own blog post, I figured I'd throw two completely unrelated things together...

First, every student of any language makes mistakes (atleast that's what I tell myself so that I feel better). One thing I've been doing over the last few months is confusing words that end in -νται as a participle instead of recognizing them as using the primary middle-passive suffixes. After having crammed as much as I could today into my head about Participles, I feel silly.


Ever done something while learning a language that you later realized what completely incorrect?


Secondly, a strange thought occured to me the other night. I think I'm actually glad that we don't have original copies of the New Testament documents. After seeing various posts around the net of the over-theologizing of grammar that goes on now, can you imagine the fervor with which pseudo-theologians and grammarians would pontificate upon the tense or mood or aspect or whatever of a particular word? It would be unchecked and without the caution that people have to exercise now due to lack of these originals. An odd thought, but there you have it - thank God we have no original manuscripts.