Save this story for later. Some years ago, in a fit of religious enthusiasm, I decided that I wanted to learn Greek. This was so that I could read the New Testament in its original language, a desire I could not really explain, other than as a general sense that I was seeking more from Scripture. I was heartened when a classicist friend, knowing how bad I was at learning languages, reassured me that the kind of Greek I needed to learn for this project was not the difficult kindâthe Attic Greek that he and his colleagues readâbut Koine Greek, which he described as âDick and Janeâ primer Greek, which would be much easier. I remember all of this somewhat bitterly because I still struggled with Koine. After memorizing a grammar book and what seemed like enough flash cards to account for all five thousand or so distinct words that appear in the New Testament, I began trying to get through the Gospel of John, supposedly the easiest of the books, and then the Apostle Paulâs more difficult letter to the Galatians. It should have helped that I knew these texts well enough to summarize whole chapters and quote many verses from memory, but it didnât. In the end, all of the hours that I poured into my pidgin Greek resulted in little more than an abiding admiration for those whose calling it is to translate sacred literature.