Great comments. Thank you for taking the time to share.

Koine Greek is apparently a language where word order doesn’t matter as much as it does in English. A bad illustration of this is in Greek you could say, “Is green the house” or “the house is green” or “Green is the house” and other features of the language render each of those orders equivalent to “the house is green”. I mention this because I attempted to use a tactic of Greek to open yesterday’s post. Since word order is variable within a sentence, writer’s are in a sense more free to make their points via word order. Scholars, then, have concluded that the first word of a Koine Greek sentence contains the emphasis of the thought. And that’s why I began by saying “allegedly”. I wanted to succinctly indicate that I wasn’t beating a drum or jumping to conclusions etc.

Given the all-to-familiar reports of the Columbine murderers’ asking “Are you a Christian?”, and given Evangelical Christianity’s (the brand I’m participating in) tendency to believe the “end times” are near and therefore view any attack on Christians as proof, I too was skeptical of this claim when it was presented. We all have our opinions about the integrity and motives of newspapers, but when the New York Times and Wall Street Journal both include the claim, I would like to believe we can all agree that there is at least a strength to it. Maybe not. In any case, only time will tell if the claim is verifiable and true.

So what was the seminary’s response? Prayer.