Bill Mounce and the Koine Greek Pronunciation Debate: Much Ado About Nothing?

While doing some research for Greek mnemonics earlier today, I came across a short YouTube video by the New Testament scholar Bill Mounce, in which he gave the meaning and also the Erasmian (or standard) pronunciation of the vocabulary word “Pilatos,” meaning Pilate. (It’s the name of the Roman governor who asked Jesus the haunting question, "What is truth?") I noticed that in the comments thread for the video, someone posted the following comment: “Do you think you should be giving language lessons when you get 3 vowel sounds wrong in one word?” (As if Bill Mounce is some kind of novice!) I also noticed that three people had given a thumbs up to the comment – apparently they were just as uninformed as the person who wrote it! But sadly, the comment is misleading and based on faulty reasoning. I posted the following response on YouTube, which I’m also reproducing here on my blog with the hope that it will help those who may be confused about this whole issue of Koine Greek pronunciation. Here’s what I said: 

“Wow in regards to the comment about pronunciation. I’d ask, what are you comparing it to? If you are comparing Mounce's pronunciation to how modern Greek is pronounced, your comment is self-refuting because Mounce isn’t teaching modern Greek. And if you are comparing Mounce’s pronunciation to Koine Greek, your comment is also self-refuting because no one living today really knows exactly how Koine Greek was pronounced 2,000 years ago! If Mounce was giving wrong definitions to the words and saying, for example, that the Greek word Pilatos means Christ (which it obviously doesn’t), then I’d be concerned. But in regards to supposedly pronouncing a Koine Greek word ‘wrong,’ what are you comparing it to? Obviously not Koine Greek because no one today knows exactly how Koine Greek was pronounced. And even if Mounce is pronouncing the Koine wrong, it doesn’t affect translation because even a mute person who doesn’t speak at all could do it (!) because reading, writing, and the translation of words doesn’t require the translators to speak anything out loud themselves. So your comment about pronunciation is really beside the point in regards to Koine Greek and specifically in regards to reading and translating the New Testament, which is what Mounce’s translation work is focused on. For example, if I said the word ‘Pilatos’ wrong, I would still write it as ‘Pilatos’. Two people could pronounce that word two different ways, but they would still read it and write it as ‘Pilatos’. It doesn’t affect the actual translation at all.” 

In short, while pronunciation debates can be interesting, they’re ultimately irrelevant to the task of faithfully translating the New Testament.