Learning to read extant manuscripts in Koine Gree

It is really quite funny if you have this kind of sense of humor.  It is funny because when you take a brother or sister who has studied some Greek in school or maybe even seminary, put an old manuscript in front of them, and they will almost feint.

There are no paragraphs.  There are no breaks between sentences.  There is no punctuation, not even a "s" to show that it is Paul's or Matthew's, or John's.  When you read accounts of authors who lived in the ancient world you can in fact find this phrase that in English reads something like this.

"My teacher gave me a tablet to read.  While I was trying to find its meaning, I had I thought ... "  

One of the things this person is saying is that he or perhaps she is saying that the individual cannot tell where a sentence stops and where another one begins.  Periods hadn't been invented yet!

In English we write like this:

There once was a cat named Paul.
He loved to chase mice down the hall.
But one day he slipped
And crashed his cat lip
At full speed right into a wall.

Now if you read that in first century Koine Greek, and could think in Greek and English at the same time, if would look something like this in Jesus' day:

THEREONCEWASACATNAME
DPAULHELOVEDTOCHASEMI
CEDOWNTHEHALLBUTONED
AYHESLIPPEDANDCRASHEDH
ISCATLIPATFULLSPEEDRIGHT
 INTOAWALL

If you didn't go to seminary, don't worry about it.  They don't teach the really fun stuff, but they don't teach it because very, very few of them know it.