Reading Other Greek

Textbooks, Graded Readers, Beginner Resources and links, Teaching aids, etc.
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Barry Hofstetter
Posts: 2159
Joined: May 6th, 2011, 1:48 pm

Reading Other Greek

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

I posted the following to my blog:

http://my.opera.com/BarryHofstetter/blo ... -important

Many of our Bible schools and seminaries prepare students to read New Testament Greek, and this is all the Greek they ever will actually read. Now, besides the fact that many former NT Greek students don't keep up even with the minimal skills they acquire in their classes, students who never read anything outside a narrow range of literature, who have what teachers sometimes call a closed curriculum, have never really learned the language. What they had done is learned to decode the Greek with English equivalents, using various tools (often electronic these days), parsing guides and lexicons, on which they are dependent. Now, I'm not going to say that this is all bad, and it might be helpful better to understand what underlies a particular English translation, or to see a little more clearly what a technical discussion in a commentary is talking about. But what they have not done is learned the language. Instead, they have learned what scholars think the English equivalent for the Greek vocabulary item or grammatical construction is supposed to be.

In other words, for them, the Greek New Testament (this applies to those who learn Hebrew this way too) is an artifact. It's a kind of stand alone item, and, linguistically speaking, is out of context. It can be admired, and you can learn a lot from studying it, but you don't get anywhere near the full benefit.

Where do you get that full benefit, and where do you learn really to read and understand NT Greek? By reading lots of extra biblical Greek literature. You then become familiar with a wide range of idioms. You see familiar friends, so to speak, in new places and doing new things. You see that there is more than one way to say the same thing. Suddenly your Greek NT is no longer an artifact to be studied at a distance, it's no longer an archeological dig to determine the meaning of the text, but it is a document that makes sense as a nearly living language. The reader also has the added benefit of a better sense not only of the linguistic context, but of the general context of the ancient world.

So what are you waiting for! Read more Greek... NOW!
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
Ph.D. Student U of FL
Instructor of Latin
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
καὶ σὺ τὸ σὸν ποιήσεις κἀγὼ τὸ ἐμόν. ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε.
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: Reading Other Greek

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Εἂν εὐκαιρήσῃς, διερμηνεύων τὰς Πράξεις τῶν Ἀποστόλων παραβάλε τὴν πορείαν τὴν θαλασσίαν τοῦ Ἀποστόλου Παύλου παρὰ τὸ τοῦ Ἀρριανοῦ Περίπλους τοῦ Εὐξείνου Πόντου ἢ τὸ τοῦ Λόγγου Δάφνις καὶ Χλόη (§§ 29-30)

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Perip ... Euxine_Sea
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... 08.01.0533
http://www.amazon.com/Arrian-Periplus-P ... 1853996610

https://www.msu.edu/~tyrrell/daphchlo.htm
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Jeremy Adams
Posts: 21
Joined: April 23rd, 2013, 1:12 am
Location: Kansas City, Missouri

Re: Reading Other Greek

Post by Jeremy Adams »

Yeah, that's why I'm trying to use Athenaze and JACT besides some NT grammars. That and I think an approach like Mounce's is crazy as a standalone attempt to learn Greek. I want to be able to actually sit and read Greek not just translate it in a very technical fashion and classical grammars seem to emphasize that more.
Paul-Nitz
Posts: 497
Joined: June 1st, 2011, 4:19 am
Location: Sussex, Wisconsin

Re: Reading Other Greek

Post by Paul-Nitz »

Stephen Hughes wrote:Εἂν εὐκαιρήσῃς, διερμηνεύων τὰς Πράξεις τῶν Ἀποστόλων παραβάλε τὴν πορείαν τὴν θαλασσίαν τοῦ Ἀποστόλου Παύλου παρὰ τὸ τοῦ Ἀρριανοῦ Περίπλους τοῦ Εὐξείνου Πόντου ἢ τὸ τοῦ Λόγγου Δάφνις καὶ Χλόη (§§ 29-30)
δοκεῖ μοι αξιος (interesting) εστιν. αλλά οὐ ρᾴδιον εστι μοι αναγνωναι. δειξον ἡμῖν τα ευρες παραβαλων την Παυλου γραφην παρα τας ἄλλων γραφας.
Paul D. Nitz - Lilongwe Malawi
Mark Lightman
Posts: 300
Joined: May 6th, 2011, 6:30 pm

Re: Reading Other Greek

Post by Mark Lightman »

Paul Nitz wrote:


Stephen Hughes wrote:Εἂν εὐκαιρήσῃς, διερμηνεύων τὰς Πράξεις τῶν Ἀποστόλων παραβάλε τὴν πορείαν τὴν θαλασσίαν τοῦ Ἀποστόλου Παύλου παρὰ τὸ τοῦ Ἀρριανοῦ Περίπλους τοῦ Εὐξείνου Πόντου ἢ τὸ τοῦ Λόγγου Δάφνις καὶ Χλόη (§§ 29-30)


δοκεῖ μοι αξιος (interesting) εστιν. αλλά οὐ ρᾴδιον εστι μοι αναγνωναι. δειξον ἡμῖν τα ευρες παραβαλων την Παυλου γραφην παρα τας ἄλλων γραφας.


χαίρετε φίλοι Στέφανε καὶ Σαῦλε!

ὲν ταύτῃ τῇ γραφῇ, κάγὼ εὐδόκησα. παραβάλλωμεν δή. ὁ γὰρ Ἀρριανὸς (18) καὶ Λοῦκας (Πράξεις 20:16) γράφουσι τὸν αὐτὸν λόγον, τὸ «παραπλεῦσαι.» οἱ δὲ χρῶνταὶ δὴ τῷ αὐτῷ σχήματι (τούτ’ ἐστι ἡ ἀορίστη ἀπαρἐμφατος.) ἐν ἀμφοτέροις συγγραφεῦσιν (15, 27:12,) εὑρίσκομεν τὴν αἰτιατίκην τοῦ «λίψ, λίβος.» φημι δή τὸ «λίβα.» ἀναγινώσκων δὲ τοῦτο
Ἀρριανὸς 12: καὶ μέντοι πολλὰ παθόντες ἥκομεν ἐς τὰς Ἀθήνας.
ἐμνημόνευσα τοῦτο
Πράξεις 28:14: καὶ οὕτως εἰς τὴν Ῥῶμην ἤλθομεν.

δύσκολον μὲν, ωφέλιμον δέ, τὸ ἀνάγνωναι τὸν Ἀρριανόν. οἶδα οὖν σοι, ὦ ἄριστε Στέφανε, χάριν δείξαντι ἡμῖν ταύτην τὴν καλὴν γραφήν. ἔρρωσο, φίλτατε!
jimbogy
Posts: 1
Joined: May 5th, 2013, 6:30 am

Re: Reading Other Greek

Post by jimbogy »

Hi All,

I'm in the process of self-learning Homeric Greek, with initial goal to read the Odyssey in Greek with some level of appreciation. I have multitudinous textbooks, online resources, etc., etc., and also all the texts and online resources I need to learn biblical, New Testament Greek.

What I'm looking for is this [ and only this ... I don't need suggestions about other resources ] : an audio of Homer's Odyssey - unabridged, read / performed / spoken in Greek. That's it. Amazingly, despite years of searching for this, I've not found this.

Any direction on this: Homer's Odyssey - unabridged audio in Greek - would be most appreciated.


Thanks,

Jim
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