Greek and the non-scholar

Michael Allen gt3rx3 at visi.com
Fri Apr 19 17:10:54 EDT 2002


My story is similar to Ken's.  I served a parish after 
> seminary, and after an internship at a state hospital.  I 
> realized my interest was in pastoral care, I took two more 
> CPE quarters, took a year residency in CPE, then served 
> several hospitals and similar facilities with Lutheran Social 
> Services.  I finally took a position at a tertiary care 
> hospital after gaining accreditation with the American 
> Association of Pastoral Counselors.  (Whew!).  But the 
> hospital began to look iffy and since I had taken several 
> undergrad testing courses and statistics, I left and earned an MBA.
> 
> From there I've been in market research.  I now analyze the 
> software portion of the telecommunications market and perform 
> market research.  During the long stretch on the clergy 
> roster and off of it, I did LOTS of supply preaching, but 
> never used either Greek or Hebrew.  About a year ago, I 
> rediscovered my interest, since that was what drew me to the 
> seminary in the first place.  Things have changed!  Software, 
> the Web, mailing lists, all the resources that didn't exist 
> in 1974 are wonderful!  I try to read each day in both Greek 
> and Hebrew.  When I read for a worship service I'm able to 
> read directly from the Greek text, although I can't tell you 
> how I do it!
> 
> Since my own pastors seem a little befuddled regarding why I 
> would want to translate, I feel a bit lonely!  But I've found 
> Greek and Hebrew to be a wonderful addition to my own 
> devotions and to a deeper understanding of my faith.  No one 
> has asked me to teach anything, however, so I guess reading 
> Greek and Hebrew will remain a private endeavor.
> 
> Mike Allen
> Plymouth, Minnesota -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Allen [mailto:gt3rx3 at visi.com] 
> Sent: Friday, April 19, 2002 12:42 PM
> To: Ken Smith
> Subject: RE: [b-Greek] RE: Keeping up on Greek
> 
> 
> My story is similar to Ken's.  I served a parish after 
> seminary, and after an internship at a state hospital.  I 
> realized my interest was in pastoral care, I took two more 
> CPE quarters, took a year residency in CPE, then served 
> several hospitals and similar facilities with Lutheran Social 
> Services.  I finally took a position at a tertiary care 
> hospital after gaining accreditation with the American 
> Association of Pastoral Counselors.  (Whew!).  But the 
> hospital began to look iffy and since I had taken several 
> undergrad testing courses and statistics, I left and earned an MBA.
> 
> From there I've been in market research.  I now analyze the 
> software portion of the telecommunications market and perform 
> market research.  During the long stretch on the clergy 
> roster and off of it, I did LOTS of supply preaching, but 
> never used either Greek or Hebrew.  About a year ago, I 
> rediscovered my interest, since that was what drew me to the 
> seminary in the first place.  Things have changed!  Software, 
> the Web, mailing lists, all the resources that didn't exist 
> in 1974 are wonderful!  I try to read each day in both Greek 
> and Hebrew.  When I read for a worship service I'm able to 
> read directly from the Greek text, although I can't tell you 
> how I do it!
> 
> Since my own pastors seem a little befuddled regarding why I 
> would want to translate, I feel a bit lonely!  But I've found 
> Greek and Hebrew to be a wonderful addition to my own 
> devotions and to a deeper understanding of my faith.  No one 
> has asked me to teach anything, however, so I guess reading 
> Greek and Hebrew will remain a private endeavor.
> 
> Mike Allen
> Plymouth, Minnesota
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ken Smith [mailto:kens at 180solutions.com]
> Sent: Friday, April 19, 2002 1:34 PM
> To: Biblical Greek
> Subject: [b-Greek] RE: Keeping up on Greek
> 
> 
> Dunno about everyone else, but this is what worked for me.  
> After I got out of seminary, I was pretty burned out on 
> academics, and ended up doing computer programming for the 
> next 10 years or so.  Keeping up on Greek (let alone 
> progressing) wasn't a high priority, but I managed to keep 
> from losing it entirely just by doing a bit of reading every 
> now and then.  In the last three or four years, I've started 
> doing a lot more reading, including some outside the NT (I'm 
> working my way through 1 Clement), and a fair bit in the LXX. 
>  It helped that I originally took two years of NT Greek 
> during undergrad, so that by the time I finished seminary, 
> I'd been reading Greek pretty extensively for four years -- 
> so I'd had a lot more reinforcement than most seminary grads.
> 
> That difference showed up in my Hebrew.  I didn't take Hebrew 
> until seminary (and was forced to use an execrable textbook, 
> LaSor's _Handbook of Biblical Hebrew_), and it disappeared 
> pretty quickly after I wasn't reading it regularly anymore.  
> When it finally got to the point that I couldn't remember the 
> difference between a shin and a sin, I decided the time had 
> come to get back into it, and have been able to recover the 
> ability to read prose at least, though my abstract knowledge 
> of forms remains a bit weak.  (I can usually figure out roots 
> with weak radicals, but I can't always tell you why.)
> 
> These days, in addition to my full-time technology job, I'm 
> teaching Biblical intro part-time at Seattle Pacific 
> University, so it's a little easier to keep up on my 
> languages (or at least, I've got a bit more motivation, if 
> less actual time).
> 
> Ken Smith 
> 
> > for another thread, i'd be interested to know how people not in
> scholarly
> > institutions (i.e. presently taking Greek classes) keep up 
> with their 
> > Greek
> > 
> > Michael Hanel
> > Concordia University
> > Seward, NE

Michael Allen
Vertigo Research
Operations Support Systems;
Billing Support Systems
voice: 763-557-6089
mobile: 612-360-7441
E-mail: michael.allen at visi.com 



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