Explaining the Greek Verb System

Harry W. Jones hjbluebird at aol.com
Sun Jun 2 11:38:55 EDT 2002


Mark posted:

<<< Ward:

You wrote:

-------
>Now, my view is that a student can come to read the GNT without having to
>have studied the prior history of the language. There may well be a few
>instances where an understanding of the development of koine Greek may
help
>a student with forms s/he encounters in the GNT, but not very many.
-------

I believe Ward is correct here, but I would also add that there
is more than meets the eye with the above, at least in my view.

Ward is correct, I think, that a student could READ the GNT by
studying it alone. And can learn to parse any word.

However, this same student would be no better off than NOT having
learned the Greek at all, and simply get a good English translation,
or whatever native language he/she understands.

In other words, a student that learns the GNT only, really at best
can assume the role of a middle man. That is, this student can only
go to a lexicon, take the authors' word for what HE IS TOLD, and then
go repeat this same information in his/her translation or understanding.
This is not "understanding" Greek. And if those who supply Ward with
the information are incorrect, then Ward will be incorrect, albeit
unknowingly.

In fact, as a good example, and I mean no disrespect to Ward, but
Ward recently had what appeared to me to be a very basic question
on the Middle Voice. Here was his question:

--------
We were cogitating last night over AITHSHi in John 11:22. This form is
third person singular aorist subjunctive active. But the required form has
to be second person - we felt that this should have been AITHSHiS, for, in
context, Martha says to Jesus: "but even now I know that whatever you
would
ask God for, God will give you." And in fact Nestle-Aland records a few
manuscripts which do have this reading AITHSHiS (so we are not the first
to
prefer this form, though our UBS does not indicate a variant for this word
in this verse).

There is of course another explanation: AITHSHi must here be second person
ditto ditto MIDDLE. And this must be it. But why middle? Martha can't be
saying, "I know that whatever you ask God for FOR YOURSELF, God will give
you." So why middle here, instead of the active (which we expected)?
-------

This question really reflects a good grasp of GNT grammars, but at
the same time shows a limited understanding of Greek. What Ward
is asking stems from a his understanding of the GNT, whereas the
answer was quite simple, as Carl demonstrated. And Carl's clear
genius of this language does not come from studying a few documents
known as the GNT.

Now in fairness to Ward, I'm not sure that the tentative conclusions
that Carl has offered us on his studies of the M/P morphoparadigms
could not have been discovered by limiting one's self to the GNT. But I 
really think that this question
of Ward's stems from "an approach" to Greek. And this approach has to be
very careful not to simply look at other constructs and then translate
another similar construct in a similar way. One really has to be aware
of Greek constructs and ideas not at all contained in the GNT, if you
ask me. The GNT is simply too small of a corpus to reach the conclusions
that Carl has about the M/P.

And I know this from personally experience, unfortunately. The biggest
mistake I think I have made in learning the GNT is NOT to have started
with Attic Greek, then move into Hellenistic/Koine Greek. I'm hoping
that the grammars I've studied have not done the same thing.

Finally, I am not saying that Ward is not proficient in Classical
Greek. I simply do not know. My main bone of contention is the
"approach" he as argued as compared to Carl's.

My thoughts,

Mark Wilson >>>

Harry: 

My thoughts on the disscusions between Carl and Ward is that
it's not which system is the best, in the absolute sense, for
teaching NT Greek but which system is best for what the
students are interested in?

I think it is safe to say that most people who are studying
Koine Greek are only studying it for at most two years. And I 
believe Ward idea is to give them as much as possible within
that two year time period. Now for those who want to become
Greek scholars and have the necessary time, it seems to me
that Carl's appoach would be the correct one. 

So it seems to me in a sense both are right, IMHO.

Harry Jones




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