Dobson - Learn NT Greek

Kevin L. Anderson straight.street at mindspring.com
Mon Jun 10 09:18:58 EDT 2002


I have used Dobson a couple times to help laypersons learn Greek. I found
that the students seemed to like it, and that they were really able to
progress in their ability to read. Any problems that existed were probably
mine. Since I learned Greek in a traditional mode, and taught it at the
graduate level in a traditional mode, it was nearly impossible for me to
"re-wire" my brain to help students with this more inductive method. But I
wish I would have tried harder. "Jumping the gun" by using all of the
terminology before Dobson introduces it tends not to complement his text but
to confuse students.

If I were to do it all over again, I would simply let Dobson be the guide. I
cannot imagine using Dobson in an academic setting; but for laypeople, I
think it is an adequate text.

Kevin

<>< ><> ><> <>< <>< ><> ><> <>< ><> <><
Kevin L. Anderson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Bible & Theology
Asbury College
One Macklem Drive
Wilmore, Kentucky 40390-1198

-----Original Message-----
From: Eric S. Weiss [mailto:eweiss at gte.net]
Sent: Monday, June 10, 2002 12:17 AM
To: Biblical Greek
Subject: [b-greek] Dobson - Learn NT Greek


In my search for the best book to use for teaching a 1st-year Greek course
at church, out of curiosity I purchased John H. Dobson's LEARN NEW
TESTAMENT GREEK. It's a do-it-yourself 1st-year Greek grammar, but should
work all right in a teacher-students setting.

I noticed that Dobson omits accents, and early on explains how they were
TONE indicators and weren't used in manuscripts before the 9th century. He
doesn't mention their usage as syllable stress indicators. So, I kind of
mentally docked him a few points for that.

Also, he uses a very inductive approach, and just gives the
students/readers the words and usages with no technical grammatical or
linguistic names or explanations, at least not early on (I'm at about
chapter 14 of 52 chapters). So I docked him another few points for this.
It is here, in my opinion, that a teacher would likely be most helpful,
informing/acquainting the students with the terminology they will be
encountering in other books they will be reading in their studies. E.g.:
In the first 13 chapters, the student has been given or exposed to the
definite article, the present tense, demonstrative pronouns, the
subjunctive mood, relative pronouns, participles -- yet NONE of these
terms/words has been used in the text. Dobson does introduce these, or
some of these, terms later on ... sometimes MUCH later on, it seems. But I
think it would be useful to acquaint the students with this knowledge
early on.

Is this approach good? Bad? It's hard for me to judge, as I can't judge
this book as one who has never studied NT Greek before.

Dobson very quickly gets the student into the NT text, and he has many,
many comments about the translation task. This makes his book unique, I
think, among first-year grammars. (I think it must be because he is
associated with SIL.) E.g., what other first-year grammar says things
like:

"Note that when we wish to translate LEGW into English we have to choose
from several English words. Consider LEGW AUTWi. AUTWi means "to him". So
we may translate LEGW AUTWi as "I say to him", "I speak to him", "I tell
him", or "I am telling him". In 4.2 no. 7 [yes, this is in just the 4th
lesson, and these "lessons" are maybe 1/2 the length of your usual Greek
grammar book -- so it's like Dobson is laying this out in Lesson 2!], LEGW
TON LOGON TOU QEOU, "I am speaking God's word" might be a better
translation than "I am saying the word of God." When you check your own
translations by uncovering the right-hand columns in this book, do not ask
yourself "Have I used exactly the same words in my translation?" but "Have
I expressed the same meaning?" (p. 10)

SO ... has anyone out there used Dobson's book for teaching beginning
Greek students? Feel free to e-mail me OFF-LIST with your comments, but
post here any remarks that you feel might be useful to others, as I am
sure I am not the only one seeking effective user-friendly ways to
introduce NT Greek into our churches and fellowships.

I got on SIL's Web site and ordered Dobson's LEARN BIBLICAL HEBREW just to
see for myself how well his approach works, since I can use myself as a
test case, having forgotten most of my Hebrew.

Maybe my enthusiasm (actually, I'm more curious than enthused at this
point) will wane after I do more of the book ... or maybe I'll like it
even more.

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