[B-Greek] SFWE in the Iliad 1.8

Ann Nyland accuratebibles at ozemail.com.au
Fri Aug 1 07:33:00 EDT 2003


A few reasons - firstly I think it's far more difficult going from Homer to
Attic Greek. There are quite a few grammatical differences between Ionic and
Attic. Ionic has more uncontracted forms - again, I think it's easier to
understand contracted forms first as they seem more obvious. To me, it would
be easier to figure that Attic POSEIDWN would have to be an Ionic POSEIDAWN,
rather than to be used to seeing POSEIDAWN and thus get a fright when I saw
POSEIDWN and have an urge to put an A in.

hAMARTANW doesn't mean "sin" in Attic Greek either, and I won't get into
theology, but theological interpretations are all too readily read into
Biblical lexical semantics.  Attic Greek is the "real" "standard" Greek - I
am showing my bias here! Nevertheless, due to its literary importance, it is
made the basis of grammar, and other dialects are treated subordinately to
it. At any rate, there's lots of Attic Greek, heaps and heaps of it, but the
popular Ionic stuff is only Homer and Herodotos. If someone really wants to
learn Greek, they must learn Attic, and read very widely, so might as well
start with it. Then, after they have been thoroughly tortured, they can go
back (time-wise) to Homer for a nice break. A thorough grounding in Attic
gives one the appreciation for the differences in Ionic as well as helping
them to be able to relate to the Greek culture/mindset, whereas a reading of
the Iliad gives someone a good idea of where to stick a spear to pierce as
many organs as possible. Then, with wide reading experience of Attic and
then Ionic, a person is ready for the GNT. That way, the person won't be
perplexed by things familiar to a student of Attic.

My personal preference would be to start with Anabasis, which is 'easy' (and
hilarious at times), or Cyropedia, and someone easy like Lysias, Antiphon,
then a little easier (imv) Plato such as Apologia or Symposium. Scansion is
necessary to pick up too. The hexameter was the product of an age of oral
epic composition, but if the learning is done within Attic, one has a
greater appreciation for Homer's metre. And if someone has read the orators
prior to Homer, they have more of an appreciation for oral composition -
ring composition etc. A wide reading of Attic gives one a far greater
appreciation of Homer.

Ann Nyland

----- Original Message -----
From: <bertdehaan at gosympatico.ca>
To: "Ann Nyland" <accuratebibles at ozemail.com.au>
Sent: Friday, August 01, 2003 9:58 AM
Subject: Re: Re: [B-Greek] SFWE in the Iliad 1.8


>   "Ann Nyland"  wrote: on Thu, 31 Jul 2003 19:43:35
>
>   Btw, when
> > people are often told it would help them to improve their NT Greek by
> > learning "Classical", they often start at Homer (who isn't classical),
not a
> > good place to start, imo.
>
> That is exactly what I am doing.  One of the reasons that that has be
advised to me was; You learn the most basic meaning of words, ie. hAMARTANW
in Homer means -to miss the mark- and in the NT -to sin. Another reason was
that a lot of grammar rules (eg. contraction rules) originate in Homeric
Greek. I will probably keep going with Homer because I am enjoying it, but I
am curious why you feel Homer is a poor place to start.(When I am done my
beginners book an Homeric Greek [Pharr]I plan to go through a book that
prepares the student to read the Anabasis [Paine]. Is that a better choice?)
> Thank you.
> Bert de Haan.
>
>




More information about the B-Greek mailing list