[B-Greek] William D. Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek

bgreek at ntresources.com bgreek at ntresources.com
Fri Dec 5 07:50:21 EST 2003


It's probably not fair to evaluate Mounce's textbook per se apart from the
workbook. They are an integrated pair and the textbook is explicitly
designed NOT to be used apart from the workbook. There is a substantial
amount of grammar and syntax taught in the workbook that is never mentioned
in the textbook itself. That is by design as Bill has attempted to blend the
best of both deductive and inductive methodology. The result is not perfect,
but it's certainly, IMHO, *a* good approach that is quite workable. All in
all, I think more depends on the teacher than on the textbook. A good
teacher can teach Greek with a less than ideal book if it fits his general
teaching style, but a poor/ineffective teacher will only be helped
marginally by a better textbook.

If one is trying to learn Greek without a formal teacher/classroom, I think
Mounce might be a more effective option than some simply due to its
verbosity and tone. It is written in a more personal way with more
explanation than the detatched, "3d person," objective, "here's the facts"
approach of, say, Machen.

As to the "exegetical insights," yes, they are consciously evangelical in
their theological perspective--with which some may not agree. At times they
may read their theology into the text and they are uneven in character. But
remember their purpose: to entice the student to see that learning Greek has
a purpose. Also note that they are not written by Mounce but by other
evangelical NT scholars. Even though I am of the same general theological
persuasion, I never use the exegetical discussions in class. They're there
for the curious student. One can ignore them with impunity (though if one
preferred that the student *not* read them, one had better not say so to the
student! Human nature appears to be such that an announcement of that sort
stimulates considerable curiosity and desire to do exactly the opposite! :)

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Rodney J. Decker, Th.D., Assoc. Professor/NT
Baptist Bible Seminary, Clarks Summit, PA, USA
URL: www.NTResources.com  
PURL: purl.oclc.org/NT_Resources/
Email: <rdecker> at <NTResources.com>
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