[B-Greek] ? - please respond

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sat Dec 6 06:17:43 EST 2003


This was clearly intended for the list, certainly for Matthew, not for me.

Forwarded for: "Michael Abernathy" <mabernathy at isot.com>
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] ? - please respond
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2003 20:31:19 -0600

Matthew,
    Learning a foreign language can be very intimidating.  Somehow, we think
we should be fluent after just a year or two of Greek.  My oldest daughter
graduated from college two years ago and I am not sure she has ever gained
fluency in English. Slang seems to be her native tongue. Nevertheless, she
does seem to be able to use English to accomplish her needs.
I am confident that you will be able to make use of your Greek as well.
    But you haven't really said what you want to do with the Greek language.
Let me make a few suggestions.  At a minimum, you want to have enough
knowledge of the language to be able to understand the arguments made by
different authors in theological journals and commentaries.  So, at a
minimum you need to have books you can use as references-grammars, lexicons,
and an analyitical lexicon.
    Now, this is going to sound like heresy to some of the guys on this list
but since you have had a lot of difficulty with the language I will suggest
you get two other books.  Get a four language parallel New Testament and an
interlinear New Testament. Throughout the week study use the parallel New
Testament for your devotional time.  When you find a passage that is
translated very differently between the versions, go to your interlinear.
Try to figure out why the translators chose different ways to express the
meaning.  I believe this will help keep your interest in the language.
    To help you get some confidence, start reading from that interlinear for
15 minutes every day. At first, just try to pick up a few of the more common
constructions and vocabulary words.  After a while, you should cover the
English translation and try to read the Greek text. I hope you become much
more fluent than that but this will give you a start.

Sincerely,
Michael Abernathy



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