[B-Greek] Very interesting GNT, _A Readers Greek New Testament_
Dr. Don Wilkins
drdwilkins at sbcglobal.net
Tue Apr 27 18:59:00 EDT 2004
In reply both to Eric and to Rod Decker, I appreciate the challenges of
teaching beginning Greek, where the price of books can overwhelm a
student who is already having a tough time taking the plunge into Greek
for fear that his or her GPA will plunge as well. In my own teaching
experience, I once reluctantly used the textus receptus because it
happened to be the official choice of the college and was mandated to
me; it was also considerably cheaper than the UBS or NA. But seriously,
guys, if you tell your students what you are telling me, then the RGNT
will probably become the GNT for them. If I introduced the RGNT to a
class using Eric's words below, with the respect rightly accorded a
Greek professor, would that not be the result? Sure, you can tell them
that they can choose to read the footnotes instead of the text, but is
that what you are going to do in class? My own hunch is that even if I
told my class to read the footnotes instead, on pain of being tested on
them instead of the text, they would eventually ignore the notes and
read the text anyway just because it's easier. Plus, I would have
already endorsed the RGNT as a whole, especially if I said that my only
gripes were cosmetic and that there was no real difference between what
the NIV translators have done and the USB/NA editors (and other text
editors) have done. Would you leave it for a more advanced course on
textual criticism to sort out all the specifics, and if so, how many of
your beginning students would get that far?
I'm not going to suggest that you reconsider your decisions to use the
RGNT, because that would be very arrogant on my part, and the price of
books is a legitimate concern. But how about being direct with your
students about the textual issues? For example, Greek prof's have
pointed out to to their students that the UBS textual notes are easier
to read than the NA, but that the latter's notes are significantly
better in the long run because they cover more variants. By the same
token, you could emphasize to your students that the RGNT is inadequate
for them in any professional capacity that they will eventually assume,
and that they'll need the UBS or NA in order to critique any translation
they may use. Or better, recommend Swanson to them or whatever you
prefer. I'm just concerned that you may underestimate the influence you
have on students at the beginning Greek level. And please forgive me for
saying something out of turn, if I have; I know you have your students'
best interests at heart, and if you think the RGNT will make Greek
significantly more accessible to them, there is something to be said for
that.
Don Wilkins
> On Tuesday, April 27, 2004, at 01:45 PM, Eric Weiss wrote:
>
>> I think the RGNT (it's actually just a printed edition of the e-text
>> that Kohlenberger and
>> Goodrick developed several years ago) was created by a word-by-word or
>> phrase-by-
>> phrase comparison of the NIV with UBS4/3corrected / NA27/26 (the same
>> text in all
>> cases), and wherever the NIV text seemed to diverge from the UBS text,
>> K&G
>> reconstructed the Greek text the NIV seemed to use (I assume from the
>> list of UBS or
>> NA variants).
>>
>> Whoever has their RGNT can find the facts in the intro to the book and
>> correct anything I
>> say here.
>>
>> As I recall and noted in an earlier post, at 231(?) places the text of
>> the NIV translation
>> points to a different Greek reading than UBS4/NA27, and the RGNT notes
>> these in its
>> footnotes, and prints the UBS4 Greek text in the footnote. So, readers
>> of the RGNT will
>> still have the UBS4 text to read from -- if they choose to read the
>> footnotes instead of the
>> text in these 231 instances.
>>
>> My main gripes or misgivings about it have to do with the font, the
>> page layout, and the
>> "whiteness" and less-than-ideal opaqueness of the paper -- i.e.,
>> technical issues with
>> this edition moreso than with the text. It's a lightweight,
>> easy-to-pack/carry/hold/read
>> edition of the GNT which, at $18 or $19, is worth buying, imo, to
>> practice one's Greek
>> reading with. Too bad it's not pocketsize, though.
>>
>>
>>
>> Eric S. Weiss
>> http://www.geocities.com/papaweiss1/index.htm
>>
>>
>>
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>
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