[B-Greek] Very interesting GNT, _A Readers Greek New Testament_
Eric Weiss
papaweiss1 at yahoo.com
Tue Apr 27 23:04:58 EDT 2004
I appreciate and understand your comments, but I failed to explain something about
myself that others on B-Greek probably already know from my earlier posts, which is:
I do not teach at a seminary. I am just a "lay person" who took 2 years of Greek at The
Criswell College, and loved it so much that I offer to teach it for free to people at church who want to learn. I taught one class at our old church, and I'm teaching my second
group of first-year students at our present church. These are NOT "seminary bound"
people, nor likely future Greek grammarians or textual critics, but people who want to be
able to read the GNT with some facility. Up to now I've been having them buy UBS4, and
we've been using it, but I can see the *possible* benefits of the RGNT, ESPECIALLY for
people like those I teach who will likely want/need all the reading aids they can get. An
on-the-page definition of every word that occurs < 30x would be quite helpful, since with
our textbook (GREEK TO ME, by Story and Story) they're learning every word that
occurs 25x or thereabouts. Hence, they'll be somewhat ready for the RGNT (though if
they haven't learned their paradigms, or kept up their vocabulary acquisition, it will still be
a struggle for them -- and books like Luke, Hebrews and Acts will still be tough, because
the grammatical and sentence structure is not nearly as easy as the other Gospels or
Paul's writings). A good alternative (NOT an "interlinear") would be the Greek-English
New Testament (NA-27 on one page, RSV on the other) or the one that has the Greek
text and the NKJV, I think, in the margins, or that Parallel 8-translation NT with the
Greek text, plus KJV, NASB, NIV, Rheims, Amplified, New American, and NRSV. But ...
all these cost AT LEAST TWICE the price of a discounted RGNT and/or are hardly
portable/lightweight/convenient in comparison. Thus, the RGNT looks like it might be a
useful text for the type of people I teach. Naturally, I would explain to them why, if they
pursue Greek, they'll want/need UBS4 and NA-27. But even I, who have these, too, can
probably find a happy and profitable use for the RGNT, esp, as a briefcase/commuter
NT - lightweight, inexpensive, thin, etc.
"Dr. Don Wilkins" <drdwilkins at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
OK, 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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Eric S. Weiss
http://www.geocities.com/papaweiss1/index.htm
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