[B-Greek] Criteria for evaluating NT Greek Intro Grammars

Kenneth Litwak javajedi2 at yahoo.com
Thu Feb 19 13:27:52 EST 2004


   I learned first year Greek with Machen, and for my
part, at least, find that his approach, which simply
requires rote memorization, to be the only way I've
ever found to successfully learn the basics of a
language.  (In seminary I took a course in Aramaic
that was inductive, and gave that up after a few
weeks, as it simply didn't work for me).  I think
Machen's approach of introducing the verb early on is
important.  Yo can't do much in the way of meaningful
sentences without verbs in Greek.

    I'm surprised about the comments I've seen on
Greek to English and English to Greek exercises.  When
one is learning a language, asking one to go from
English to the unknown language seems to me to verge
on the absurd.  How could one possibly know how a
native speaker would express the English???  When we
can't even be sure of a good English rendering from
points in Greek, trying to go the other way seems to
me a pedagogical problem.  Furthermore, as someone
elsepointed out, it's going to be a problem trying to
come up with simple sentences from the Greek NT, even
dumbed down, to help students with basic points.  It's
one thing for the basic Latin grammar I have to cull
all of ancient Latin literature to put simplified
quotes from authors in begining chapters (e.g, "rumor
volat" when introducing present tense verbs).  It's
another when you need to find it iin only the Greek
NT.   Where would you go?  The simplest material is
Johannine, but 1 John 1 is full of perfects, so you
can't start there . John 1:1 has grammatical
complexities that have generated reams of discussion,
so you can't start there either.  I found Machen's
simple Greek sentences to be helpful myself.  This is
not a comment on any aspect of the book besides the
exercises. 

Ken Litwak, Ph.D.
Affiliate Faculty
Southwestern College
Wichita, KS  

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