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

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Feb 19 16:21:39 EST 2004


At 12:49 PM -0800 2/19/04, Ted Shoemaker wrote:
>While we are discussing the merits of various NT grammars, could some
>of you also critique the Attic grammars?  (Athenaze, Hansen & Quinn,
>etc.)  Yes, this has been done now and then on this group.  But if we
>could evaluate the classical grammars alongside the NT grammars,
>especially comparing the various criteria that people will mention, I
>believe some new light will be thrown on the whole picture.
>
>Technically, my post is off-topic, since this group is about *NT*
>Greek.  But some have said that the study of Attic Greek is a good
>prep for NT Greek, and I'll hang onto that notion as an excuse for
>the preceding.

In my earlier response to Waldo Slusher (Thu, 19 Feb 2004 13:34:08 -0500)
I've already spoken of what I deem the two very best textbooks of Classical
Attic Greek: the JACT _Reading Greek_ course and Hansen & Quinn, _Greek: An
Intensive Course_ I've heard very good things about the text by Donald
Mastronarde, and there are excellent materials at his supporting web-site,
"Ancient Greek Tutorials": http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~ancgreek/
Mastronarde (I've examined the textbook but never taught out of it) is
traditional as is Hansen & Quinn: grammatical explanations, paradigms to
memorize, reading and translation exercises to reinforce the new lessons.
_Reading Greek_ breaks with tradition in that it offers up fair-sized
chunks of reading with readily accessible glossary that one reads through
BEFORE seeing the grammatical explanation of new items; that is, one meets
in the reading recurrent examples of the pattern introduced in the new
lesson before there's any explanation of how and why that pattern works
grammatically. There are exercises too, and sentences that tend not to seek
ability to translate English into Greek but to demonstrate understanding of
the new forms and syntax of the lesson, chiefly by substituting phrases
that match elements in a pattern sentence. _Athenaze_ is similar to
_Reading Greek_ but it is slower-paced; but it is like _Reading Greek_ in
that it focuses upon acquisition of reading ability rather than upon
ability to regurgitate memorized paradigms. These more recent textbooks all
differ from the older traditional textbooks in that their authors recognize
that rote memorization of the paradigms, unless accompanied by recognition
of idiomatic syntactic patterns, will never lead to ability to read and
think in Greek linguistic patterns.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/



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