[B-Greek] Machen's NT Greek for Beginners

Barry nebarry at verizon.net
Thu Feb 19 23:53:01 EST 2004


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Polycarp66 at aol.com>
To: <cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu>; <cookie99 at fuse.net>
Cc: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2004 9:27 PM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Machen's NT Greek for Beginners


> Up to this point I've studiously kept my mouth shut on this subject, but I
> must second Carl's evaluation of Machen.  I started learning Greek with Machen
> then switched to another school and took a classical course.  For a time I was
> completely at a loss (well, almost).  I feel that Machen did not adequately
> prepare a student for more difficult passages -- and most especially not for
> classical Greek.  I would be slightly less hard on Machen than Carl, but I do
> think you can and should do better.

I understand that McCartney's revision of Machen goes a long way toward solving
these difficulties.

I taught out of Machen for 4 years at Westminster (the seminary that Machen
helped to start, so his grammar was nearly canonical), and felt exactly the
same, particularly about the sentences.

As for the brevity of grammatical explanations, I find this typical of grammars
written during the first 1/2 of the 20th century (and earlier).  Machen could
assume that nearly every student he was getting had had several years of Latin
and often French or German, so that lengthy grammatical explanations really were
not necessary, and could easily be supplied by the teacher if needed by the
students.

N.E. Barry Hofstetter
Professor of Theological and Biblical Studies
 The Center for Urban Theological Studies
         Philadelphia, PA
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze1yfx7/




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