[B-Greek] Machen's NT Greek for Beginners
Steve Westfall
steve.westfall at comcast.net
Sun Feb 22 01:17:57 EST 2004
Why would you expect a grammar of New Testament Greek to prepare you for
classical Greek? This seems unreasonable. Carl Conrad's approach to a
diachronic understanding of Greek seems much better: Start with a year (or,
preferably, more than a year) of classical Greek, and then study NT Greek.
Also, bear in mind what Barry Hofstetter said about Machen's target
audience. Machen's book was not written for the typical person who begins
the study of NT Greek today. Many of these have never studied any foreign
language and may not even have all that solid a grasp of English grammar.
It was written for people who had previously mastered Latin and perhaps
modern foreign languages. This does not make up for its other problems, but
it does help place the book in its historical context. Most current
students would do better with another beginning grammar.
I add my voice to Carl's commendation of Funk's Beginning-Intermediate
Grammar of Hellenistic Greek. I learned NT Greek from Goetchius' textbook.
Recently I've been "brushing up" a bit by working my way through Funk, and I
think his approach, informed by modern linguistic theory, is a better way to
teach the language. It's really unfortunate that it's out of print. I
hope the suggestion of making it available on the web turns into reality in
the not-too-distant future.
Steve Westfall
Naperville, Illinois
-----Original Message-----
From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org]On Behalf Of
Polycarp66 at aol.com
Sent: Thu, February 19, 2004 8:28 PM
To: cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu; cookie99 at fuse.net
Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Machen's NT Greek for Beginners
. . . I feel that Machen did not adequately
prepare a student for more difficult passages -- and most especially not for
classical Greek. . .
gfsomsel
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