[B-Greek] Machen's NT Greek for Beginners
Steve Westfall
steve.westfall at comcast.net
Sun Feb 22 13:50:09 EST 2004
Barbara,
Don't know if you noticed, but you replied to me personally instead of the
list. You might want to repost it, especially since Carl would likely have
some helpful explanation of why it's good for students of NT Greek to also
know classical Greek.
I don't think your analogy holds, because we are talking about which stage
of an ancient language to begin with. With English, you are talking about
learning a modern, living language. With Greek, knowing classical Greek
provides insight to the student of the New Testament, because he/she will be
able to recognize subtleties of style that the student who knows only NT
Greek might overlook. I'll let Carl say more if he wishes.
Thanks for your response.
Steve Westfall
-----Original Message-----
From: Barbara D. Colt [mailto:babc2 at comcast.net]
Sent: Sun, February 22, 2004 2:58 AM
To: Steve Westfall
Subject: RE: [B-Greek] Machen's NT Greek for Beginners
On 22 Feb 2004 at 0:17, Steve Westfall wrote:
> 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.
>
This seems awfully strange to me. I have great admiration of Carl
Conrad's understanding of Greek and don't doubt that his advice is
good, but this seems to me like urging students of English to start
with Chaucer.
Barbara D. Colt, mailto:babc2 at comcast.net
St John the Evangelist, San Francisco
>From envy, hatred, and malice and all uncharitableness
Good Lord, deliver us.
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