[B-Greek] Reading the GNT without a lexicon

Joseph Weaks j.weaks at tcu.edu
Fri Mar 12 12:47:39 EST 2004


FWIW: I just took my doctoral Greek Exams two weeks ago at Brite 
Divinity School of Texas Christian University toward my Ph.D. in NT.
The exam had 3 random chapters from the GNT to translate, as well as 2 
LXX and one from non-canonical author of my choice, of which ended up 
being from Lucian's Demonax. The GNT portions were translated without 
any helps, while I could use the lexicon on the rest.
Although, I'm sure it's expected that not every hapax legomena in the 
GNT is nailed down (or at least I hope so! I haven't received my 
results yet!), it gives an opportunity to show general comprehension. I 
am amazed at what words and phrases I'm able to "figure out" when I am 
simply reading and encounter them in context. This is, actually, 
exactly what I do in my native English, after all.
I think I would recommend flashcard-type rote memorization of every GNT 
word occurring somewhere around 20 times or more. After that, Carl's 
suggestions are superb in how to deal with words as you encounter them.

Keep in mind that the most frequent 120 words in the GNT in all their 
various forms make up 83,711 of the 137,328 words in the GNT about 60% 
of NT vocabulary. I find thinking in terms of cognates especially 
helpful.
Here are the two vocabulary tools that I use:

Trenchard, Warren, "The Student's Complete Vocabulary Guide to the 
Greek New Testament," Zondervan, 1992, 340 pp. ISBN 0-31--53341-4

Robinson, Thomas, "Mastering Greek Vocabulary," Hendrickson, 1990, 176 
pp. ISBN 0-943575-45-1

Cheers,
Joe Weaks

On Mar 12, 2004, at 8:18 AM, Ken Penner wrote:
> I believe some PhD programs at least used to expect their students to 
> know
> the GNT vocabulary, but I don't know that anyone still does. It's a 
> lofty
> goal...

> At 5:29 AM -0500 3/12/04, James Jackson wrote:
>> I have finished reading the gospel of John and am almost finished 
>> with the
>> book of Revelation in the GNT....
>> I have. Is it reasonable to expect that an average person may be able 
>> to
>> read through the GNT without having to look up any words?




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