[B-Greek] Greek "style"

Perry L. Stepp plstepp at kcc.edu
Fri Oct 22 09:55:31 EDT 2004


Kenneth, 

I think you're asking a valuable question, but I have problems with how
you're framing it.  The problems are: 1. How do we define style?  You seem
to equate style with sophistication, and I wonder about that.  2. Do we
equate difficulty of reading with "sophistication"?  

By your analogy of 3rd graders / adults, you seem to be suggesting that NT
writers are less sophisticated than extra-NT writers.  I have no problem
with that assertion.  And the extra-NT/LXX Greek that I've read has
certainly kicked my butt.  

But isn't it possible that Ignatius, for example, is more difficult to read
because of his vocabulary rather than his sophistication?  Or that he's more
difficult to read because of a LACK of education and sophistication, rather
than because he is more sophisticated?

As a professor, I have read HUNDREDS of student papers.  Well-written papers
don't drive me crazy.  They aren't the ones I have nightmares about having
to read.  

The papers that drive me crazy are the ones where a student has no idea what
he/she wants to say, or only a general idea, so he/she just wanders out into
a paragraph, treasure hunt style, in search of an idea he/she can manage to
articulate.

Perry L. Stepp, Ph.D.
 
Associate Professor of Biblical Studies
Kentucky Christian University
 
"The past is never dead. It's not even past." 
                                                            --Faulkner 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:] On Behalf Of Kenneth
Litwak
Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2004 4:04 PM
To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [B-Greek] Greek "style"

  As I'm teaching a course on NT SUrvey, and going
through the textbook, I see the usual discussions
about did so-and-so write such-and-such a letter.  I'm
not introducing that topic here, as it would be
inappropriate, but I got to thinkng about Greek
"style."  Obviously, Hebrews and 1 Peter are much more
complex than 1 John.  However, when I ventured outside
the NT in grad school, alomst everything (except the
LXX) was significantly harder.  Even Ignatious, whom
one might have expected to have "NT" style was harder.
 Josephus was significnatly harder.  And nothing I
read in the NT even begins to rise to the level of
complexity of THucydides or Lucian (Pseudo-Eupolemos
yes, Lucian, no).  It seems to me in thinking about
the Greek Iv'e read, even not being a classicist, that
the gulf between a Thucydides and any NT author is so
great that to make pronouncements about the stark
differences in style/level of sophistication between
NT authors is, by analogy, quibbling over the
differences between prose from thrid- and
fourth-graders, while ignoring how both compare to the
prose of an educated adult.  In other other words,
saying that 1 Peter is much better than John
stylistically may be true, but neither begins to rise
to the level of well-known classical authors, so the
differences within the NT are straining at gnats and
swallowing camels (ignoring how all NT swritings are
much less sophisticated than secular Greek texts).  Am
I overstating the differecnes between NT Greek texts
and non-biblical Greek texts?  

Ken Litwak

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