[B-Greek] interlinears for beginners

James Bowick bowick at idirect.com
Tue Apr 19 11:20:22 EDT 2005


Let me go against the crowd.

One of the great challenges I see facing the church as a whole is a marked decrees in understanding the Bible.  I work with a lot of pastors and most of them have only a smattering of Greek if they have any at all.  While I would love to see them all continue in the study of Greek so they are no longer dependant on interlinears, parsing guides and handy dictionaries, the reality is that this is just not going to happen for most of them.  I will put an interlinear or any other tool I can into their hands to help them get further into Greek.   They are going to make mistakes, and misunderstand things, but at least they will be trying.  I have watched the discussion on this list long enough to know that even the best of us get it wrong from time to time.

It will make many of you cringe, no doubt, the idea of the language and texts you love being mishandled, misunderstood and mangled by amateurs.  But is this really better than seeing them locked away in ivory towers, forbidden to all but the elite who have put the years into mastering it?  I say let them play with it.  They will learn from their mistakes over time, but more importantly perhaps they, or someone else in their congregation, will desire to take the study more seriously, and perhaps even join us on the list down the road.

By the way, after I have sold them the interlinear, and Mounce's Greek for the Rest of Us, when they are using these, I usually refer them to this list.

James




-----Original Message-----
From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org]On Behalf Of Barry Hofstetter
Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2005 7:46 AM
To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] interlinears for beginners



----- Original Message ----- 
From: <TuNeCedeMalis67 at aol.com>
To: <jwest at highland.net>; <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2005 7:32 AM
Subject: [B-Greek] interlinears for beginners


> <<<<<In a message dated 4/19/2005 6:18:09 AM Central  Daylight Time,
> jwest at highland.net writes:
>
> Interlinears are the
> plague- avoid  them.>>>>
>
> I have found an interlinear useful at this stage of my language learning,
> especially as I try to master prepositions and pronouns. To be able to read
> along and basically just read the verbs in English, I can read the rest of the
> verses in Greek and notice when the preposition is followed by the genitive or
> accusative, for example.

The point is that you should not need an interlinear to do this.  Take the time 
to memorize the paradigms, and as you learn the prepositions, memorize the cases 
they take along with the usual "meanings" associated with those cases.  I 
understand the desire to begin using what you are learning immediately, and an 
interlinear appears to be a shortcut to get there a little quicker, but like 
many so-called shortcuts, it ends up causing more problems in the long run.

If you have a choice between an interlinear and being infected with plague, 
choose the plague -- well maybe not, because if you choose the interlinear, you 
might learn long enough to learn from your mistake.

Barry

A little Learning is a dang'rous Thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring:
There shallow Draughts intoxicate the Brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
  --Alexander Pope, "An Essay on Criticism"

http://mysite.verizon.net/vze1yfx7/ 

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