[B-Greek] The New International Greek Test Commentaries
Eric Weiss
papaweiss1 at yahoo.com
Wed Mar 9 14:45:06 EST 2005
- - -
Hi all
I am just about finished with Dr Mounce's BB
Greek, just 3 more chapters to go. Thank God I made it
this far. Anyhow the reason I wanted to learn B Greek
is for exegesis for study & sermon prep. I am going to
continue with the Summer graded reader and then
Mounce's 2nd year graded reader, good idea?
Also, I bought a few of the NIGTC's.. they seem to
me to be way to advanced for me, what is the purpose
for these commentaries? Translation helps, or exegesis
or what? How advanced should or does a person in NTG
to use these commentaries to their fullest? My Pastor
went through the course with me and I showed him the
Galatians one, he didn't have it long, but said to me,
"I couldn't get anything from that for sermon prep." I
know he didn't spend much time with it, but he did
take it home for a few days. Can you all help me with
my questions? Can you rate them as far as exegetical
help resource, and are they all good? That is, the
ones that are finished so far. I have 1st & 2nd Cor,
Hebrews, Galatians & the Pastoral epistles.
Also are they Reformed in Theology, or more neutral
as far as that goes? Thanks for helping me, and for
the persons who run this list!
Grace and peace to you all, Jimmy Montesano
- - -
You might be better served at this point with the New
International Commentary series, which keeps the Greek
in the footnotes, though after you've had about 1-1/2
years of Greek, you should be able to interact with
the NIGT series, as well as with Word's commentaries,
depending on how well you've learned your Greek. If
you're learning on your own, it may take a bit longer,
because you won't have a teacher's help.
The Summer reader is good for Mounce students, or you
can use Metzger's vocabulary book (Baker) to get your
vocab to every word that occurs 20x or more (Mounce
gets you to 50x; the Summer reader gets you to 20x;
Metzger can get you down to 10x, though his word
counts differ slightly from Trech's, another option -
Metzger is slim and easy to carry). You really can't
navigate much of the Greek New Testament well until
you've learned every word that occurs 20x-25x.
The Graded Reader will be good, too, and it's keyed to
Daniel Wallace's Greek Grammar Beyond The Basics, so
you'll want to buy Wallace in conjunction with the
Graded Reader.
I think NIGT commentaries are theologically
conservative, but not necessarily reformed (just
guessing).
Re: your pastor's remarks, it probably depends on how
much he works with the Greek text. I find commentaries
to be helpful for pointing out and discussing textual
and exegetical and translation options, and also for
giving background information. I read the Greek text
and see something interesting or puzzling, and a good
commentary can help me with my difficulty or validate
whether what I think I'm seeing is really significant
or even there. I think there are many, many sermons to
be mined from the Greek text, but I'm not sure the
NIGT or even the New International Commentary volumes
are geared to sermon preparation. If so, it's more
"behind the scenes," i.e., they help the
teacher/preacher better know what the original text
says, but don't always discuss how to bring a "word
for today" from the text to the people in the pews.
Just some thoughts.
Eric S. Weiss
__________________________________
Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list