[B-Greek] Iterative, Customary, Gnomic, Conative, etc.

Randall Buth randallbuth at gmail.com
Sat Apr 7 15:13:00 EDT 2007


shalom Steve,

thank you for interacting on the following.
>I apologize for the delay in posting this response.  I'm a bit behind in
> reading B-Greek.
>
> I'm curious about the implications of some statements in Randall Buth's
> posting on 29 March 2007 (excerpted below).
>
> I think it's fair to say that in the entire history of the interpretation of
> the New Testament, apart from Greece itself and the Greek-speaking part of
> the Mediterranean world of antiquity, only a minuscule percentage of
> commentators, biblical scholars, theologians, philologists, lexicographers,
> etc. (not to mention pastors who have studied Greek) have had the ability to
> carry on conversations in Koine Greek at normal conversational speeds.
>
> If it's true that one can't even "start to trust the person's exegesis"
> until that person has reached that type of fluency with the spoken language,
> does this mean that almost the entire body of exegetical reflection on the
> New Testament generated by this part of the Christian church and/or the
> scholarly community is without value to the person who wants to understand
> the Greek New Testament?

Well, that might be one way to apply my comments. But it would be a 'straw man'.

So what I am I saying?
First, in normal language communication in a foreign culture you would
not trust someone with low level language skills to interpret a
document or function in a serious communication situation. That is
still true anywhere you go.
('Low level' applies to not meeting what we would expect of normal
conversational abilities or if someone where expected to 'know the
language' for a work environment. for example, a 'German for Reading'
ability would be 'low level' if someone were visiting in Europe or
applying for a job.) I assume that we are agreed so far.

As to accumulated wealth of commentaries, et al., it would be
suuperfluous to point out that they are of very great value indeed.
Exegetes are able to carefully weigh options and read a wealth of
information in their own language as well as Greek, and usually
comments in several other languages as well. By such methods the
accumulated wisdom grows. But that does not mean that such is the way
the situation should be. In fact, if the language standards of
exegetes were higher, I would expect that some of our commentary
content could be cut down. However, interpretation is not just a
matter of language but of reading a text against a background. The
need for background does not go away but grows as we collectively
rediscover more material reflecting the first century. And an ability
to sift through the written remains will remain a desideratum and even
increase, thanks to increased access to all of the ancient texts and
libraries in electronic format. Just covering the amount of material
at our fingertips today requires a greater fluency than would have
been expected in the past.

Let me also deal with two corollary questions/comments that regularly
go along with the idea "we don't need to know high-level Greek".

1. Doesn't the wealth of commentary information mean that we do not
need to learn Greek today? (Afterall, it would be naive to assume that
a Greek student is going to learn more Greek than many of the good
commentary writers.) There are a myriad of approaches to answering
this, though you should know that there are many responsible people
that actually take, or have taken, this position.

2. wouldn't this setting of a higher language standard falesly imply
that students fluent in Greek were better scholars than a great
commentator?
Again, this would be a straw man.
Every human being has innate wiring that will allow them to learn one
or more languages fluently. But every human being is not a good
analyst or skillful exegete. consider the follwoing.

Is every English speaker a Sheakspeare scholar? Of course not.
Is a Shakespeare student who is fluent in English a better scholar
than a learned professor somewhere who can't control English fluenty?
Most probably not, and if so, not because of the English but because
of special, budding, scholastic abilities. Language abilities do not
make a scholar.

But the real question is:
Would a Shakespeare scholar be a better scholar if they were fluent in English?

TI LEGEIS?

Randall

> Randall Buth, PhD
> www.biblicalulpan.org
> χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη πληθυνθείη
> שלום לכם וברכות
> ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
> randallbuth at gmail.com
>


-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη πληθυνθείη
שלום לכם וברכות
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
randallbuth at gmail.com


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