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

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Sat Apr 7 15:45:15 EDT 2007


On Saturday, April 07, 2007, at 03:13PM, "Randall Buth" <randallbuth at gmail.com> wrote:
>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

EMOIGE DOKEIS hWS KALLISTA EIPEIN!

Carl W. Conrad



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