[B-Greek] NT Greek pedagogy ... again

steve.westfall at comcast.net steve.westfall at comcast.net
Wed Aug 8 14:25:10 EDT 2007


The Greek requirement at seminaries I am familiar with range from none, or 1 or 2 semesters, to 6 semesters.  The seminary I attended required 6 semesters of Greek and 4 of Hebrew, and in earlier years had required more of each.  Even so, many students took more than the required minimum.

(Of course, the number of semesters required does not equate to proficiency, and there is a lot to debate about the instructional methods used.)

Here is a statement taken from a contemporary seminary website describing its language requirements (with the school name omitted):

"A strong knowledge of the Bible is of great importance, and is foundational for much of the rest of the work that students undertake at seminary. The curriculum requires students to take a sequence of four courses in Bible in their first five terms at XXX: two Old Testament and two New Testament courses. No additional courses are required, but electives are offered regularly. Biblical languages are encouraged but not required; Greek and Hebrew are offered at XXX in alternate years."

[This quote is not meant to single out a particular school for criticism.  I haven't done an exhaustive study, but I get the impression that this level of language requirement is not unusual for many seminaries.  If I'm wrong about that, my apologies.  Also, I know that there are many schools requiring more than this.]

Apart from the fact that Biblical languages are not required at all at this school, and probably will be avoided by most students, several other problems are evident here, the foremost being that no one at this seminary is going to study either Greek or Hebrew for more than two consecutive semesters because the languages are only offered in alternate years.  Also, few if any will take a second year in either language.  The only requirement in Bible is a one year Old Testament survey and a one year New Testament survey.  (I will refrain from editorializing about that!)

Even if a seminary is serious about wanting its students to have a strong knowledge of the Bible that includes an adequate grasp of biblical languages, there is an almost insurmountable barrier, namely the state of language preparation (or, more accurately, lack of preparation) in entering students.  In the nineteenth century it was assumed (and required) that the student entering a seminary had already mastered both Latin and Greek before graduating from college.  Some seminaries merely provided lectures on the differences between Koine and Classical Greek for these entering students, who then went on to more advanced exegetical courses.  In the twentieth century, and today, the situation is the opposite.  In this regard, I have always appreciated the remark by Eugene Van Ness Goetchius in the preface/forward/intro to his first year Koine grammar.  He cites Dr. Johnson as saying:  "Greek, sir, is like lace; every man gets as much of it as he can", then comments that "today Greek i
s like lace in that no one cares whether he gets any or not!"  

Given that most seminaries provide a 3-year degree program for ministerial education that must (a sign of "curriculum inflation"?) include many other subjects besides languages, it is easy to see why the languages fall through the cracks.  So it seems to me that the problem goes deeper than simply how seminaries teach languages.  There are structural problems in the entire education system, as well as in ministerial education itself, that militate against developing language proficiency in the clergy.  

A school that wants to buck this trend could do something such as requiring entering students to have had at least two years of Classical Greek prior to entering seminary, but given the times and culture, I think that is unlikely to happen.  (And this does not address the problem with respect to Hebrew.)

Steve Westfall

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu> 

> You may radically disagree with the forceful statements about 
> inadequate seminary (and pre-seminary) training in ancient Greek, but 
> here are some blog voices that should be seen (heard?): 
> 
> From John Hobbins' "Ancient Hebrew Poetry" blog, a piece entitled, 
> "It's all Greek to me" 
> 
> at http://tinyurl.com/32rqeu 
> 
> and a co-referential piece by "Ad Fontes" entitled, "Christian 
> Seminary Language Education: It’s Pretty Sad." 
> 
> at http://tinyurl.com/2tcedx 
> 
> Carl W. Conrad 
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired) 
> 
> 
> --- 
> B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek 
> B-Greek mailing list 
> B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org 
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--
Steve Westfall 
Naperville, IL 
steve.westfall at comcast.net 


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