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

Steve Westfall steve.westfall at comcast.net
Wed Aug 8 20:32:43 EDT 2007


Yes, administrations and faculties share some of the blame, but they face a
problem that is largely beyond their control.  Schools must supply what
their "customers" demand.  If church or synagogue no longer insists on
biblical language skills, and instead prefers counseling and administration
skills, can seminaries fight that?

Part of the problem is what I referred to as "curriculum inflation".  If I
remember my history correctly, the institution of the seminary as a locus of
ministerial education arose in the 19th century.  Seminary degrees are
traditionally 3 year M.Div. (formerly called B.D.) programs, except for a
few schools whose basic degree is a 4 year Th.M.  In the 19th century with
students arriving well-prepared in languages, and with a limited number of
subjects in the curriculum, a lot could be done in three years.  But in the
twentieth century many additional subjects were added to the curriculum:
counseling, religious education, missiology and intercultural studies,
church administration, and lots of other things.  One may debate whether
these are worthwhile things, but is it reasonable to expect that all of
them, plus the more traditional subjects, can adequately be taught in 3
years?  Something had to give.  Few schools want to extend their programs,
so choices had to be made.  I'm not defending the choices.  Just pointing
out the reality they face.

In my opinion it is not primarily seminary administrators and faculties, but
the churches and synagogues who hire their graduates, who must bear most of
the blame.  If their ordination standards to not require a sufficient level
of biblical language competency, is it realistic to expect the seminaries
supplying their clergy to continue upholding the language requirements of an
older and different time?

Could seminaries go back to requiring that students have adequate training
in Greek and/or Hebrew before enrolling in seminary?  Could they take other
steps to raise requirements in biblical language knowledge?  Without the
support of the religious denominations that they serve, in our market-driven
educational environment the brave school that tries that might find its
enrollment dwindling and funding drying up.

"Things fall apart.  The centre does not hold." - W.B. Yeats  

Sorry to sound apocalyptic!  :-)

Steve Westfall

-----Original Message-----
From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Elliot Poe
Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2007 1:32 PM
To: Carl W. Conrad
Cc: B-Greek B-Greek
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] NT Greek pedagogy ... again

. . . By no means do I mean to make seminarians feel bad. In all likelihood,
the fault lies with the administrations and faculties (speaking
collectively) that set the bar so low for Greek. I felt like seminary did
little more than show me how to make the BDAG, Wallace's grammar, and NA27
into a sort of sophisticated Strong's Concordance.

What if seminaries set the bar higher and required a comprehensive exam for
biblical languages? I suppose this goes against the market mentality of many
seminaries, but we'd have clergy persons that could read the text at least
semi-competently.

Yours,
Elliot Poe





More information about the B-Greek mailing list