[B-Greek] NT Greek Paedogogy redux
James Spinti
JSpinti at Eisenbrauns.com
Fri Aug 10 13:02:33 EDT 2007
I have been discussing this offline with someone who teaches Biblical
Hebrew and other Semitic languages. He also reads Koine Greek. He made
an interesting observation, which is frequently lost in the discussions
of Greek pedagogy, I quote (with his permission):
"...he seems to confuse goals: is it to read and study the Greek NT, or
to study the NT with reference to the Greek? The latter is what most
seminarians come out doing for the duration of their ministry, and so
that is what the seminaries are beginning to simply aim at. However, the
b-greek discussion often fails to distinguish these..."
Before you begin to teach or read Greek, you should decide which of the
two is your goal. Once you have decided, then adjust your methods
accordingly. Of course, I would prefer that everyone wanted to study the
Greek NT :) But, not everyone is willing or able to invest the time and
effort necessary.
My $.02,
James
________________________________
James Spinti
Marketing Director, Book Sales Division
Eisenbrauns, Good books for more than 30 years
Specializing in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Studies
jspinti at eisenbrauns dot com
Web: http://www.eisenbrauns.com
Phone: 574-269-2011 ext 226
Fax: 574-269-6788
> -----Original Message-----
> From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org
> [mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of John
> M. Linebarger
> Sent: Friday, August 10, 2007 10:31 AM
> To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: [B-Greek] NT Greek Paedogogy redux
>
>
> I'm following the discussion of NT Greek paedogogy with great
> interest but with an increasing sense of frustration. In a
> theoretical sense I can understand that learning Attic Greek
> provides a good foundation for reading the simpler Koine
> Greek of the New Testament. I can also understand the
> approach that inhales large amounts of text at one sitting,
> and attempts to induce meaning from context instead of
> looking up everything in a dictionary. After all, that's how
> many of us learned to read our first language.
>
> But surely this can be done within the New Testament itself
> to some degree, without having to take a 1-2 year detour to
> learn Attic Greek? Many of us barely have the time to
> maintain our Koine Greek, much less the much richer and more
> difficult world of Attic Greek. And speaking from
> experience, it is hard enough to convince a church Sunday
> School class to devote at least an hour a day to learning
> Koine Greek; if I were to suggest learning Attic Greek first,
> I'd have nobody left in my class. They (and me too) want to
> get into the New Testament as quickly as possible, and desire
> to devote their energies to the study of God's word.
>
> So within the corpus of the New Testament itself, how would
> you sculpt a paedogogy that achieves the goals of Greek
> fluency? Focus one's study efforts on Luke-Acts and Hebrews
> and one's devotional efforts on the Johannine corpus and
> Revelation, with the middle area being the epistles of Paul?
> Inhale large chunks of the other Synoptic gospels (Mark and
> Matthew) on a daily basis to develop and maintain reading proficiency?
>
> You see where I'm going with this -- how does one achieve (or
> approach) proficiency within the confines of the NT corpus
> itself? Any thoughts from the group?
>
> Thanks! Enjoy!
>
> John M. Linebarger
> Albuquerque, New Mexico
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