[B-Greek] Difficulty of reading passages
frjsilver at optonline.net
frjsilver at optonline.net
Fri Jul 6 17:58:33 EDT 2007
While there's no doubt that Mark is preserved in Greek, it's fairly widely accepted that he actually wrote in Aramaic. Perhaps someday the _Urtext_ will be found.
As a result, it's not surprising that the Greek text of Mark shows some Semitic influence. Not knowing the difference, or not having access to explanations of such Semiticisms as there are, inexperienced readers might find Mark's style a little misleading, since it's very idiosyncratic.
Just for that, I'd hesitate to start NT Greek studies with Mark, but rather come to it later, once students have a better grasp of the Greek text of, say (at least) Luke/Acts.
Father James Silver
----- Original Message -----
From: Bryan Cox
Date: Thursday, July 5, 2007 9:58 pm
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Difficulty of reading passages
To: B-Greek Mailing List
> Surprisingly, I rarely see the book of Mark mentioned as good reading.
> It is relatively short and tends to repeat words (especially
> 'euthus', the
> function
> of which you will learn quite well), which is great for learning
> vocabulary.
> I've
> read that 1 John is another good book on which to begin, though
> from my
> experience, I'm not sure I'd agree. I think a good narrative
> story (rather
> than
> abstract concepts) is much easier to wrap one's brain around
> from a
> beginner's perspective.
>
> Why is Mark so rarely suggested? Is it because it is a
> relatively 'poor'
> Greek
> with a lot of semitic structure? Just curious.
>
> Thanks,
> Bryan Cox
> Plano, Tx
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jeffrey T. Requadt"
> To: "B-Greek Mailing List"
> Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2007 3:26 PM
> Subject: [B-Greek] Difficulty of reading passages
>
>
> >I know that a frequent topic of discussion on this list is how
> best to
> >learn
> > Koine Greek. I find myself generally agreeing that the more
> exposure one
> > has
> > to a language (especially using it), the more natural it will
> become.
> > Thus,
> > I would really like to start reading more of it without
> worrying too much
> > about getting everything right, or for the purpose of
> exegesis, etc., but
> > rather just to read it over and over and over and thus to
> become very
> > familiar with it (not unlike the point of the C.S. Lewis
> passage referred
> > to
> > earlier on the list). So I was wondering if those of you out
> there more
> > familiar with the level of sophistication/difficulty of the
> New Testament
> > (and other easily-obtainable texts) could recommend a starting
> point for
> > reading just for the fun of it. I've tried reading James, and
> can make a
> > little headway because I already know it in English, but there
> is too much
> > vocabulary that I'm not familiar with. I've read through 3
> John before;
> > that
> > seems to be a fairly simple passage as the NT goes. I've heard
> that 1 John
> > is easy to read without too much trouble. My purpose again is
> to read lots
> > of text without trying to figure everything out. I remember
> learning to
> > read
> > French by *actually reading French books* without trying to
> figure out
> > every
> > single word and how it fit into the grammatical or syntactical
> structure
> > of
> > the sentence, or doing discourse analysis, or literary
> analysis. In other
> > words, the purpose was to understand French by reading and
> speaking
> > French.
> > In the same way, when I taught piano, I didn't just teach
> about how the
> > piano works, or the difference between whole steps and half
> steps, or how
> > the diatonic scale works (although you need to know these
> things at some
> > point to truly understand how to play the piano well). I
> focused more on
> > actually playing the piano. I really think that's how our
> brains learn
> > most
> > things. We connect the theory to our own experience. I want to
> be able to
> > read the N.T. (and other early Christian literature) for
> understanding> without resorting to lexica all the time, and I
> don't care so much about
> > writing a technical commentary. I want to be able to connect
> the
> > linguistic
> > theories to my own experience so that I can not only
> understand the "how"
> > of
> > the Greek but also the Greek itself. So again, my question is,
> what texts
> > would be good to start out with, and where would I go from
> there? If
> > anyone
> > has a "graded" list of difficulty, that would be helpful too.
> >
> >
> >
> > Jeffrey T. Requadt
> >
> > Teacher
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> > Dietz Elementary School
> >
> > 7575 E. Palma St.
> >
> > Tucson, AZ 85710
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> > (520) 731-4000
> >
> > fax (520) 731-4001
> >
> >
> >
> > ---
> > B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek
> > B-Greek mailing list
> > B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
>
> ---
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