[B-Greek] Difficulty of reading passages

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Jul 6 18:08:15 EDT 2007


On Jul 6, 2007, at 5:58 PM, frjsilver at optonline.net wrote:

>
> 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.

I would hardly say that's a "fairly-widely accepted" proposition. But  
this is not the forum to discuss Synoptic critical theory.

>
> 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
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ---
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>>
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Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/





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