[B-Greek] List of NT books in order of difficulty
Barry
nebarry at verizon.net
Tue Jul 17 18:05:42 EDT 2007
----- Original Message -----
From: "John M. Linebarger" <jmlineb at comcast.net>
To: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2007 3:20 PM
Subject: [B-Greek] List of NT books in order of difficulty
> To respond to some earlier (but non-definitive) discussion of the order of
> Greek difficulty of New Testament books, let me pass on the list that my
> teacher and mentor, Dr. Glen Riddle, gives to each of his second year Greek
> students. The order is easy to difficult.
>
> 1 John
> John
> 2 John
> 3 John
> Revelation
> 1 Thessalonians
> 2 Thessalonians
> Philippians
> Ephesians
> Colossians
> Philemon
> Mark
> Matthew
> Titus
> 1 Corinthians
> Galatians
> Romans
> James
> Luke
> 1 Timothy
> 2 Timothy
> Jude
> 2 Corinthians
> 1 Peter
> 2 Peter
> Acts
> Hebrews
Pretty subjective. I think I agree with having 1 John at the top, and Hebrews
pretty near the bottom, but it all depends. When I first read Acts, I had
already had reading experience in Plato, Thucydides, Herodotus, and
Aristophanes, so I didn't think it was too difficult at all, and much of the
vocabulary which is "rare" in the rest of the NT was quite fine for me. As a
Classics grad student, I was doing some research on Apocalyptic literature, and
asked a fellow Ph.D. student in Classics (whose Greek was excellent) his opinion
on a passage in Revelation, and he couldn't read it because of the vocabulary.
So "difficult" can at times be a difficult assessment to make. I would push
Mark up to the top of the heap, and I find John "deceptively easy" in terms of
constructions, but much more interesting stylistically than is sometimes
observed. I guess really, I don't even think about this anymore, not really. I
do think it's fun to have intermediate students read Mark or John, and then
switch them to 2 Peter or Hebrews.... <evil snicker>
N.E. Barry Hofstetter
Classics and Bible Instructor
The American Academy
http://www.theamericanacademy.net
and me:
http://mysite.verizon.net/nebarry
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