[B-Greek] UBS Reader's Edition GNT

Douglas Paul douglas.paul1 at comcast.net
Sun Nov 18 05:43:12 EST 2007


What I found personally, was that even with a diglot edition I would 
"cheat" enough that the skills I have were not being used sufficiently 
to maintain them.  So, I went back to the straight Greek version.  
Having said that I also have an analytical lexicon handy (the bag I take 
to church is heavy) for the cases where I'm stuck.  Certainly, my Greek 
is not good enough to understand everything.  I can read the book of 
John without looking things up.  But, I know that what I have memorized 
are the glosses and really still need a lexicon anyway.

Doug Paul


Mark Lightman wrote:
> I know that the value of these Reader's Editions have been discussed on this list before ,but it might be a good time to revisit it with the publication of this one and the second edition of Zondervan's about to come out any day now.
>    
>   Just my two cents.  I can see nothing but positives to these sorts of things.  I have the first edition of Zondervan's  A Reader's Greek New Testament and, despite the terrible font and despite the reversed engineered text, I still love it and use it all the time.  I take it with me on the bus, whenever I have a free second I can read a page or two of the Greek NT without having to have another book open, or even leaf through the back of the book.  If we want (and we do) people to read the Greek NT every day, why NOT make it easier.  The fact is, the more you read the thing, the less often you HAVE to look at the definitions, and now I only doit to check my self.  I'm pretty sure I know the meaning and form, but I can just glance down, confirm it and move on.  Of course I still use Bauer and Kittel for that matter, but would critics of a Reader's Edition suggest that I take all ten volumes with me on the bus before reading any Greek?
>    
>   The advantage of Zondervan's over the new UBS is that the former lists all the possible definitions of a word, but of course listing only one is okay too.  Isn't that what every translation is, a one word gloss?  Why is it okay to use a resource as long as it is not on the same page.  Again, it's only "cheating" if you don't try to figure it out first, and we do.
>    
>   In point of fact, I think we have the opposite problem to the one Carl alludes to.  We need MORE of these things, not less.  Here is the question I have.  What is the advantage of an UNmarked Greek NT?  Since none of us has Greek which is so good that we understand everything we read, we all benefit from using resources, so why not include them on the same page, whether a diglot or footnoted definitions/parsings?  I'm not talking interlinears here.  Again,  if all you do is read an unmarked text, without refering to translation or a dictionary, how does your Greek get better?  And why is okay to have a textual appartatus at the bottom of the page but not a translation or a dictionary, even if a limited one?  
>
>   




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