[B-Greek] UBS Reader's Edition GNT

Calvin Lindstrom pclindstrom at yahoo.com
Wed Nov 21 09:43:31 EST 2007


Dear B-Greek List,

Let me second Carl's recommendation of the NET Diglot for those still  
working on their Greek skills and require assistance. The printing of  
the text is excellent. The larger font is helpful. As Carl mentioned,  
the NET Diglot provides some helpful insight into textual  
difficulties. An appendix gives further discussion on more difficult  
and significant matters. I suppose one could wrongly use the NET  
Diglot, but I think it also can encourage one to read. The emphasis  
on this list I think is correct - Read, Read, and Read. Understanding  
will come with patience and perseverance.

Calvin Lindstrom
Church of Christian Liberty
Arlington Heights, IL
www.christianliberty.com




On Nov 20, 2007, at 6:37 PM, Carl Conrad wrote:

>
> On Nov 19, 2007, at 1:50 PM, Jonathan Robie wrote:
>
>> What would an ideal "Readers Edition" GNT look like?
>>
>> Suppose we want something to assume the functions of Zerwick/
>> Grosvenor + the GNT. How would you design that?
>
> These are two different questions. Let me tackle the second one first,
> hUSTERON PROTERON.
>
> (2) It would appear that we are defining "Reader's Edition GNT" as a
> Greek NT for people who (a) really can't read NT Greek, i.e. recognize
> at sight the inflected forms of verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs,
> and (b) can't cope with a lexicon that lays out the full range of
> potential meanings of Greek words but must rely instead upon someone
> else's selection from a short list of glosses in what is just about
> the weakest of all lexical aids available for study of the GNT, and
> (c) doesn't need a grammar, because it is assumed that the single-word
> glosses and parsing of words is sufficient to yield the literal
> meaning of the Greek text. I suppose there's something satisfying
> about the lack of any critical apparatus too: it relieves the reader
> from the uncomfortable notion that the Greek text he or she is looking
> at is something other than an editorial composite of manuscript
> evidence. I'd have to say that I think an interlinear would be more
> immediately useful for the person who can't really read NT Greek or
> cope with a real lexicon.
>
> (1) Far better for the person whose skills in Greek are not fully
> developed, in my opinion, is the NET Diglot (Google search results at:
> http://tinyurl.com/ysyg8f). The NA27 text is there with the full
> apparatus, so that, even if one is not fully informed about textual
> criticism, one has some notion of the real nature of the text of the
> GNT as an eclectic text settled upon -- for better or worse -- by
> agreement of a committee of scholars. On the facing page is one of the
> better English versions, the NET: it's not perfect, as no translation
> is perfect; but there is more assistance in the translator's notes
> than one will find anywhere in an interlinear or "Reader's Edition"
> regarding how the difficulties in the Greek text may be variously
> understood, and where there are alternative ways of interpreting an
> ambiguous Greek text, there's some guidance regarding the alternative
> possibilities. The more competent in Greek a person really is, the
> more obvious it is that the NET is not a literal translation of the
> GNT but a serious effort to represent the sense of the Greek in
> idiomatic English. In sum, I think that the NET Diglot offers a
> clearer perspective on just exactly what the GNT is and how its
> meaning can be expressed in English.
>
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
>
>
> ---
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