[B-Greek] Eric Sowell on reading unfamiliar Greek
Mark Lightman
lightmanmark at yahoo.com
Tue Apr 22 18:50:32 EDT 2008
Buth egrapse:
"And the friends need to start discussing this in Greek, and they will
need words 'that aren't found in the Bible' to quote Simon and Garfunkel."
Randall,
I appreciate these and all your thoughts, but the correct quote is
DIABOLLOMAI KAI BLASFHMOUMAI. AKOUW LOGWN
hWN OUDEPOTE EN TAIS GRAFAIS HKOUSA.
"I get slandered, libeled; I hear words I never heard in the Bible."
Notice how Professor Simon supports your view that Bible words
are things you "hear," not read....
Mark L.
Randall Buth <randallbuth at gmail.com> wrote:
lightman egrapse
>I occurs to me that the approaches of Conrad and Buth (whose postings on this
list I ALWAYS appreciate) are in different ways about learning NT
Greek in a not
very efficient BREAdTH, whereas I recommend that one go into the DEPTH of the
Greek NT. I think Rabbinical students get pretty familar with the
Torah after reading
it hundreds. maybe thousands of times, but I don't think that they
would know it better
if they stopped reading the Torah and started reading "unfamilar Hebrew.">
there are some good issues here, but we must be careful not to be comparing
apples with oranges. first the caveat's then the agreement.
Take 'efficient'. Let's say it takes 3000 hours to be fluent in a
language. Somebody
works really hard on a language for 1000 hours. they aren't fluent.
They work on to
a 6000 hour mark. Still not fluent. Not even close. I would call that an
'inefficient' method. Alliance Francaise will not be adopting whatever
it was that
that person was doing. Nor will the bilingual programs in Canada.
Say someone wants to know the English NT. They get really good as zipping thru
an English NT, able to spit out a roughly equivalent translation in Bongo-Bongo
(a language in Outer Slobenia) but they can't communicate with anyone
in English
or discuss the English NT in English, and certainly don't know what other words
or phrases could have been chosen for the English NT. I would say that they are
still a long way from knowing either English or the English NT. And
outsiders would
question both their breadth and depth of English.
Comparison with Hebrew. Yofi, ze davar she-ani makkir. For one REALLY BIG
difference, remember that the yeshiva students preserved and developed
Hebrew for
1700 years. As a second language, not a first language. But they were able to
speak with this language and write long books and commentaries in this
language. This is not something that NT professors are generally
either doing or
are capable of doing. (Latin doesn't count, because it's not Greek, and people
don't write Latin books much anymore anyhow.) I don't think most NT
students can image how great the difference is. But someone fluent in Hebrew
and at home in the MIQRA can ask themselves how their academic
ancient Greek is in comparison.
Hebrew was learned and preserved by USE. Use means fluency, and
fluency is developed outside of, around, and over, a restricted, small corpus.
I do agree with the overall thrust of Mark's argument.
If you want to read a literature, then you need to read that literature.
A LOT. KAI PALIN.
And while reading, try paraphrasing to yourself.
Try reading with others and discussing IN GREEK
what is being read. You will find yourself in a never ending spiral. Reading
widely outside the NT and re-reading ump-teen times inside the NT.
PS: when I say 'read' I do not put high value on reading outloud. I think that
reading outloud uses extra processing energy and results in LESS retained
information for the reader. You can test this on yourself in English easily.
Huh, did Dr. Buth say that the sound of the text hurt learning and retention?
No, the 'reading-out-loud'. On the contrary, LISTENING to a text being
read helps retention. But we are dealing with a situation with NT Greek that is
generally so linguistically unnatural and counter-intuitive that whatever I say
will be open to general misunderstanding. Students δο need to read outloud
because their mouths often can't smoothly pronounce syllable structures that
do not fit their mother-tongue. So reading outloud can prepare them for talking.
So it's good. But they need a friend to read back to them so that they can
get some of the listening benefit. The reading needs to be done with meaningful
intonation/pausing, of course. Otherwise it turns into an audio crossword
puzzle. And the friends need to start discussing this in Greek, and they will
need words 'that aren't found in the Bible' to quote Simon and Garfunkel.
[actually THOSE words are in the Hebrew Bible, the ktiv, they're just not read
in synagogue or translated]. I was talking about all the other, common words
not found in the Bible, and without which one doesn't develop fluency.
So next time you're reading about an OFRYS in Mark 6
be very careful not to ANASPASAI TAS OFRYS, αναÏÏαÏαι ÏÎ±Ï Î¿ÏÏÏ
Ï
(OFRYAS οÏÏÏ
Î±Ï colloquially), you wouldn't I'm confident,
but you can XALASAI TAS OFRYS ÏαλαÏαι ÏÎ±Ï Î¿ÏÏÏ
Î±Ï and savor the
moment, and NEYSAI TAIS OFRYSI νεÏ
Ïαι ÏÎ±Î¹Ï Î¿ÏÏÏ
Ïι to your friend to
read the next section. And I need to get back to editing the recordings
and drills where this came from.
ERRWSO
IWANHS
--
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth at gmail.com
Biblical Language Center
Learn Easier - Progress Further - Remember for Life
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