[B-Greek] relative value of re-reading the Greek NT versus following the advice of Conrad and Buth

George F Somsel gfsomsel at yahoo.com
Sun Feb 24 09:31:22 EST 2008


Submitted with tongue firmly implanted in cheek.


How dare anyone insinuate that it is possible to read and understand the Greek New Testament without having been exposed to Messrs. Conrad and Buth?  Before Herr Conrad and Herr Buth none ever read and understood the New Testament.  The sheer effrontery in inconcievable ! 

Sorry, I must stop at this point.  reaching the keyboard while rolling on the floor laughing is too difficult.
 
george
gfsomsel 
… search for truth, hear truth, 
learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth, 
defend the truth till death.
 
 - Jan Hus
_________

----- Original Message ----
From: Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
To: James Ernest <j.d.ernest at bc.edu>
Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2008 7:37:24 AM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] relative value of re-reading the Greek NT versus following the advice of Conrad and Buth



On 
Feb 
23, 
2008, 
at 
11:36 
PM, 
James 
Ernest 
wrote:

> 
Mark 
Lightman 
<lightmanmark at yahoo.com> 
asked:
>
>> 
Is 
there 
anybody 
out 
there 
who 
ignores 
Conrad 
and 
Buth 
and
>> 
just 
reads 
the 
Greek 
NT 
and 
feels 
this 
is 
working?
>
> 
I'm 
sure 
that 
there 
is, 
and 
that 
the 
feeling 
is 
delusional.
>
> 
Well, 
I 
could 
and 
maybe 
should 
qualify 
that 
pronouncement, 
but  
> 
instead 
I'll
> 
move 
on 
to 
what 
I 
wanted 
to 
throw 
in, 
which 
is 
this: 
whether 
it's  
> 
reading 
NT
> 
or 
reading 
other 
Greek 
or 
getting 
oral/aural, 
I 
suspect 
that 
Greek  
> 
learning
> 
is 
like 
geology, 
or 
Stephen 
Jay 
Gould's 
notion 
of 
evolutionary  
> 
progress: 
for
> 
moving 
from 
one 
level 
to 
the 
next, 
steady 
progress 
is 
not 
what 
will  
> 
get 
you
> 
there. 
It 
will 
take 
the 
equivalent 
of 
an 
earthquake 
or 
a 
mutation-- 
> 
whether
> 
that's 
a 
4-week 
total-immersion 
ulpan, 
or 
a 
year 
or 
two 
of 
slogging
> 
through 
Euripides 
and 
Plato 
and 
Herodotus 
in 
MA 
courses, 
or  
> 
something 
else 
I
> 
haven't 
thought 
of.
>
> 
If 
that's 
a 
depressing 
thought--well, 
maybe 
I'm 
wrong. 
(Am 
I?)

I 
won't 
try 
to 
respond 
to 
Mark 
Lightman's 
message 
in 
toto, 
but 
I 
might  
offer 
a 
comment 
or 
two 
on 
the 
fundamental 
question:
(1) 
I 
don't 
really 
believe 
that 
it 
takes 
an 
earthquake 
or 
a 
mutation  
to 
give 
one 
a 
real 
mastery 
of 
Greek; 
what 
it 
takes 
is 
more 
intense 
and  
sustained 
effort 
on 
the 
part 
of 
one 
endeavoring 
to 
achieve 
it. 
But  
even 
that 
effort 
must 
be 
methodical 
rather 
than 
haphazard. 
I've  
described 
my 
own 
process 
of 
slogging 
through 
Homer 
hour 
after 
hour,  
night 
after 
night, 
and 
the 
exhilaration 
upon 
coming, 
eventually, 
to  
reading 
line 
after 
line 
of 
text 
-- 
not 
so 
much 
effortlessly, 
as  
confidently 
and 
with 
understanding. 
I 
think 
that 
one 
must 
do 
this  
slogging 
with 
each 
new 
author 
one 
tackles, 
to 
some 
extent 
--  
particularly 
an 
author 
with 
a 
distinctive 
style 
and 
a 
distinctive  
lexical 
range. 
And, 
as 
I've 
said 
recently 
with 
regard 
to 
use 
of 
the  
lexicon 
while 
reading, 
one 
needs 
to 
take 
pains 
with 
lexicon 
entries  
and 
not 
just 
scan 
them 
quickly 
for 
the 
gloss 
that 
will 
permit 
one 
to  
go 
on 
with 
the 
passage 
currently 
being 
read: 
one 
needs 
to 
take 
pains  
with 
the 
recurrent 
words 
that 
have 
significant 
nuances 
in 
different  
contexts. 
As 
for 
the 
reading 
itself, 
I 
remain 
convinced 
that 
the 
more  
one 
keeps 
reading 
Greek 
that 
is 
unfamiliar 
or 
less 
familiar, 
the  
better 
equipped 
one 
will 
be 
to 
come 
back 
and 
read 
the 
GNT 
again.

(2) 
Another 
key 
element 
in 
this 
problem 
and 
its 
solution 
(how 
to  
achieve 
mastery 
of 
Greek), 
it 
seems 
to 
me, 
is 
the 
extent 
to 
which  
analytical 
investigation 
of 
the 
text 
is 
primary 
or 
secondary. 
At 
the  
textbook 
level 
this 
is 
a 
matter 
of 
(a) 
the 
traditional 
method 
of 
new  
lessons 
introducing 
new 
vocabulary, 
new 
grammar 
items, 
and 
a 
few  
context-less 
sentences 
or 
phrases 
illustrating 
the 
new 
construction(s)  
and 
employing 
the 
new 
vocabulary 
-- 
vs. 
(b) 
new 
lessons 
built 
around  
extensive 
texts 
of 
connected 
prose 
(or 
verse) 
while 
having 
at 
hand 
the  
lexical 
and 
syntactical 
aids 
that 
will 
assist 
mastery 
of 
those 
texts.  
The 
traditional 
approach 
focuses 
on 
analytical 
skills: 
memorization 
of  
paradigms 
for 
declension 
of 
nouns, 
pronouns, 
and 
adjectives 
and  
conjugation 
of 
verbs 
-- 
parsing 
of 
nouns, 
pronouns, 
adjectives, 
and  
verbs 
-- 
identification 
of 
categories 
and 
subcategories 
of 
case 
or  
tense 
or 
mood 
usage. 
I 
don't 
say 
that 
the 
analytical 
process 
is  
worthless 
but 
that 
it 
does 
NOT 
naturally 
lead 
to 
comprehension 
of  
connected 
prose 
or 
verse 
texts. 
What 
one 
must 
aim 
at 
is 
thinking 
in  
Greek 
as 
one 
reads, 
not 
sentence-by-sentence 
searching 
for 
subjects  
and 
predicates 
and 
modifiers 
but 
reading 
words 
in 
the 
order 
that 
the  
Greek-speaking 
mind 
finds 
"natural" 
and 
grasping 
the 
cumulative  
meaning 
in 
successive 
phrases. 
The 
interlinears 
and 
parsed 
texts 
may  
occasionally 
be 
useful 
when 
one 
does 
analytical 
exploration 
of 
how 
a  
passage 
works 
to 
communicate 
its 
meaning, 
but 
I 
honestly 
do 
not  
believe 
that 
they 
will 
teach 
one 
how 
to 
think 
in 
Greek. 
I 
am 
inclined  
to 
think 
that 
the 
predominant 
approach 
in 
current 
Biblical 
Greek  
pedagogy, 
as 
indicated 
by 
textbooks 
as 
well 
as 
by 
analytic 
tools 
and  
electronic 
resources 
being 
made 
available 
to 
students 
of 
Biblical  
Greek, 
focuses 
upon 
the 
analytical 
skills 
rather 
than 
upon 
reading.  
And 
that, 
I 
think, 
is 
why 
so 
few 
students 
of 
Biblical 
Greek 
arrive 
at  
the 
ability 
to 
READ 
Greek.

An 
analogy 
might 
make 
this 
paradox 
clearer. 
I 
remember 
being  
surprised, 
when 
first 
reading 
Aristotle's 
Nichomachean 
Ethics, 
to 
find  
him 
insisting 
that 
lectures 
on 
morality 
are 
useless 
to 
those 
who 
do  
not 
already 
practice 
good 
behavior, 
and 
that 
children 
learn 
to 
behave  
rightly 
by 
growing 
up 
in 
an 
environment 
where 
right 
behavior 
is  
practiced. 
It 
seemed 
to 
me 
that 
this 
was 
tantamount 
to 
saying, 
as 
Jane  
Austen 
might 
say, 
that 
it 
is 
"good 
breeding" 
that 
makes 
people 
good,  
that 
parental 
and 
peer 
behavior 
is 
the 
primary 
factor 
in 
acquisition  
of 
good 
character 
-- 
although 
one 
knows 
that 
the 
"well-bred" 
can  
behave 
in 
selfish 
and 
dishonorable 
ways 
just 
as 
surely 
as 
those 
raised  
on 
the 
wrong 
side 
of 
the 
tracks, 
and 
Jane 
Austen's 
novels 
themselves  
amply 
illustrate 
that 
truth. 
What 
Aristotle 
really 
meant 
by 
insisting  
that 
lectures 
on 
morality 
are 
useless 
to 
those 
who 
do 
not 
already  
practice 
good 
behavior 
is 
that 
moral 
philosophy 
attempts 
to 
examine  
the 
"whys" 
of 
right 
behavior, 
not 
the 
"hows." 
Comparably, 
it 
seems 
to  
me, 
the 
analytical 
approach 
to 
learning 
Biblical 
Greek 
tends 
to 
focus  
on 
the 
"whys" 
of 
good 
grammar 
(Why 
a 
dative 
with 
this 
verb? 
Why 
a  
subjunctive 
in 
this 
construction? 
Why 
an 
aorist 
rather 
than 
a 
present- 
tense 
form 
in 
this 
narrative 
sentence?) 
instead 
of 
the 
"hows" 
of 
good  
grammar. 
One 
learns 
the 
"hows" 
of 
good 
Greek 
grammar 
(i.e. 
how 
lucid  
and 
intelligent 
Greek 
speakers/writers 
express 
themselves 
in 
order 
to  
be 
understood 
by 
intelligent 
Greek 
listeners/readers) 
by 
reading 
Greek  
texts 
and/or 
listening 
to 
Greek 
speakers, 
NOT, 
in 
the 
first 
analysis,  
by 
parsing 
the 
words 
of 
their 
sentences 
and 
explaining 
the  
constructions 
of 
their 
cases, 
moods 
and 
tenses.




Carl 
W. 
Conrad
Department 
of 
Classics, 
Washington 
University 
(Retired)



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