[B-Greek] "Translating" the biblical text" (was "Help Translating John 1:18")

Matson, Mark (Academic) MAMatson at milligan.edu
Thu Jul 10 14:19:56 EDT 2008


Amen, Carl (expressed after teaching a number of years of 3rd year greek, and trying to explore whether students really understand the nuances of infinitives, cases, and the syntax of statements)....
 
Mark A. Matson
Academic Dean
Milligan College
http://www.milligan.edu/administrative/mmatson/personal.htm

________________________________

        I think that the primary objective of learning Biblical Greek should 
indeed be UNDERSTANDING Biblical Greek. That means, in my view, 
understanding the Greek text AS a Greek text, on its own terms, in its 
own word-order -- grasping it in its own flow from phrase to phrase, 
sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph, etc., etc.
        How does one demonstrate that one has achieved that objective? 
Perhaps by answering questions about the text posed by someone who 
does understand the Greek text in the fashion I've described. Ideally 
such questions should be posed in Biblical Greek (à la Randall Buth -- 
or "au Randall Buth"). But I have in mind the same sorts of 
comprehension questions as are used for testing comprehension of 
paragraphs or stories or articles in a well-formulated test or reading 
exercise book. At any rate, I want the student being tested for 
understanding of the Greek text to tell me not what the WORDS of the 
text mean in terms of English (or other target-language) words, but 
what the text supposedly understood MEANS -- expressed in "other 
words" or "re-stated in one's own words."

All of this has to do with my objection to the growing use of 
"interlinears" or "reverse interlinears" as primary tools of what 
continues to be called "learning Biblical Greek. Even when you add on 
pre-digested analyses of phrase-structure, clause-structure and 
discourse patterns to the interlinear or reverse-interlinear digitized 
study resource, you're only getting, at best (and that might even be 
pretty good), someone else's best judgment about what and how the 
Biblical text "means." Perhaps such resources can really help an 
advanced student move forward to reading and understanding HITHERTO-
UNSEEN Greek texts (rather than just understanding how another or 
others have analyzed the Greek texts with which one has been familiar 
all one's life -- more or less.

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






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