[B-Greek] Understanding? Greek?

Donald R. Vance, Ph.D. donaldrvance at mac.com
Wed Mar 12 11:53:11 EDT 2008


I think a little perspective is need here. I have a fairly large  
English vocabulary and yet I still own and make frequent use of  
Merriam-Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (3rd Ed.) and the OED. Being  
a native speaker doesn't free one from the necessity for a good  
dictionary, so why should we expect less when we study Greek?


Donald R. Vance, Ph.D.
Professor of Biblical Languages and Literature
Oral Roberts University
dvance at oru.edu
donaldrvance at mac.com


On Mar 12, 2008, at 9:57 AM, Hugh Donohoe Jr. wrote:

> "here was little Dissen of Göttingen who had spent no
> less than eighteen years, at sixteen hours a day, on
> Greek and nothing but Greek, and who said that even
> now he could not read Aeschylus without a dictionary."
>
> Thanks Carl for posting a link to that quote. Indeed
> Dissen will keep anyone I know from getting the big
> head. Sadly if you google his name, there is almost
> nothing to commemorate his life and scholarship.
>
> It did comfort me to know he still needed a lexicon
> when reading Aeschyclus after a 105,120 hours of study
> (I crunched the numbers).
>
> This fact led me to meditate on my own experience. I
> left undergrad knowing 500 words and the paradigms. In
> Grad school I had two syntax classes...then hurricane
> Katrina hit. The year after the storm (waiting for the
> water to come down) I got serious. I studied Greek
> about six hours a day. That year I read through Mark 6
> times, Matthew 4, Luke 2 and  John 12 or so. My vocab
> for the last couple of years has hovered around
> 1500-2000. I currently read for an hour a day in the
> NT and devote some time to Classical. But I feel like
> ALL I gain now is familiarity.
>
> So this brings me to my questions. Continuing like I
> am, I don't see much improvement happening (in my
> knowledge of vocab). By JUST reading, some vocab slips
> out of my brain even though I am adding new each day.
> So it seems like I would have to either read much more
> each day or do an immersion type experience like that
> of Dr. Buth to progress. It feels like I have reached
> an equilibrium in vocabulary acquisition. After
> reading about Disson, maybe I should never expect to
> dispense with the lexicon, how depressing! So is it a
> matter of ability primarily? By this I mean the
> capaciousness of one's memory. Or is there a wall
> everyone hits when it comes to reading an ancient
> period of a language? How much pie should we think is
> in the sky? As my old pastor would say; "any
> questions, comments or war stories?"
>
> ex animo
>
> Hugh Donohoe
>
>
>        
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