[B-Greek] An Intermediate Learner tries a Reader’s Edition and a Diglot

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Tue Dec 1 07:05:44 EST 2009


I like the Diglot (assuming you mean the NET diglot) very much, even if I don't use it very often. It has the NA27 textual apparatus and it has the NET notes explaining the translators' reasons and interpretations -- often helpful items to provoke pondering even if one may not agree with them.

I've also enjoyed the diglot with facing GNT and Modern Greek version, more for instruction in some fundamental differences in constructing sequential meaning in the ancient and the modern language. But that's a different kind of tool.

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

 
On Monday, November 30, 2009, at 07:23PM, "John Owlett" <owl at postmaster.co.uk> wrote:
>I have a confession to make: I own an interlinear.  It’s never helped me much, 
>and recently a Reader’s Edition and a Diglot have been significantly more useful.  
>Perhaps my experiences will be of use to other intermediate learners.
>
>When I went to university to study Mathematics, I had two solid years of high 
>school Attic Greek inside me.  I bought a Greek NT and found it very heavy going.  
>The only assisted version (alias dumbed-down version) available in the 1960s was 
>the interlinear.  I bought the KJV-based “Englishman’s Greek New Testament” … 
>and found that I could not avoid reading the English line as well as the Greek.  
>I was learning the background to the KJV’s translation decisions, but I was not 
>exercising my Greek—at all.
>
>Returning to Greek after retirement, there are now two more levels of assisted version …
>
>… the lower level (one step up from an interlinear) is the “Reader’s Edition”, 
>with a running Greek-English dictionary—I have the one based on the UBS Greek 
>New Testament, fourth edition, published by the German Bible Society (and also, 
>I believe, by the American Bible Society);
>
>… the upper level (one step down from a pure text) is the Diglot, a parallel 
>Greek-English edition—I have the one with the Nestle-Aland text, 27th edition, 
>and the New English Translation on facing pages, published by the NET Bible Press.
>
>A major factor in my choice of editions has been the clarity of the Greek text.  
>Greek letters are no problem, nor—with these editions—are accents and breathings.  
>The ultimate test, a breathing and an accent on the same vowel, is better on the 
>Reader’s Edition than on the Diglot.
>
>The Reader’s Edition has a suggested translation at the foot of the page for 
>every word which occurs 30 times or less in the New Testament; words occurring 
>more than 30 times are in a glossary at the back.  With the grammar and 
>vocabulary left over from school, I can make sense of the text with only rare 
>references to the glossary.  And I am making real contact with the Greek.
>
>Whoopee!
>
>But …
>
>The translations at the foot of the page are just a little too slick.  (The 
>glosses are too glossy?)  Often, I have thought, “Well it can be translated 
>like that, but it can be translated by other words too.”  Occasionally, I have 
>thought, “I think he has chosen that translation because it matches his 
>interpretation of the text.”  And I have sometimes wondered whether a word 
>really has a complete equivalent in English at all.
>
>So, I like the Reader’s Edition for someone in my state of learning, but I am 
>equivocal about it.
>
>The Diglot is probably better for me … provided I use it properly.  I have a 
>plain white 5”x8” card in the book, which nicely covers the English text while 
>I am going through a passage in Greek.  Only in great need, or at the end of 
>the passage, may I look at the English translation.  Without the white card, 
>it is too easy to slip my eyes across to the English … and I’m not exercising 
>my Greek any more than I did with the interlinear.
>
>I think I may not be ready for the Diglot yet.
>
>Later,
>
>Dr Owl
>
>----------------------------
>John Owlett, Southampton, UK
>---
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