[B-Greek] On the relationship between original language study and dead chickens

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Mon Dec 7 06:01:47 EST 2009


Steve Runge yesterday in his NT Discourse blog posted the above-titled meditation or rumination (If I may use such terms for this sort of narrative and reflection upon recent pedagogical experience). He writes (note the HP, Steve!): 

"There has been an elephant in the room for some time at many seminaries: the waning ability to justify the usefulness of traditional Greek and Hebrew study in preparation for pastoral ministry."

The key term here is "traditional" as descriptive of a kind of pedagogy based upon what he calls (and I have often referred to as) "decoding" the original-language text.

http://www.ntdiscourse.org/2009/12/on-the-relationship-between-original-language-study-and-dead-chickens

The bit about "dead chickens" has to do with parsing of original-language texts. What he writes reminds me of a favorite offhand remark by Aristotle in (I think) De partibus animalium; it goes something like this: "Do not be disdainful of dissecting the entrails of a fish: God is also to be found in the entrails of a fish." Steve seems to believe that too, although he, like myself, seems to have some doubts about how much the process of parsing original-language texts really facilitates the discernment of God in those texts.

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



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