[B-Greek] Fwd: "Why do we make pastors translate?"

Alexander Ring akring at mac.com
Sat Dec 12 13:06:05 EST 2009


I wasn't going to clog the list with a note saying "I agree," but then  
George wrote something that piqued my interest.

But first I do want to agree with what has been posted previously on  
this. From my experience and observations, the goal of Greek training  
for seminary tends to be on parsing and that information is deemed  
sufficient. The problem is that this tends to encourage "decoding" the  
text rather than translating. The other problem is this is just enough  
information to make reading Greek (or any other language) a chore, and  
nobody likes chores. Thus it shouldn't be much of a surprise when the  
GNT sits on a shelf. Much better is what Aaron wrote about; moving  
students into that third and fourth year when you then apply all that  
foundational grammar to reading, which gives more understanding, which  
makes it more enjoyable, which means you will probably do it more.

But what got my attention was

> Four years of seminary?  That's unusual.

Is it? That's the requirement in most Lutheran seminaries. But then  
when I meet other clergy I guess we don't talk about seminary so much  
as the parish. Or maybe I just need to get out more.

Rev. Alexander Ring
11221 Farwest Dr
Lakewood, WA  98498

akring at mac.com

It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a  
resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to  
physics and chemistry.
- H. L. Mencken





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