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

Barry nebarry at verizon.net
Sun Dec 13 08:44:00 EST 2009



--------------------------------------------------
From: "Will Dilbeck" <will.dilbeck at gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, December 12, 2009 10:57 PM
To: "George F Somsel" <gfsomsel at yahoo.com>
Cc: "greek B-Greek" <B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] "Why do we make pastors translate?"

> Having taken some master's level Greek courses, and learning on my own, I
> think that the "gold standard" would be parsing with eventually reading
> texts. But, this is where it gets tricky. When someone reads a text are 
> they
> simply parsing and supplying the gloss or are they reading with enough
> comprehension to understand the argument of the writer? In my mind, those
> are two very different ways of "reading Greek."

I think the gold standard, if you will, has to be the latter.  With regard 
to parsing, parsing is like learning the alphabet.  What is the purpose of 
learning the alphabet?  So you can read the words.  What would we think of a 
teenager who can recite the alphabet and even identify the letters, but 
can't read?  We would think something was either wrong with him or had gone 
desperately wrong with his education early on.  Parsing practice serves a 
purpose for beginning students -- it gets them to recognize the forms, and 
hopefully then to make the connection between correct parsing and correct 
translation.  It's something which should become invisible and background 
over time, so that the students don't think about it when they are 
reading -- they just recognize the form and get it right.

To use myself as the example...  :) I have my beginning students do synopses 
of verbs from time to time (because their textbook asks them to do so, 
mainly).  If I think about the forms they are writing on the board in a 
linear sense, I'll hesitate and wonder if I'm getting it right.  But if I 
don't think about it, it just pops in and I always get it right.  That's the 
kind of linguistic recognition we should be aiming for -- linguists probably 
have a word for it.  Where's Randall Buth when you need him?

One other comment on 4 year programs at Evangelical seminaries -- Dallas 
Theological Seminary has always had a 4 year program for the ministerial 
degree, and Westminster made their 4 year program official years ago.  Mine 
was the last class to have more three year than 4 year graduates, and that 
was in 1989.  Don't know about other Evangelical seminaries...

N.E. Barry Hofstetter

Fecisti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te...
    -- Augustine, Confessions 1:1

http://mysite.verizon.net/nebarry/
http://my.opera.com/BarryHofstetter/blog/ 




More information about the B-Greek mailing list