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

Billy Shaw billyspdfs at yahoo.com
Sun Dec 20 09:18:41 EST 2009



Good morning, list participants.  This is only my second contribution to our forum.  

I have read the exchanges in this thread with interest, since I am a Pastor and since I have a love for Greek, having studied with Kostenberger, Robinson, etc. at SEBTS.

Men who are considering language study in Seminary often ask the question - should I take Greek?  I cannot speak for everyone, but a week does not go by that I do not spend multiple hours in my Greek NT.  I believe there is value in explaining the original to a contemporary audience over against a translation.  The preacher's craft is finding meaningful ways to communicate what the lexicons convey to a 21st Century audience.  I'm not aware of an actual English translation that omits any word outside of modern vernacular.  I realize this forum is not about translation theory, so speaking personally, the value for Greek study in my ministry has been, as Carl W. Conrad has said, the ability to conduct exegesis, and then also to speed up the sermon prep time.  Earlier in the forum there was a question about time spent in Greek.  Had I not enjoyed a semester of in-depth syntax discussion with Dr. Robinson in Colossians, my current series through that
 epistle would be impossible given the health needs of my congregation.  

Just my $0.02.

Billy Shaw


________________________________
From: Carl W. Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
To: John Wilking <jcwilking at yahoo.com>
Cc: B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Sun, December 20, 2009 7:32:44 AM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] "Why do we make pastors translate?"

On Saturday, December 19, 2009, at 02:21PM, "John Wilking" <jcwilking at yahoo.com> wrote:

--- On Sun, 12/13/09, Carl W. Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com>wrote:

----On Saturday, December 12, 2009, at 06:18PM, <wmhboyd at aol.com> wrote:

WB: Perhaps a "Gold Standard" for pastors should be to know enough Greek to protect themselves from professors.  : )

    William (The Barbarian) Boyd
  Greensboro, NC

CWC: There's a great deal to be said for this warning, and I shall be the first to say or second it. Having sat through and even
taken minutes for University Faculty meetings, I would be the last to defend any proposition that any special wisdom
belongs to academic "scholars."

    What disturbs me most about the "least-common-denominator" standard of competence in Greek for those whose
vocation is interpretation of the Biblical text for others is that these pastors and laymen are at the mercy of all those
who claim to know "better" -- those who write commentaries, those who offer their opinions freely on lists like B-Greek.
The "gold standard" for competence in Greek ought, I think, to be ability and confidence to make up one's own mind
about issues of interpretation.

JW  I don't understand the value of making up one's own mind, at least as a gold standard.

CWC: Well, I'll parse my own comment: We're talking about competence in Greek. I'm using the term "gold standard" rhetorically in contradistinction to "least common denominator" in that regard. If the "least common denominator" of competence in Biblical Greek is parsing the nouns, adjectives, pronouns, verbs, and adverbs in a Biblical Greek text one confronts, then the "gold standard" is understanding what the Greek text as a Greek text means and being able to judge whether what some other says about that Greek text is à propos and helpful with respect to interpreting that text. That is to say, competence in Biblical Greek is being able to judge the relevance of other people's judgment(s) about a text in question, whether the judgment is expressed in a commentary or in a comment offered in a discussion list such as this.

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