[B-Greek] Casualties of the Beginning Greek class
Martin F. Daly
pastor at ruggleschurch.worthyofpraise.org
Thu Feb 4 09:08:22 EST 2010
Carl and other responders,
Thank you for your insightful and filled with grace response.
These specifics are the things I find helpful, in some ways fulfilling
the need "to have someone to talk to about the questions ones wants
answers to and doesn't know where to find them readily or doesn't have
access to an adequate library "
I'm with George on a desire to read the New Testament being a prime
motivator, but my real passion is to hear God speaking - communicating.
In some sense I see this involves a desire to know how the Ancient
Greeks communicated, but I must honestly evaluate my weakness and
realize I am really unaware of even the scope of this endeavor. That
being the case, I find myself a "lurker" on the list so often unable to
frame a cogent question, let alone a useful response.
But again, thanks to Carl and others who give of their own experience
for the sake of keeping more of us off the casualty list.
--- marty ---
Carl Conrad wrote:
> On Feb 4, 2010, at 7:30 AM, Martin F. Daly wrote:
>
>> Can I ask what was it that caused you (or causes you) to press on
>> through and continue to the level you are now?
>>
>> Was it a character trait that was instilled in you that wouldn't let you
>> quit?
>> How can this kind of character be formed in others?
>>
>> Was it a word of encouragement from a mentor or role model?
>> How can mentoring and encouraging be furthered?
>>
>> Was it a particular style of teaching or study that allowed your mind to
>> grasp and hold the taught and studied?
>> Are those styles still available for others today?
>>
>> My question is from a genuine place of wanting to learn, and I hope is
>> not too forward.
>> As a wounded-but-not-quitting-greekling, I can use all the help I can get.
>>
>
> I think I may have answered this question -- perhaps piecemeal -- at points
> in past discussions here. The question is a better one than several of the
> questions that are routinely asked about ancient Greek pedagogy here. I'm
> not sure I can set this forth briefly, but I'll try.
>
> (1) Character trait: curiosity. Aristotle says that this is universal in humanity:
> πάντες ἄνθρωποι φύσει ὀρεγονται τῆς ἐπιστήμης (PANTES ANQRWPOI
> FUSEI OREGONTAI THS EPISTHMHS), but John H. Randall, Jr. said,
> with some justification, that Aristotle never met the American university
> student. The kind of curiosity one needs is one that goes well beyond the
> desire to learn something that is instrumental to another end, I think: it's
> not enough to want to read the the NT in Greek; rather it has to be a consuming
> passion to understand not only the hows of ancient Greek but, as far as
> possible, the whys as well. I don't know how to instill that sort of curiosity,
> but I've certainly tried to nurture and urge it along whenever I've seen it.
> But there must, I think, be more than a utilitarian attitude toward learning
> Greek. There has to be, I think, a passion to understand the how and why
> of the way the Greek spoke and wrote. It cannot be just a matter of
> deciphering cryptograms; rather it must have something to do with
> realizing that human beings spoke and wrote this language and that it
> can communicate to us because we too are essentially the same kinds
> of human beings: they can speak to and write for us to understand.
>
> (2) Style of teaching and study. I've spoken of my first-year teacher of
> blessed memory, Joe Billy McMinn, a grad student at Tulane when I first
> met him in the fall of 1952, recently graduated from Louisville Baptist
> Seminary and taught in the tradition of A. T. Robertson there. He had a
> Texas drawl, was infectiously affable, would digress any second into a
> rambling account of why the third person active ending is -EI rather than
> -ETI as it once was, or -ESI as it later was. He gave our little class of
> four students a choice to begin with Classical Attic, Homer, or NT Koine.
> Since two of the three wanted Koine (not I), that's what we did. We used
> a wretched textbook written by a certain Rife, but that was more for
> consultation; we worked with the GNT and the gospel of Mark and
> learned the forms of words and how and why they worked -- in terms
> of morphology, syntax, lexicography, and context to deliver the
> meaning to be read from them in sequence. We didn't make any
> effort to write out a translation so much as to understand what the text
> says; it seems we spent most of our time talking about how and why it
> means as it does.
>
> There's obviously a lot more to the questions you raise than just this.
> I've come to think that even a wretched textbook can work if teacher and
> student interrelate meaningfully. I think one can learn on one's own, but
> a remarkable teacher really does, I think, make a huge difference; even if
> one spends hours on one's own satisfying one's curiosity and practicing
> one's reading or writing, one needs to have someone to talk to about the
> questions ones wants answers to and doesn't know where to find them
> readily or doesn't have access to an adequate library. But passionate
> curiosity fueled by driving industry on the part of the student is a
> primary factor in what success I had.
>
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
>
>
>
>
>
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