[B-Greek] What B-Greek is About (was "Top Ten ... "
Mark Lightman
lightmanmark at yahoo.com
Mon Feb 15 14:02:59 EST 2010
There was a Seinfeld episode where they talked about making a
show about nothing. A List about...nothing. Now that would be cool.
<...this recurrent discussion of interlinears is tedious
and unproductive every time we do a re-run of it.>
TO AUTO EGW LEGW. But it's not nearly as tedious and
unproductive as the disussion you and I have had about a
related topic Mike Lawson brought up--Reader's Editions.
What if they made a show about nothing and they re-ran
the pilot episode over and over again? Would you sit there
and watch it? I think I would. Everytime Carl and I discuss
Reader's Editions I keep on hearing that Britney Spears song
in my head. You know the one I mean. "HIt me, baby, one
more time."
But you know something, I still don't REALLY know why
Carl dislikes Reader's Editions. I really don't. And I don't
REALLY know why Barry and Mike A feel the way they
do about interlinears. "I do not like thee, Doctor Fell, the
reason why I cannot tell." I know that this discussion
breaks out on the list every six months like a repulsive,
recurring skin disease, but no one has told me the
reason why there is anything fundamentally wrong with
an Interlinear or a Reader's Edition. Some of us, maybe
just a few of us, Elizabeth, Stephen B., me remain genuinely puzzled.
It seems like you guys are saying that interlinears are
associated with people who don't take Greek seriously.
But, is this really true? Stephen has a point when he wrote:
<In my 46 years in the Lord's Church I:....
2. Don't know anyone other than me who owns an interlinear
3. Have never seen anyone using an interlinear, >
Now that I think about, I have actually only SEEN one
guy in my life with an interlinear. He was in our reading
group before he moved to Mississipi and his Greek was
excellent and he took it very seriously, He prefered
to use an interlinear for his text while we read. I never
asked him why because I did not--I do not, care what
text someone uses when they read. He did say that
he could look at the Greek of his interlinear without
noticing the English, something I cannot do. I would
like to ask everybody on the list how many interlinears they
have actually SEEN being used and whether they
can say that the users don't take Greek seriously.
Sarah M. knows one guy who she feels has been
harmed by an interlinear. Okay. But we don't have
any kind of real data to determine who uses
interlinears, do we? And even if we did, would that really say
anything about whether the tool is helpful?
But maybe that's not the reason why interlinears
are disparaged. I may be putting words into his
mouth, but I think Mike A has said in the past
that he does not like Reader's Editions or
Diglots or translations or Lexicons (at least,
not Thayer's) because they promote one word
glosses or "decoding"
("Hello, my name is Mark, and I'm a decoder."
"Hi, Mark...")
or at least they don't allow one to
think in Greek. Are you guys who hate interlinears coming
from a Greek-only immersion perspective? If so, I
am somewhat receptive to this point of view. Rico goes out
of his way to avoid one word glosses and uses as little
(in his case) French as possible, and I'm down with that.
But, if you do not object to the use of English in learning
Greek--if, that is, you are okay with translations and
lexicons that use the non-target language, then I again
ask, why is using an interlinear or a Reader's Edition
any different from using an NA-27 and a second and
third and fourth book which has the same information in
it that these helps have in one book? What's the DIAFORA?
I've never understood the objection to having everything in
one book. What do you learn during the dead time between
putting down your NA-27 and looking up a word in another
book, skipping most of the entry to get to the gloss because
you are anxious to get back to the text?
This is a tedious and unproductive discussion but it's basic.
It's about HOW we read Greek. It was only during the last
time that Carl and I discussed this that I learned that he uses
an electronic text and he says if you don't, it's okay to use
an LSJ Middle for a quick scan of a gloss. He says you
should write down the words you keep on forgetting and
look them up in the big LSJ and read the entire entry
when you get a chance, but you don't have to do
this over and over again every time. Carl and I disagree about
the value of a Reader's Edition for the Iliad. They
don't have one, so I made my own. The first time
I read through a chapter I looked up a lot of the words.
I wrote them down in the margin, where I cannot see them
while I read the Greek,
sometimes a few words, but often
just a one word gloss taken from some version
of LSJ. This way, when I reread the text I do not
have to look up the word again. Of course, I
only look at the word in the margin if I have to.
I think people use Interlinears the same way.
They cover up the English with a note card or
they don't look at the English unless they have to.
Eventually they spend very little time with the
English, maybe only once every several pages.
But even when they are no longer beginners, the
interlinear has value for them. I still use my
Zondervan Readers GNT as my most favored
text. I still occasionally glance down at the
gloss to see what the nomnitive is or whether it is an
alpha or epsilon contract verb.
I think I have heard both Barry and Mike A say
you should not look up words anywhere, whether
in a Lexicon or on the same page. You should just
figure them out from context. That's a great
method. I think there are other ways you can
learn Greek.
By the way, how do we know that you cannot
in fact, learn to understood the Greek New
Testament fairly well by using an interlinear
as your main tool?
If you go to this link
http://books.google.com/books?id=SyQBAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Thomas+Clark&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false
you will find a book published
in 1888 when, according to the old timers, people
really took Greek seriously. Its called the "Hamiltonian
System as Improved by Thomas Clark, Editor of the
Latin and Greek Interlinear Classics." It teaches
people how to read Greek through the use
of interlinears. The preface makes the case
for interlinears with such sentences as
"The Hamiltonian system...substitutes
the cheerfulness and competition of the
Lancasterian system for the dull solitude of
the dictionary." (p. viii) It has testimonals
favoring interlinears by lazy people like Milton
and John Locke. Really, I'm not making
this up. You can check it out yourself.
A guy who uses nothing but an interlinear to
learn, not Greek or New Testament Greek, but
the underlying meaning of the Greek New Testament,
(95% of which can be understood by reading a few
good translations, and they are all good) is going
to have a lot of time on his hands. He won't be
spending time in Lexicons (which also have
their critics) or doing Greek grammatical
analysis (which also has its critics) or
reading Xenophon (who has his critics.) He
is going to have a lot of time to go over that
interlinear. After a few years, I bet he will
know BASICALLY what the Greek New Testament
means. Before I judge the guy and say that he
is pretending to know Greek, I'm going to sit
down with him and see if I can show him
any place in the text where my method of learning Greek
(I don't use an interlinear)
allows me to say, "But the Greek REALLY
says this."
But this is the extreme case. Most people don't
use interlinears this way. It's something in the
tool box. I would not call this hysteria, but I'm with
Stephan. I still, even after doch einmal, (sp?) don't get it.
Mark L
FWSFOROS MARKOS
--- On Mon, 2/15/10, Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com> wrote:
From: Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
Subject: [B-Greek] What B-Greek is About (was "Top Ten ... "
To: "Michael Aubrey" <mga318 at yahoo.com>
Cc: "B- Greek" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Date: Monday, February 15, 2010, 3:34 AM
On Feb 14, 2010, at 11:22 PM, Michael Aubrey wrote:
>
> The fact is that when it comes to the goal of actually learning the language -- which is what the B-Greek list is about -- an interlinear is only going to give a student a false sense of security about their knowledge of the language. For those are trying to learn Greek, an interlinear is only a tool for pretending.
Considering the proportionate distribution of discussion topics on
B-Greek, one might suppose that B-Greek is "about" the goal of
actually learning the language, but in fact, that has historically been
only a secondary concern. The opening paragraph of our FAQ cuts
a pretty wide swath which takes in pedagogical resources, but the
intended central focus of B-Greek has always been more upon
the text and the language of the Greek Bible:
"B-GREEK is a mailing list for scholars and students of Biblical
Greek. Our main focus is upon understanding the Greek text of the
Bible. Discussion topics include scholarly study of the Greek Bible
and related Jewish and Christian Greek texts, tools for beginning and
advanced students of Biblical Greek such as textbooks, reference
works, bibliography and research tools, and linguistic topics such as
morphology, lexicography, syntax, and discourse analysis."
I confess that I have contributed my own 2 bits -- or 2 cents -- to
on-list discussions of interlinears, nor have I ever thought that
discussion of interlinears on B-Greek was inappropriate -- but I
do think that this recurrent discussion of interlinears is tedious
and unproductive every time we do a re-run of it.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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