[B-Greek] What B-Greek is About (was "Top Ten ... "

theomann at comcast.net theomann at comcast.net
Mon Feb 15 15:53:08 EST 2010


----- Original Message ----- 
From: theomann at comcast.net 
To: "Mark Lightman" <lightmanmark at yahoo.com> 
Sent: Monday, February 15, 2010 3:49:18 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern 
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] What B-Greek is About (was "Top Ten ... " 




     Years ago one could buy an organ with keys that lit up.  Do they still make them?  I don't remember exactly how it worked, but it was something like this:  If you pressed the blue keys, you were playing an F Major triad; the red keys gave you B-flat minor.  Press certain colored keys in a row, and you were playing a tune in G Major.  One could learn to play simple songs by depressing the appropriately-colored keys, without having to learn anything much about music.  A book of simple songs was provided, containing only the lyrics, with codes written above (or below) the words, directing the performer to depress certain colored keys with certain words in the text.  Many such gimmicks have been available over the years. 

     On the other hand, the color system could be turned off, and you could play the instrument properly, if you had the technique and music-reading skills.  The organ was OK, as I recall, but the color-coded system provided an almost irresistible temptation to learn songs, but not music.  But it served a perfectly acceptable service for some people. 

     I think that may be one of the problems with interlinears and, especially, the lexicons in Strong's Concordance.  I don't know if there are appropriate and reasonable ways to use these resources, but they lend themselves so easily to improper uses, that there is an almost inescapable temptation for people who know little or nothing about Hebrew and Greek, but want others to think that they do, to misuse them.  And, of course, they serve as crutches for biblical language students who should be taking their efforts more seriously.    

     

Ted 

      

     By the way, I don't want to denigrate those musicians who play brilliantly, but know little about music.  There have been any number of excellent jazz and folk musicians who know very little about the technical aspects of music.  Their ears are their guide, and their fingers fly like the wind. 

         
Theodore H. Mann 
theomann at comcast.com 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Lightman" <lightmanmark at yahoo.com> 
To: "Michael Aubrey" <mga318 at yahoo.com>, "Carl Conrad" <cwconrad2 at mac.com> 
Cc: "B- Greek" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org> 
Sent: Monday, February 15, 2010 2:02:59 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern 
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] What B-Greek is About (was "Top Ten ... " 

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) 



--- 
B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek 
B-Greek mailing list 
B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org 
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek 



       
--- 
B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek 
B-Greek mailing list 
B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org 
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek 



More information about the B-Greek mailing list