[B-Greek] You Are Smarter Than a Lexicon (?)

Barry H. nebarry at verizon.net
Thu Jun 3 11:49:26 EDT 2010


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Carl Conrad" <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
To: "B-Greek" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 03, 2010 9:54 AM
Subject: [B-Greek] You Are Smarter Than a Lexicon (?)


>What bothers me is that the industry and practice here are expended upon 
>what is
essentially predigested analysis done by others. For my part, I question the 
value
of learning a little Greek or a little Hebrew if one isn't going to go deep 
enough
to digest the original texts on one's own.

Carl, when I first saw this thread title, I thought the answer was going to 
be that the student's goal was to become smarter than the lexicon.  After 
all, once you reach a certain level, how often do you look up words in your 
own language?

When I first taught beginning Latin at the high school level, I had the odd 
experience of the textbook I was personally using disappear and then 
reappear after a couple of ideas.  I mentioned this to the math teacher, who 
informed me that I really was naive.  "They took it because they thought it 
was a teacher's edition, and they were going to copy out all the answers." 
He was right -- I w as naive.  The next day I mentioned this to the class, 
and told them that I had no plans to get a teacher's edition, and that I 
knew more Latin than their entire beginning text -- the answer book was in 
my head.  They were astounded.  I remember one girl in particular just 
flabbergasted at the idea that anyone could do such a thing...

I often get the feeling that too many people approach Greek this way.  They 
treat it as though it's an infinitely vast field of knowledge that can never 
be mastered.  Now, I am not talking about expert mastery of all the 
literature at a Ph.D. level or above.  What I am talking about is competence 
in the language.  It's doable.  It takes a bit of work, diligence and time, 
but it's doable.  And after you've read enough of the literature, you begin 
to realize that tools, electronic or otherwise, are only the beginning of 
wisdom, and not the final word.  We should approach them with respect, and 
use them to become our own tools, to become our own lexicons...

N.E. Barry Hofstetter
Classics & Bible Instructor @ The American Academy
2010 Salvatori Excellence in Education Winner
http://theamericanacademy.net
Mentor, The North American Reformed Seminary
http://www.tnars.net/

http://my.opera.com/barryhofstetter/blog 




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