[B-Greek] You Are Smarter Than a Lexicon (?) The beat goes on ...

Fortigurn dixit-dominus at thechristadelphians.org
Fri Jun 4 10:12:13 EDT 2010



Carl,

It's worth pointing out that Logos do offer more traditional methods of 
learning Greek. They offer electronic editions of standard Greek 
textbooks and courses:

* Introduction to Biblical Greek Collection (3 Vols.) 
<http://www.logos.com/products/details/2803>
* Advanced Greek Supplement (6 Vols.) 
<http://www.logos.com/products/details/4650>
* Introduction to NT Greek (CDROM) 
<http://www.logos.com/products/details/1065>
* Hellenika: A Beginning Greek Textbook 
<http://www.logos.com/ebooks/details/HELLENIKA>

They have also co-sponsored the three day intensive Greek learning camps 
<http://biblicalgreek.org/classes/giaw/> of another company. They even 
sell Hebrew and Greek paradigm sheets 
<http://www.logos.com/products/details/6338>, for those who still love 
the good old fashioned 'stare-and-chant-for-hours-until-magic-happens' 
method of learning which I had to sit through for two years while 
supposedly learning Greek in university. To be fair, my professor was a 
wonderful guy and did his utmost to help us, but also said bluntly that 
the only real way to pick up the language was hours and hours of 
grinding away at rote learning.

Personally, learning Greek through the paradigms was an experience which 
reinforced to me beyond doubt just what an idiotically constructed 
language Greek was, and how much useless grammatical junk it carried. 
This helped me understand why English is such a ridiculous mess.Teaching 
English to non-English speakers for 6 years while learning Chinese, has 
helped me understand what languages should look like. Chinese has highly 
intelligent grammar, but utterly stupid orthography and unnecessarily 
difficult phonetics. English has nonsensical and clumsy grammar, but 
extremely efficient orthography and phonetics. I would love to see an 
amalgamation of the best features of these languages. English could be 
improved significantly by throwing out all the useless declensions and 
conjugations, and by quartering the number of prepositions and conjunctions.

Jonathan Burke.

Carl Conrad wrote:
> This morning's followup on yesterday's blog entry at the site in 
> question is:
> http://blog.logos.com/archives/2010/06/learn_to_use_biblical_greek_and_hebrew_with_logos.html
>
> Yes, that's "Learn to Use Biblical Greek and Hebrew with Logos." From my
> own perspective, I think I'd rename it, "Learn to USE Biblical Greek and 
> Hebrew without really knowing either language." I don't mean to be unfair
> to the software company (I am using the Mac version of some of its items
> although my primary Biblical software is Accordance -- which by its nature
> is engaged in some of the same (to me) questionable didactic ventures).
> In fact, I find that the argument against traditional classroom methodology
> -- teaching Greek through memorization of paradigms and grammatical rules
> and demonstrating what's been learned by production of wooden literal 
> translations -- quite compelling and not far removed from the argument that
> I and some others have made against traditional Biblical Greek pedagogy.
>
> My concern is rather that this pedagogy being peddled in the above-referenced 
> video effectively makes its user dependent upon predigested interpretation of
> the original-language texts. One learns not the languages, but the use of the
> software, and the software functions in su;ch as way as to begin and end with
> English language versions of the Biblical text and English-language explanations
> of how and why the English-language version means what the original-language
> text says.
>
> I'm not happy about this, but I do think it is the wave of the future in the
> pedagogy of Biblical languages; in its own way, it's like the plume of slick
> oil spreading across the Gulf, but I think there's a better prospect of the oil
> slick being eventually checked. The trend was already there before computer
> technology accelerated it: colleges and seminaries can't expend the effort on
> bringing students to real competence in the Biblical languages and students
> have other things that they need to learn more urgently. Commentaries on
> the Biblical text have for some time now included translations of the 
> Biblical Greek or Hebrew original text because it cannot be assumed that
> users of the commentaries will be able to understand the original-language
> text unassisted. The upshot is that competence in Greek and Hebrew is
> becoming restricted to an increasingly small number of scholars whose
> task is to filter the original-language texts through the software to the
> end-user reader/student endeavoring to understand the Biblical text. What
> concerns me is the accelerating diminution of those who are sufficiently
> competent in Biblical Greek or Hebrew to challenge the validity of what
> the predigested scholarship provides the end-user. My question is a
> version of Juvenal's "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" (Who will take
> care of the caretakers?) -- It seems to me that the opening up of the
> Biblical text to the educated laity in the Renaissance and Reformation
> is, in a sense, being reversed. The custody of the text of scripture is
> being entrusted to a new kind of technological clerical hierarchy.
>
> 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
>
>
>   




More information about the B-Greek mailing list