[B-Greek] Mounce versus Croy
susan at read-the-bible.org
susan at read-the-bible.org
Thu Apr 7 08:49:41 EDT 2011
I've been teaching online Greek I-II for several institutions for about
10 years now.
I started off using Mounce (1st edition, then 2nd) mostly because of its
popularity (when I started some people were skeptical of online
instruction, and I bent over backwards to look conventional; also I
liked Mounce's somewhat evangelical tone; and I was inspired by Bill
Mounce's enthusiasm at an SBL presentation about his methods, and I
thought that online learners would benefit from Mounce's relatively
detailed explanations, and the workbook. Eventually I became
disenchanted with Mounce's (in my opinion) over-emphasis on morphology
and his "there are no exceptions -- you just have to learn ALL the rules
to understand ALL the forms" approach to morphological analysis (I
exaggerate), and also annoyed by the high cost of his materials and the
temptation to students to just keep on buying more helps from the
publisher rather than buckling down to study. The proliferation of
materials that at first I found helpful eventually became a
costly-to-the-student downside. I wanted a more concise and inexpensive
book, which I would supplement with my own writeups and examples, lesson
by lesson.
So I looked around for a replacement text and found Croy, again through
some SBL sessions at which Clayton Croy presented. Croy's book is
succinct where Mounce's is wordy. Croy's book is inexpensive where
Mounce's is dear - particularly if you buy Mounce's accompanying
workbook, which you must have, and any other materials such as audio
recordings. When I first started using Croy's book, I had some
supplemental materials he'd distributed on diskette at SBL; eventually
these were packaged as a large pdf that's supplied with the book on CD.
Another huge advantage to me is that Croy is available as a BibleWorks
add-on, which mean I have it fully searchable on my laptop. For online
instruction, that's a huge help. And Croy's actual text has changed not
at all since it appeared in the late 90s - the only difference betweeen
the 1st & 2nd editions is the addition of the CD.
I've had no problem with shoddy construction of Croy's book - I've
carried my copy around for years, thumbed through it to where the pages
are fraying, and the binding is still tight. I've had loose page issues
with other books from other publishers, and the publishers have
consistently apologized & sent me a new copy for free -- anyone with
such issues, I encourage you to do the same.
In response to a couple of other posters' comments: Yes Croy does
include English to Greek exercises for all but the first lesson. Every
lesson has Practice & Review sentences that are made-up Greek sentences
mostly "echoing" familiar GNT sentences; LXX Greek sentences; NT Greek
sentences; and English to Greek sentences. At one institution, many of
my Greek students are either enrolled in Hebrew simultaneously or have
already learned Hebrew; they seem to particularly enjoy the LXX
opportunity.
One potential downside, for the folks trying promote modern or
reconstructed pronunciation -- both Mounce and Croy use Erasmian
pronunciation. Since one of my institutions requires its students to
use modern pronunciation, this makes a bit of double-duty for me in
posting audio files and other pronunciation helps. I give students
their choice of modern vs Erasmian; since we're online it's not as much
of a challenge as in a classroom. Of course in a classroom an
instructor not using Erasmian would need some of their chapter 1
materials anyway.
Anyway, I chose Mounce thinking I'd stick with him for the duration;
when I switched to Croy it was with the intention of sticking with him
for the duration. So far that's my plan, although I do check out new
textbooks from time to time: I've been looking through Steve Runge's
Discourse grammar lately (a useful supplement for me, when we get to
various discourse marker topics in Croy), just ordered the new
Porter-Reed-O'Donnell text, and will request Bradley McLean's new text
due out from Cambridge University Press in late August I believe -- the
latter using modern pronunciation. But so far I believe I'll be using
Croy for the foreseeable future.
Thanks for asking :-)
Susan Jeffers
Adjunct faculty, several institutions
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [B-Greek] Mounce versus Croy
> From: Stephen Carlson <stemmatic at gmail.com>
> Date: Wed, April 06, 2011 11:18 am
> To: Biblical Greek Mailing List <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
>
>
> This year I have used Bill Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek
> (Zondervan) as my first-year Greek textbook. I'm considering
> switching to Clayton Croy's Primer of Biblical Greek (Eerdmans) for
> next year.
>
> What you are experiences with both textbooks? Any strong feelings about either?
>
> Stephen
> --
> Stephen C. Carlson
> Graduate Program in Religion
> Duke University
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek
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