[B-Greek] Objections to Machen (was "In Defense of Machen, ... ")
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Tue Feb 1 11:49:33 EST 2011
On Feb 1, 2011, at 10:29 AM, Sarah J. Blake wrote:
> Carl, your thoughts here are very helpful. How much do you suppose Machen's KJV preference was affected by his intended audience or his theology? I am revealing my bias here--I think that even when we do our best to avoid it, our own theology lends a slight bit of color to the way that we do things. I tried to put that KJV preference to advantage with some students, and it worked well. Most of the students in the courses I have worked with don't read KJV other than as a comparative text; but for those who did it was a useful mechanism as far as it went, and once in a while they found something that wasn't in the KJV later that piqued their curiosity. Many of our students consult other grammars (particularly Mounce) and find them preferable. Why are we still using Machen? It is not up to me. :)
Well, I don't really think it's primarily his KJV preferences that accounts for Machen's continuing popularity with beginning Greek students and especally with self-learners. I think it has more to do with the apparent ease of use for self-learners, and I think much of that ease of use lies in the Greek-to-English and English-to-Greek exercises (with readily accessible answer keys) -- sentences largely made-up and artificially based, in many instances, on English patterns of usage. I've seen some other Koine Greek primers that have sentence exercises that are questionable for the same reason: made-up sentences inadequately grounded in standard Greek but in English patterns. But one of the biggest things going for Machen is the same as what's going for Strong's and Thayer and such like antiquated tools: although print versions can be purchased readily, the copyrights have long since expired and PDF versions are readily accessible on line. Add to that the lamentable fact that a great many would-be learners of Biblical Greek really believe that the grammar/translation/rote paradigms and vocabulary, decoding methodology for reading is the only way to acquire the sort of familiarity with the Greek NT that they want. In other words, although a preference for the KJV may have a little bit to do with it, I think that pedagogical preconceptions and supply-and-demand factors loom pretty large in the continued popularity of Machen's primer.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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