[B-Greek] William Harper Rainey's Textbook

Robert Stump robertstump at gmail.com
Sat Jan 29 00:39:19 EST 2011


I've been a silent member of this list for while, but this is my first
run at a question.

I am a seminary student, well technically I'm finishing my Bachelor's
degree in Theology through a correspondence course as a prerequisite
to seminary, but the course is offered through a seminary.  Given that
I am working toward a scholarship I thought it wise to get a jump on
NT Greek and accordingly started working through the lessons I found
online in Rainey's 1888 "Introductory New Testament Method."  (Found
here: http://books.google.com/ebooks?id=snFiAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader)

A number of years ago I decided to learn Latin, went online, found a
number of books and internet courses, and eventually settled in with a
couple of different first year books that I worked through. Most of
them were rather tedious and I found that without a cohesive narrative
to drive the works that vocabulary retention become a matter of nose
to the grindstone by intensive copying and rote memory.

With Rainey's work it is another matter entirely.  The very first
lesson begins with reading the Greek of John 1:1-2 and continues
through the first twenty lessons to read all through the first
chapter.  The linguist concepts and grammar are given as they show up
in the text instead of, for instance, lesson one covering A-declension
nouns, lesson two covering Indicative Active Regular Verbs et cetera
ad naseum.

Outside of Latin, I have studied French and Spanish both in a
classroom and sans, but I had never before encountered this method of
what Rainey calls "Inductive" lessons.  Is he just a forgotten
innovator; am I missing something integral to the study of Greek by
this approach; or are there other texts that follow this sort of
pattern that I am simply unaware of?

* * * * * *

I have found that in looking online for additional resources for Greek
study, that the names that I see popping up through the list email are
often also attached to those snippets that I have found most helpful;
for instance, a few days ago I was surprised, pleasantly, to see the
name Carl Conrad at the bottom of an in depth and revealing discussion
of the Greek voices.  With that said I can only assume that if anyone
would have a good answer they would be here.

Thank you all for your time and assistance,

Per sanguine agni,
Robert Stump
FL, USA



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