[B-Greek] "A working knowledge of Biblical Greek"
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Mon May 9 08:38:54 EDT 2011
Discussion in this forum is governed by the rules set forth in the B-Greek FAQ, which is occasionally posted (probably should be posted more regularly) here,and which is accessible at: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/faq.html
I would like to call particular attention to a couple of statements right atthe beginning of our FAQ and to clarify how our administrative staffunderstands these statements.
Our FAQ begins with the simple descriptive statement: "B-GREEK is a mailing list for scholars and students of Biblical Greek."
It continues to describe the community of B-Greek as we believe the original founder, David Marotta of the University of Virginia, seems to have conceived it: " ... an eclectic group of beginning students and veteran teachers, lay persons and clergy, conservatives and liberals, earnest inquirers and academic scholars -- equally committed to probing the Biblical text in the original Koiné, and jointly exploring the mysteries and probabilities of Biblical Greek morphology and syntax."
The group thus described includes persons whose competence in Biblical Greek ranges across a pretty broad spectrum, "beginning students and veteran teachers." However, the second paragraph was intended to clarify what is expected of those who post questions about the Biblical Greek text to this list:
"Anyone interested in New Testament Studies is invited to subscribe, but list-members will be assumed to have at least a working knowledge of Biblical Greek. While "lurkers" are welcome to receive and read list correspondence, posts to the list are expected to pose questions about Biblical Greek, not general questions or opinions about doctrine or the meaning of the English text. Even basic questions are welcome, provided they are really about the meaning of the Greek text. This is not a general discussion list for Biblical matters. While one need not be a Greek scholar to subscribe, one should at least be taking the first serious steps in the study of Biblical Greek."
What do we mean by "the first serious steps in the study of Biblical Greek"? I should think that one engaged in a beginners' course in Biblical Greek might seek answers from more experienced B-Greekers about morphology, basic syntactic structures, the mechanics of Biblical Greek language. I have the impression, however, that quite a few beginning students of Biblical Greek in our forum are self-teaching or self-taught -- and there are some splendid examples of success in that endeavor. More specifically, I would understand self-teaching in Biblical Greek to involve systematic and industrious progress through a course textbook and exercises, and I would NOT count as "first serious steps" an endeavor by means of interlinear translations and glossaries -- or data gleaned from a Biblical software package that can match a tagged Greek text with one or more modern-language versions to piece together how the pieces of Greek sentences in a NT or LXX text fit together to yield an intelligible sense. One ought to be in the serious process of learning to read Greek rather than in a process of decoding a Biblical Greek text as one would solve a cryptogram as an entertaining puzzle.
Much of the discussion on B-Greek for the past several months has focused on Biblical Greek Pedagogy: questions of textbooks, pronunciation, audio-visual tools, methodologies, etc. That's certainly a proper concern of B-Greek discussion. But the heart of B-Greek discussion has always been two fundamental areas: (1) understanding the Biblical Greek LANGUAGE, and (2) understanding the Biblical Greek TEXT. I think we should recognize a distinction between BEGINNERS' FORUM questions about the mechanics of Biblical Greek -- the sort of questions that are asked and answered in the classroom when the textbook doesn't provide sufficiently clear answers and those topics that do indeed require some consolidated grasp of Biblical Koine Greek.
Questions about the meaning of specific Biblical Greek texts really should be raised by people with "a working knowledge of Biblical Greek." Moreover, the questions should clearly be about the Greek text, not about whether this or that modern-language version is right or wrong. My own observation, rightly or wrongly, has been that when the question is raised by citation of two or more versions of a passage rather than about the Greek text itself, it commonly means that the poster of the question probably doesn't know enough Greek to ask the question directly about the Greek -- and may not be in a position to understand the answers posted in response to such a question.
My intention in this post has not been to start a new thread on this matter; rather it is to clarify what we mean when we say that B-Greek "list-members will be assumed to have at least a working knowledge of Biblical Greek" and that it is "not a general discussion list for Biblical matters." It's a list for people who know enough Biblical Greek to raise and discuss matters concerning Biblical Greek language and Biblical Greek texts. We have more than 1700 subscribers, and that means hundreds of "lurkers" who evidently find the discussion on B-Greek meaningful enough to want to receive either individual messages or digests. That's fine, but those who wish to participate actively in the discussion should really be students of Biblical Greek -- beginning, intermediate, or advanced; those who are seriously engaged in the actual study of Biblical Greek
Carl W. Conrad
Co-Chair, B-Greek List
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