[B-Greek] "A working knowledge of Biblical Greek"

Paul D. Nitz paul.d.nitz at gmail.com
Thu May 12 10:31:05 EDT 2011


C. Conrad,

I appreciate your active guidance of the list discussion.  Without that,
things degenerate. I have no serious concern with the recent post on the
purpose of this list-serve.  But I did want to throw in an opinion on
one word: "but."

<< Pedagogy... [is] 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.

If we looked underneath the majority of posts about pedagogy (primers,
pronunciation, methodology), I think we would something that is at the heart
of B-Greek: understanding rather than decoding Greek.  If this desire to
understand were not the heart, if we were all simply decoders, I don't think
we wouldn't be interested in a list serve. (Decoders would just get cranky
with one another quibbling about the latest term for a grammatical 
exception.)

I hope I'm not nit-picking.  The post quoted above does acknowledge that
pedagy is a proper concern.  Still, that word "but" can be powerfully
discouraging.  I'd vote for "and" (or even better "γαρ" !)

__Pedagogy is a proper concern of B-Greek
__and
__fits well with the heart of B-Greek:
__understanding the language and text.

Yours,
PD Nitz




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Carl Conrad" <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
To: "B-Greek" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, May 09, 2011 2:38 PM
Subject: [B-Greek] "A working knowledge of Biblical Greek"


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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