[b-greek] Re: (gnomic) These two positions don't even seem close

From: clayton stirling bartholomew (c.s.bartholomew@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Tue Aug 29 2000 - 02:40:22 EDT



 
Cindy,

As usual, your thoughts on this are very nicely stated. You have perhaps
taken my remarks a bit beyond their intent. I was after all just agreeing
with Randall's synopsis of the problem and not discounting any and all
thinking about verb aspect.


Cindy Westfall wrote:
> You are one of the people who has made an effort to understand the
> linguistics system behind Porter's theories, and in my opinion, you have
> benefitted from the journey considerably.

Perhaps I have benefited more than I am willing to admit but the price was
too high in terms of hours invested. Every hour spent reading a monograph on
theory is an hour not spent on reading Hellenistic Greek texts. Hour for
hour reading Greek texts yields much more real benefit than reading the
very best monographs on theory.

The very best monographs are those which do not require extensive
familiarity with some esoteric school of linguistics. Monographs like this
on the subject of verb aspect are not easy to find and for that reason my
advice to seminary level students is to just read what you find in your
assigned text book on the subject of verb aspect and let it go at that.

I still read theory, read a lot of it. But each foray into theory is
followed by a long period of time reading Greek texts and seeing how the
theory holds up under the wear and tear of exegesis.

My personal study habits are not appropriate for seminary students who have
sever time constraints. Furthermore, I think it is a mistake for students
who are in their first few years of Greek study to get side tracked on this
stuff. It can actually confuse the daylights out of them and it takes them
away from reading texts which IMHO is what NT Greek students should spend
most of their time doing.

Clay

--
Clayton Stirling Bartholomew
Three Tree Point
P.O. Box 255 Seahurst WA 98062



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