Introduction - John M Tait
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Introduction - John M Tait
Hello. I was a member of the old B-Greek mailing list back when it used SAMPA. I'm old enough to have learned Greek at school, and used it when I studied Religious Studies in the '70s at Aberdeen University. Although I've always read the Greek NT from time to time, my Greek is pretty rusty, especially when it comes to detailed grammatical - especially syntactic - analysis, and I'm trying to rectify that. I live in the North East of Scotland.
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Re: Introduction - John M Tait
χαῖρε, ὦ Ἰωάννη. Welcome back to B-Greek after such a long hiatus. I think most of us feel that our Greek is pretty rusty, even when we read daily. It’s not an easy language to really hold firm. Welcome back to it. Have you thought about doing daily long reading in the text?John M Tait wrote: ↑February 15th, 2025, 9:30 am Hello. I was a member of the old B-Greek mailing list back when it used SAMPA. I'm old enough to have learned Greek at school, and used it when I studied Religious Studies in the '70s at Aberdeen University. Although I've always read the Greek NT from time to time, my Greek is pretty rusty, especially when it comes to detailed grammatical - especially syntactic - analysis, and I'm trying to rectify that. I live in the North East of Scotland.
Jason A. Hare
The Hebrew Café
Tel Aviv, Israel
The Hebrew Café
Tel Aviv, Israel
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Re: Introduction - John M Tait
Thanks again, Jason. Not daily reading, but I have recently read through Matthew and John - using the BART app, which allows you to turn crutches off and on depending on whether you need them! But I think - as my recent post about μεγαλυνω shows - I've got into the habit of growing familiar with the meaning of certain forms without being very precise about the exact parsing. I probably got through the Christian Origins part of Religious Studies in the '70s using the same sort of approach - ie, finding that the Greek NT wasn't too difficult just to read if you'd done Greek at school, and relying on commentaries and teachers to point out any relevant exegetical minutiae. Until recently I had hardly any books specifically on NT Greek - still using a couple of old Classical grammars - and the books I did have were either dictionaries, or on semantics rather than morphology. So I'm trying to brush up on basic stuff I learned about 50 years ago!
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Re: Introduction - John M Tait
Welcome to B-Greek. I taught Chemistry at Aberdeen University back in the 60's. I remember one of the Religion faculty (American system) / staff (British system) was a gal called Elizabeth (I forget her last name, because she married, and changed it), who had done her doctorate on the Silver Scroll (or maybe one of the DSS). I'm now in New Mexico, teaching Religion and Greek at a small American University. I find the Daily Dose of Greek (also DD of Hebrew, DD of Latin, and DD of Aramaic) a good way to keep refreshing the memory. They're online and free.John M Tait wrote: ↑February 15th, 2025, 9:30 am Hello. I was a member of the old B-Greek mailing list back when it used SAMPA. I'm old enough to have learned Greek at school, and used it when I studied Religious Studies in the '70s at Aberdeen University. Although I've always read the Greek NT from time to time, my Greek is pretty rusty, especially when it comes to detailed grammatical - especially syntactic - analysis, and I'm trying to rectify that. I live in the North East of Scotland.
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Re: Introduction - John M Tait
Hi - haven't been on here for a while, so missed your post. At Aberdeen in my day, 'faculty' meant the overall group of departments - e.g. there were the Science, Arts, Law and Divinity faculties, each of which had different departments - e.g. English, French in the Arts faculty - and a professor meant the head of a department (unlike in the US, where all lecturers seem to be called professors.) The Divinity faculty was primarily for candidates for the ministry, and the departments were e.g. Old Testament, New Testament, Church History.
However, I was an Arts student, and I graduated in Religious Studies (a bit like what used to be called 'comparative religion') as an Arts subject. However, since I specialised in Christian Origins, many of my lectures were in the Divinity Faculty. There were quite a few American students, most of whom came to do PhDs under I. Howard Marshall, who was at that time a lecturer (later professor) in New Testament. These included R.H. Mounce, of Greek Grammar fame.
The Religious Studies department had been created out of an old Biblical Studies department in Arts. The head of dept. was Andrew Walls, who knew everything about everthing but wrote hardly anything. But I think the old Biblical Studies department had a lecturer called Elizabeth Johnston - married to William Johnston, who later became the professor of Old Testament. I wonder it that's who you're thinking of.
Not that long after I left, the Religious Studies dept. was closed down, along with a lot of smaller departments, such as Swedish, which I also studied in first year. There seemed to be some sort of a modernisation drive - they also turned the old Arts library into a cafe. I think the motivation must have been to do away with anything that wasn't seen to be functional in some way. The Divinity faculty still exists, though.
However, I was an Arts student, and I graduated in Religious Studies (a bit like what used to be called 'comparative religion') as an Arts subject. However, since I specialised in Christian Origins, many of my lectures were in the Divinity Faculty. There were quite a few American students, most of whom came to do PhDs under I. Howard Marshall, who was at that time a lecturer (later professor) in New Testament. These included R.H. Mounce, of Greek Grammar fame.
The Religious Studies department had been created out of an old Biblical Studies department in Arts. The head of dept. was Andrew Walls, who knew everything about everthing but wrote hardly anything. But I think the old Biblical Studies department had a lecturer called Elizabeth Johnston - married to William Johnston, who later became the professor of Old Testament. I wonder it that's who you're thinking of.
Not that long after I left, the Religious Studies dept. was closed down, along with a lot of smaller departments, such as Swedish, which I also studied in first year. There seemed to be some sort of a modernisation drive - they also turned the old Arts library into a cafe. I think the motivation must have been to do away with anything that wasn't seen to be functional in some way. The Divinity faculty still exists, though.
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Re: Introduction - John M Tait
Yes, that's the Elizabeth I knew. She was dating William at the time, but he had not yet come to Aberdeen. She and I started at the same time at Aberdeen. She stayed, but I moved on to Birkbeck (part of London U.) after 4 years.John M Tait wrote: ↑March 26th, 2025, 1:36 pm Hi - haven't been on here for a while, so missed your post.
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The Religious Studies department had been created out of an old Biblical Studies department in Arts. The head of dept. was Andrew Walls, who knew everything about everthing but wrote hardly anything. But I think the old Biblical Studies department had a lecturer called Elizabeth Johnston - married to William Johnston, who later became the professor of Old Testament. I wonder it that's who you're thinking of.
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Re: Introduction - John M Tait
Yes, that's the Elizabeth I knew. She was dating William at the time, but he had not yet come to Aberdeen. She and I started at the same time at Aberdeen. She stayed, but I moved on to Birkbeck (part of London U.) after 4 years.John M Tait wrote: ↑March 26th, 2025, 1:36 pm Hi - haven't been on here for a while, so missed your post.
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The Religious Studies department had been created out of an old Biblical Studies department in Arts. The head of dept. was Andrew Walls, who knew everything about everthing but wrote hardly anything. But I think the old Biblical Studies department had a lecturer called Elizabeth Johnston - married to William Johnston, who later became the professor of Old Testament. I wonder it that's who you're thinking of.
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Re: Introduction - John M Tait
Yes, that's the Elizabeth I knew. She was dating William at the time, but he had not yet come to Aberdeen. She and I started at the same time at Aberdeen. She stayed, but I moved on to Birkbeck (part of London U.) after 4 years.John M Tait wrote: ↑March 26th, 2025, 1:36 pm Hi - haven't been on here for a while, so missed your post.
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The Religious Studies department had been created out of an old Biblical Studies department in Arts. The head of dept. was Andrew Walls, who knew everything about everthing but wrote hardly anything. But I think the old Biblical Studies department had a lecturer called Elizabeth Johnston - married to William Johnston, who later became the professor of Old Testament. I wonder it that's who you're thinking of.
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- Joined: June 4th, 2011, 6:19 pm
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Re: Introduction - John M Tait
Yes, that's the Elizabeth I knew. She was dating William at the time, but he had not yet come to Aberdeen. She and I started at the same time at Aberdeen. She stayed, but I moved on to Birkbeck (part of London U.) after 4 years.John M Tait wrote: ↑March 26th, 2025, 1:36 pm Hi - haven't been on here for a while, so missed your post.
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The Religious Studies department had been created out of an old Biblical Studies department in Arts. The head of dept. was Andrew Walls, who knew everything about everthing but wrote hardly anything. But I think the old Biblical Studies department had a lecturer called Elizabeth Johnston - married to William Johnston, who later became the professor of Old Testament. I wonder it that's who you're thinking of.
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- Joined: June 4th, 2011, 6:19 pm
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Re: Introduction - John M Tait
Yes, that's the Elizabeth I knew. She was dating William at the time, but he had not yet come to Aberdeen. She and I started at the same time at Aberdeen. She stayed, but I moved on to Birkbeck (part of London U.) after 4 years.John M Tait wrote: ↑March 26th, 2025, 1:36 pm Hi - haven't been on here for a while, so missed your post.
- - - snip snip - - -
The Religious Studies department had been created out of an old Biblical Studies department in Arts. The head of dept. was Andrew Walls, who knew everything about everthing but wrote hardly anything. But I think the old Biblical Studies department had a lecturer called Elizabeth Johnston - married to William Johnston, who later became the professor of Old Testament. I wonder it that's who you're thinking of.
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