Ways to begin working with the actual text as soon as possible
Posted: October 6th, 2021, 3:35 am
Hi guys,
I've received the advice many times, even as a beginner, to start "reading" the NT Greek as soon as possible.
So, while I'm still busy working through Beginning With New Testament Greek, I haven't learned nearly enough grammar or vocab to actually READ through a book like 1 John, I'm trying to figure out what the best approach would be to actually start reading it with those limitation. I thought I would take this approach:
1. Start learning the vocab of 1 john 1. Managed to get a list of only the words used in this one chapter.
2. Continue working through the beginning Greek grammar at my own pace.
3. Then, for my daily "reading", to use https://greek.theopedia.com, basically going from one verse to the next, and just identifying the vocab and grammar rules that I DO know. I then go ahead and parse each of those, identifying the lexical form and gloss of the word, and parsing the form of the word as it is in the Greek to see if I get it right.
Once I'm done with the verse, having only parsed the grammar and vocab I do know and recognize, and ignoring those which I don't know yet, it looks something like the attached picture.
I realize that this is far from actually reading (as in, understanding the relationship between words and the meaning those relationships imply), and this basically only focuses on each individual word by itself, but this is the best way I could think of, with my limited vocab and grammar knowledge, to at least start getting into the actual text.
Having explained the process, my question is, is this a useful exercise and something that would eventually lead to me actually reading and interpreting the text as I get more familiar with the grammar rules and the vocab?
I've received the advice many times, even as a beginner, to start "reading" the NT Greek as soon as possible.
So, while I'm still busy working through Beginning With New Testament Greek, I haven't learned nearly enough grammar or vocab to actually READ through a book like 1 John, I'm trying to figure out what the best approach would be to actually start reading it with those limitation. I thought I would take this approach:
1. Start learning the vocab of 1 john 1. Managed to get a list of only the words used in this one chapter.
2. Continue working through the beginning Greek grammar at my own pace.
3. Then, for my daily "reading", to use https://greek.theopedia.com, basically going from one verse to the next, and just identifying the vocab and grammar rules that I DO know. I then go ahead and parse each of those, identifying the lexical form and gloss of the word, and parsing the form of the word as it is in the Greek to see if I get it right.
Once I'm done with the verse, having only parsed the grammar and vocab I do know and recognize, and ignoring those which I don't know yet, it looks something like the attached picture.
I realize that this is far from actually reading (as in, understanding the relationship between words and the meaning those relationships imply), and this basically only focuses on each individual word by itself, but this is the best way I could think of, with my limited vocab and grammar knowledge, to at least start getting into the actual text.
Having explained the process, my question is, is this a useful exercise and something that would eventually lead to me actually reading and interpreting the text as I get more familiar with the grammar rules and the vocab?