From: Jonathan Robie (jwrobie@mindspring.com)
Date: Mon Dec 29 1997 - 10:03:21 EST
At 09:29 AM 12/29/97 EST, WmHBoyd wrote:
>I have a little book called "How to Read the Greek New Testament" by Guy N.
>Woods. 106 easy to read pages. It is avaliable from the Gospel Advocate
>Company in Nashville, Tn. (1-800-251-8446) It is "Prepared primarily for
>those who are unacquainted with the Greek Language, but who desire to be able
>to locate every word in the Greek New Testament, trace it to its root, define
>it, and parse the sentence in which it occurs."
Thanks for the info - can you tell me something about his approach? I'm
very interested in different ways of teaching Greek, and searching for
techniques that will make the Little Greek 101 site better.
I will look for that book the next time I'm at the Duke library, which
should be pretty soon, since all my books are expiring. (I don't often buy
Greek intros, since my Greek budget is limited, and I tend to use it for
books that I need for *myself* right now...just picked up two volumes of
the Hermeneia commentary series at a used book store for $3.50 each!)
>The first chapter is motivational. In it he tells of the Scottish
theologian,
>John Brown of Haddington who "learned the alphabet from the proper names in
>the genealogies of the Lord in Matthew and Luke." I tried it, and with the
>help of a Greek alphabet with English sound equivalents, I found it a good
>way to introduce to myself to a way to begin "speakin' Greek."
One interesting thing about these geneologies: how would you pronounce LEUI
(which occurs in the Luke geneology, but not in Matthew)? This is one thing
that makes me wonder whether "EU" was not pronounced "EV", with a soft "v",
before a vowel - that's how it is pronounced in modern Greek.
Jonathan
This same John Brown is mentioned in A.T.Robertson's longer grammar, where
he says the following:
"At the age of sixteen John Brown, of Haddington, startled a bookseller by
asking for a copy of the Greek Testament. He was barefooted and clad in
ragged homespun clothes. He was a shepherd boy from the hills of Scotland.
"What would *you* do with that book?" a professor scornfully asked. "I'll
try to read it," the lad replied, and proceeded to read off a passage in
the Gospel of John. He went off in triumph with the coveted prize, but the
story spread that he was a wizard and had learned Greek by the black art.
He was actually arraigned for witchcraft, but in 1746 the elders and
deacons at Abernethy gave him a vote of acquittal, though the minister
would not sign it...John Brown became a divinity student and finally
professor of divinity. In the chapel at Mansfield College, Oxford, Brown's
figure ranks with those of Doddridge, Fry, Chalmers, Fry, Schleiermacher.
He had taught himself Greek while herding his sheep, and he did it without
a grammar."
An interesting and colorful figure, eh?
Jonathan
jonathan@texcel.no
Texcel Research
http://www.texcel.no
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