It's All Greek to Me

Ad fontes has an excellent post about the “pathetic” state of linguistic education in Christian seminaries. A student who speaks with more authority than most - Ad fontes attended an excellent Christian seminary and an excellent Jewish seminary, and now specializes in Classical Studies -  he notes that “NT Greek” is a useless and misleading concept.

Students who have taken one, two, or even three semesters of seminary Greek still struggle with everything but the Gospel of John at the end of their training. They remain incapable of reading Josephus or Appian, much less Homer, Herodotus, or Sappho. To suggest that they know Greek at all is probably a specious affirmation.

I learned Hellenistic Greek the only way you can: by reading lots of it, day after day, with as little use of a dictionary, grammar, and translation as possible. Al Pietersma had us read 10 or 20 pages of Josephus for each class. We never knew when he might call on us to translate, and what page. So it was sink or swim. It also helped that I had read some classical Greek before that, like Plato, Herodotus, and Homer.

If I know any Greek at all, it’s because I was forced to memorize 100 lines of the Iliad for recitation in class. In the process, the language grew on me.

If I know any Greek at all, it’s because I was told to keep on reading, without the aid of a dictionary, even if I didn’t understand every word.

Ad Fontes refers to the “old days” when the foundation to any seminary education was a solid education in classics. As I’ve stated in previous posts (go here, here, and here), it is going to be necessary to reinvent the wheel of a strong foundation in the biblical languages at the pre-seminary level if the day is ever to dawn when there will be a few men and women in every place who are completely at home in the biblical languages, able as such to make a contribution to the intellectual and theological health of the larger body.

Comments

[Andrew Suttles]

Though I am not attending a seminary (but hope to someday), I am trying to learn koine greek on my own and your article describes my frustration. After about 18 months of studying, I can comfortably read the gospel and epistles of John, but that's about it. If I look at any other part of the NT, the greek is starting to look very familiar and comfortable to me, but I get completely bogged down in vocabulary and unfamiliar verb parsings. Your words are encouraging, but I don't understand how just simply plowing through, without looking up every word in a lexicon and parsing every unfamiliar verb, is going to help me. Can you shed more light on what exactly I, and others that are eager to learn, can do to learn the language?

[JohnFH]

Andrew,

My advice is simple. Find a teacher. A flesh-and-blood teacher. If you are in or close to a big city, find a professor of classical Greek.

Ask him or her to teach you classical and then Koine Greek by reading Plato, Herodotus, Xenophon, and Josephus, and when you are able to read those authors without looking up verb forms and vocabulary items except in rare instances, then, and only then, pick up your Nestle-Aland, and read the gospel of Mark from start to finish in an hour or two. You will be able to do it. Then read through Luke in one or two sittings (potty breaks allowed). Then enjoy the book of Acts.

You WILL enjoy it. That's the way to read Greek.

Argumentative Greek, like that of Paul, does not come naturally to me. I blame it on the fact that I've never read a lot of argumentative Greek by Classical and Hellenistic authors.

If you want to be able to just pick Paul up some day and enjoy reading him, perhaps another blogger, like Marc Goodacre of New Testament Gateway, will have some ideas for you.

[Alex Hopkins]

Firstly, I think it important to agree with what I take it is the hope John shares with Ad Fontes, that "there will be a few men and women in every place who are completely at home in the biblical languages, able as such to make a contribution to the intellectual and theological health of the larger body." My own experience suggests that a knowledge of the Biblical languages is undervalued in the very place where it should be most highly prized - in Bible-believing churches.

However, I'm prompted to write because I'm a little concerned that John's blog may actually deter some from the quest to learn Greek, as they may be daunted by the prospect of having to learn Greek from Homer through the classics and beyond, before finally being allowed to "read the gospel of Mark from start to finish in an hour or two".

In terms of my student days, I consider it was of benefit that I was taken through Homer and the classical writers before I touched New Testament Greek. But this was not my choice. The university at which I studied (Monash University, in Melbourne, Australia) did not offer New Testament Greek at all. But through choice and fortunate circumstances, I was able to study Greek language and literature full-time until the completion of my doctorate.

As a teacher, however, there are a couple of points of relevance I'd like to make. The first is that different people learn in different ways, and there is no one right way for all students. The second is that, in my community at least, people are impoverished in the amount of time they have available to them. So step right in to new Testament Greek - after all, that's what probably motivates you most of all.

Yes - do memorise portions of text. But instead of 100 lines of Homer, start with the prologue of John's gospel (as I urge my students to do). Yes - do try to read more, rather than get bogged down with details. And yes - do get a teacher; the worst butchery of Greek I have ever heard from a pulpit came from one who was smugly self-taught. It is only a teacher's correction that can remove the accretion of errors unknowingly acquired through learning on one's own.

Nevertheless, none of these things guarantee success. More important, in my view, is passionate dedication which will sustain prolonged hard work, and a personal conviction of the Holy Spirit's prompting to undertake such a task.

[JohnFH]

Alex,

all of your points are well-taken.

However, there is value in reading New Testament Greek through the lens of first-hand familiarity with other Greek literature.

Delayed gratification, to be sure, is a disused pedagogical tool in our day, but like memorization, has a long-term payoff.

Thanks for your comments.