Χαίρετε!

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Thomas Dolhanty
Posts: 401
Joined: May 20th, 2014, 10:13 am
Location: west coast of Canada

Χαίρετε!

Post by Thomas Dolhanty »

Χαίρετε,

My name is Thomas Dolhanty. I’ve been doing Koine Greek for about 7 years, and Biblical Hebrew for about 6. In 2004 I took an early retirement from my work as a senior university administrator, and my wife and I moved to a small town on the west coast of Canada where we planned to set aside 2 years to study the foundations of our faith, having become Christians 30 years earlier.

The 2 years became 6 years – 6 most wonderful years of the Lord’s grace and instruction. I learned Greek and then Hebrew as part of those studies. I did these studies on my own (I’m am a very focused student!), but have since taken intermediate and advanced courses in Hebrew at the University of British Columbia.

I have taught introductory Hebrew, and am now teaching introductory Greek. I also teach a course in Isaiah at a Bible School designed primarily for lay Christians. My primary interest in teaching Biblical languages is to instruct and encourage lay Christians who desire to learn Greek and/or Hebrew.

My wife also studies Greek and Hebrew (she is my ‘A’ student). We regret that we didn’t take up the study of Biblical languages when were first came to Christ just over 40 years ago. We both wanted to learn the languages at that time, and even purchased some books to that end, but found no encouragement from Christians leaders or brethren. In fact we were assured that such a study would be much work for little return! The great blessing, however, is that we now get to encourage others to learn Biblical Greek and Hebrew, and to assist them in that undertaking.

I’ve been registered on this site for a while now, but decided its time to become a bit more active. Ευχαριστώ πολύ to all who have established and who serve this web site. It is a great resource.

χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη
Thomas
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Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: Χαίρετε!

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Thomas Dolhanty wrote:just over 40 years ago. We both wanted to learn the languages ... , and even purchased some books to that end, but found no encouragement from Christians leaders or brethren. In fact we were assured that such a study would be much work for little return
Even if that were true, much for little is better than no for none.

How are economies of scale to be calculated anyway? If the study of Greek were taken secularly in terms of a hobby, it is a given that there would be no return anyway, because that's the nature of hobbies really. If we could think of the increased number of friends we could make, in fact the profit would be marginal, and the overhead enormous - it requires time that would not be given to making friends. In terms of palpable financial returns, for the majority of people the direction of financial movement brought about by their belief (or cause whatever it is) is expenditure, and the study of Greek to read the New Testament is going to be no exception to that. In terms of kudos, well, honestly it is not that cool at all, and even less so when people ask you to translate some simple everyday phrase into Greek, and you have completely no idea which words, grammar or tense to use, and you resort to muttering some feeble explanation about how that you can just read a bit (with the aid of a lexicon for every fourth word), then when they smile and say, "So you're new at it, I see.", you have no face to answer them and say that you've been hard at it for a number of years. When people ask about some Bible verse, other who do not know Greek give their opinions and insights, and you find three or four words or forms that you have never seen before, and you either you adopt a sheepish smile and hope the conversation would all go away quickly or others see just how close to the floor that a human draw can drop and move the conversation along for you. The result of such encounters could well lead you to the belief that a claim of much for little has in fact been politely exaggerated. It often seems too, that hiding your Greek candle under a bushel wouldn't in fact be a good way to stop it being blown out by the winds of disparagement and questions about the value.

So what is the benefitGreek is the New Testament's native language, but for us it is a foreign language. Dealing with anything in a foreign language requires us to slow down and to tread carefully. That, in and of itself, is a plus that we wouldn't get from reading easily and naively in English. Another thing is the frequency of questions that are raised by reading Greek - the more you (think you) know, the more you (realise you) don't. 80% of those questions go un- or partially answered till some later time or till forever, but the honest awareness that we don't know everything is return enough without need of further justification. Like a tree that doesn't bear marketable fruit for its first five to eight seasons, once your reading gets to be a bit fluent everything starts to become clearer in Greek than in English, at which point increasingly less return proportionally more. 8-)
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Thomas Dolhanty
Posts: 401
Joined: May 20th, 2014, 10:13 am
Location: west coast of Canada

Re: Χαίρετε!

Post by Thomas Dolhanty »

.... requires us to slow down and to tread carefully. That, in and of itself, is a plus that we wouldn't get from reading easily and naively in English. Another thing is the frequency of questions that are raised by reading Greek - the more you (think you) know, the more you (realise you) don't. 80% of those questions go un- or partially answered till some later time or till forever, but the honest awareness that we don't know everything is return enough without need of further justification.
Yes, quite so. Pondering the text in a new (to me) language has great merit, and the questions that keep rising (if not from oneself - then from one's students or colleagues) provoke one to think about it more carefully.

Above all, though, I believe it is that certain JOY that is hard to describe to the uninitiated! (And yes, I do know the perils of such a phrase!). I have been away from Hebrew for a few months and much into Greek as a part of the normal demands of teaching NT Greek for the first time. In the last few days, however, I must refresh myself in the Hebrew of Isaiah, as I am teaching it again in January. Just reading the Hebrew of Isaiah 40 again was a bit scary at first, and felt quite "foreign". After a while, though, I was involuntarily smiling as I began to "taste" once again that sublime poem by that greatest-of-them-all OT Hebrew poet (my bias). This is why I cannot give up Hebrew!

Or when I kick back and read the Greek text of John 9 again, which I've read a thousand times before - that's why I keep working at it. I can't say what it is exactly, but I find a great joy in that exercise.
Like a tree that doesn't bear marketable fruit for its first five to eight seasons, once your reading gets to be a bit fluent everything starts to become clearer in Greek than in English, at which point increasingly less return proportionally more
I like this metaphor. Thank you. I'm gonna use it in my 1st year Greek class when we gather again after Christmas!
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Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: Χαίρετε!

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Thomas Dolhanty wrote:
Stephen Hughes wrote:Like a tree that doesn't bear marketable fruit for its first five to eight seasons, once your reading gets to be a bit fluent everything starts to become clearer in Greek than in English, at which point increasingly less [work] returns proportionally more [results].
I like this metaphor. Thank you. I'm gonna use it in my 1st year Greek class when we gather again after Christmas!
For students the quote is fine, but for you as a teacher let me take it a little further. Two ways of thinking are common in our age. The first is "instant gratification" and the second is the demand for "efficiency".

I've seen "insights" from the Greek presented early on in learning but they really only appear to bells and whistles supplied by the teacher - like taping an apple to maiden tree then pretending to pick it. Sharing a teacher's insights is not a bad thing, as you would expect a mature tree to have enough to share, but presenting an insight as a student's own could be called "staged" at the very least. Pandering to expectations of instantaneous results may or may not be good, but needs to be finely balanced. The production of fruit takes away from the growth of the tree, so learning not just to learn the language in the early stages, but to produce tangible (marketable results - things that can be usefully shared with others) is likely to mean either stunted or slow growth over the long term. Fruit comes in its own good time. Supplying full formed and sweet fruit directly after planting is a good foretaste, but if that becomes expected, then one probable result is that the owner will no longer tend the tree, and go to buy off-the-shelf fruit. Not an easy tight-rope for a learning facilitator to walk.

Time-pressure and demands for efficiency are also difficult to answer. There is no substitute for the basic ingredients for growth, and one of those is time. Jack is not going to wake up one morning and find the Greek bean stalk fully grown. It requires tending, training and patience, and even after all is said and done, in most cases the vine only produces a subsistence crop. From fairy-tales to viticulture, the best wine often comes from very old vines - that have been given time to grow - a plot planted 80 year ago and well tended, will probably produce a more full-bodied flavour than one planted a few seasons ago. There are quite some contributors here who you know have been hard at their Greek for years and we can see are good at it. The breadth of reading and depth of perception that they bring is sometimes astounding.

"Optimal" conditions for growth (learning) are great, but need to be varied too so as not to become boring. Young plants are susceptible to many things in the environment, including "over care" - drenching rather than watering, over-pruning (when the correction of mistakes leaves no way forward for growth), and teacher disappointment which can affect students' appreciation of themselves before you notice that we even have an attitude - not only the "not so good as", but also the "I expected better".

There are plenty of other ways the fruit tree analogy can help us understand what is going on in the language learning experience if you want to apply them from either personal experience or some nursery's website.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
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