Martin Harris

Please introduce yourself here, if you haven't already.
Post Reply
Martin Harris
Posts: 6
Joined: December 14th, 2011, 9:24 pm

Martin Harris

Post by Martin Harris »

Hello.
I learned classical Greek at high school and never forgot it, (though I wasn't so hot with Latin) then did theology with Greek and Hebrew options. I also spent 6 months in Israel. Plus I speak fluent French and a bit of German.
My day job doesn't involve classics at all but I am still interested, especially in NT studies. A few years ago I decided to tackle the book of Romans because I have a fairly open view of theology and Romans has the reputation of being supportive of Calvinism. I'm open to whatever I find and am usually happy to change views but this would be a big challenge to my thinking. Strangely enough, I found the opposite and that when examining the Greek text closely a lot of it had been distorted either in commentaries or in translations and that it doesn’t support Calvinism at all. So I'm doing my own and am about 2/3rds the way through. No doubt I will share some of my insights, doubts and questions about the text.
My day job is designing legal contracts so I need to have an eye for structure and meaning all the time. I believe that generative structures in language are much more powerful concepts in understanding language than grammatical or formal structures. Although I am not an expert user of all the related concepts.
Thus when I read the Greek text I am not reading word for word, trying to understand the text in English as I go along but all the time trying to get a feel for the person and the psychology behind the words. The sounds are also important and the stresses and rhythms and I try to voice it all in my head as realistically as possible. I found that in French too (as I am quite fluent in it and it is a living language) that after a few years of learning grammar, vocabulary and syntax (GVS), that much of this was eventually forgotten, being replaced by intuition instead. The GVS are just a means to an end. I’m not quite at that stage with ancient Greek (Koine in this case) but at least I sort of know what I am aiming for.
I hope I will learn a lot from people here and that I can contribute some useful ideas.
mwpalmer
Posts: 62
Joined: May 22nd, 2011, 8:53 pm
Location: Chapel Hill, NC
Contact:

Re: Martin

Post by mwpalmer »

Welcome to the forum, Martin. I'm sure you will find a lot here to interest you. We cover a very wide range of topics from the meaning of particular words and phrase to the application of various types of Linguistics to understanding the structure of the language. I hope you will feel free to ask and answer questions and contribute your insights!
Micheal W. Palmer
Post Reply

Return to “Introductions”