Spanish, again

From: Edward Hobbs (EHOBBS@wellesley.edu)
Date: Sat Jul 20 1996 - 13:12:09 EDT


From: LUCY::EHOBBS "Edward Hobbs" 20-JUL-1996 12:08:31.42
To: IN%"bla00161@mail.wvnet.edu"
CC: EHOBBS
Subj: RE: NT scholarship

Micheal, you wrote:

>On the other hand could it be that we're overlooking the tremendous
 contributions to Greek and NT studies made by Roman Catholic scholars
>in Spanish in particular. I find excellent materialcoming out of Spain.
>I wonder if perhaps Edwards Hobbs and others are aware of this type
>of NT and Greek scholarship. Here is an excellent way of keeping in
>touch with the Spanish language.

Conozco la revista _Filologia Neotestamentaria_. =BFPod=EDa usted=
 recomendar
otras fuentes de informaci=F3n sobre griego y nuevo testamento escritas=
 en castellano?

Muchas gracias.

Micheal Palmer
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Micheal,
        Your belated response to John Oaklands' post responding to my
comment on NT scholarly output in Spanish compared to German prompts me to
try once more to make my point, which has been misunderstood repeatedly.
        Let me preface it by once more stating that I read Spanish, easily
and fluently--better than my German or French for example, though I spent a
year in Marburg with Bultmann (and visit French vineyards and wineries with
pleasure). I love the Spanish language; I have not put it down, nor have I
put down Spanish scholarship. I have hosted Spanish scholars during my 24
years in Berkeley, and my dialogue with Luis Alonso-Schoekel in 1974 is in
print. I read the production of Spanish-writing scholars.
        I cannot believe, nevertheless, that Spanish Biblical scholarship
has produced more than a small fraction of the output of serious, important
work done in German--and that was my point when the question was raised
about learning languages for reading scholarly work in their original
form. If one already knows Spanish, wonderful! (I did, and use it--not
10% as much as I am forced to read German, which I find to be a much more
difficult language, but I do read most of the authors mentioned, know some
of them, and even hosted some of them with my wine-cellar at home.)
        There is also serious work in Italian. I have not heard it being
pushed on this List, probably because fewer people read it. Serious work
is being done in Japanese; but I cannot read Japanese, nor can most of my
colleagues (the one who IS Japanese is sometimes a big help!). Must we
learn Japanese to deal with this material?
        The question addressed was: What languages MUST I learn, and become
comfortable in, to be a serious NT scholar? The issue was posed in the
context of the enormous linguistic demands made on NT scholarship, and the
lengthy time necessary to master those languages. The languages
one already knows will be a help (and think of the tremendous boost
received by Edgar Krentz, growing up with spoken German!); but in
planning one's expenditure of time for the minimal requirements, the
first consideration ought to be the volume of scholarship--of high
quality--in any given language.

Edward Hobbs



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