[b-greek] Re: Mounce NIV English-GNT

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Fri Nov 03 2000 - 11:07:34 EST


At 9:39 AM -0600 11/3/00, Lynn Trapp wrote:
>Dr. Carl,
(that's not my name; quite frankly, I've never been comfortable with the
title because I've never really felt that a Ph.D. conferred that sort of
privilege--and it makes people think I'm a physician; now if you really
wanted to be funny, I might warm to being addressed as "Herr Professor
Doktor Karl," I might even laugh out loud!)

>Do I get that you are suggesting that one cannot become a Greek scholar
>equipped with only an interlinear and a copy of Vines Expository Dictionary
>of New Testament Words?

I'm not sure that one can become a Greek scholar in any real sense at all,
and although I thought I had expressed myself clearly in the first place

> And how many more, I wonder, will, thus empowered, make the claim that they
> understand the Greek NT? I certainly begrudge nobody access to Greek, but I
> nevertheless marvel at how the allurement of a simple understanding of the
> Biblical text and its language is packaged and sold--aye, and at bargain
> prices!

it's clear that some have successfully misunderstood me. I begrudge nobody
access to Greek--at whatever level they are able to access it. I've spent
the better part of a lifetime and am still trying to learn Greek, but I am
somewhat leery of persons who've nosed around in Gray's Anatomy and are
ready to start writing prescriptions. I'd like to steer clear of hubris
myself, but I do think that hubris is readily gained by learning Greek by
the "royal road." I think of the funny scene in Aristophanes' Clouds where
Strepsiades thinks he's going to start winning lawsuits against all his
creditors because he has learned how to form the feminine gender
("ALEKTRUAINA") for the word for "rooster" (ALEKTRUWN).

--

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu

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