The discussion is all very interesting and important I think. Randall definitely has a point and communicates it effectively (especially in person, after his talk at SBL last year I was a good 80% convinced!). One niggling question is the whole notion of internalization and fluency in an epigraphic ("dead"!?) language. Can fluency ever be reached without native speakers? > We want to read written texts fluently, but human beings are > pre-wired to function with spoken language. Most everyone who has learned > to speak a language comments on what a significant positive effect that has > on reading. This is true for modern languages, even for old languages. we > haven't begun to tap in on this. I agree. No one speaks French well from the study of french literature or newspapers alone. Language production or compentence in performance develops through interaction with native speakers. There are no Hellenistic shop keepers for us to buy our bread and cheese from though (du pain et fromage s.v.p!). So I wonder whether trying to acheive internalization/fluency might be counter productive when it comes to actually reading and interpreting texts. We surely need certain grammatical models/understanding in order to produce new instances of language. for instance: > KAI Clay EGRAYEN: > Clay PROSEQHKEN: > Carl egrapsen: Hmm.... why all aorists? Do none of their comments warrant a scriptural GEGRAPTAI? Or even a present form? Once we adopt a particular model of how we think the, say, Greek tense-forms work and begin to use that model to create our own utterances, we will most likely begin to interpret texts with it. After all we are now fluent--aren't we? This is my problem with Greek textbooks (such as Wenham) that have an English->Greek section in their exercises. Can we really grade two variant sentences where the differences are in the case of the object or tense-form or mood etc. What about word order? Now I think Randall's approach is a world away from this as he is interested in having his students produce and engage in lively discourses. But on what basis? > Where does one want to end up? Fluent reading is greatly enhanced > pedagogically by fluent speaking. (this is the practical payoff.) And If > someone wants to develop fluency to the point of thinking in the language > (and that is a pile of work, I know--from experience with many other > languages) would someone like to know that they are rubbing shoulders with > Luke and Paul, or would they like to end up knowing that they speak some > distinctly different? > The "thinking in Greek" point has bounced around enough recently for me to say anything more... but HOW? Well enough said. BYW why does the indicative in Rom. 5.1 fit the context better than the subjunctive? Which context? Certainly a traditional theological context... but the co-text? I'd argue that the subjunctive fits the shape of the letter rather well actually. -- Matthew Brook O'Donnell Centre for Advanced Theological Research Department of Theology and Religious Studies University of Surrey Roehampton 80 Roehampton Lane London SW15 5SL tel. (0181) 392 3255 ext. 4162 fax. (0181) 392 3491 m.odonnell@roehampton.ac.uk http://www.jgrchj.com --- B-Greek home page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [jwrobie@mindspring.com] To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-327Q@franklin.oit.unc.edu To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu