From the chapter called Get it right the first time. This chapter is aimed at students learning Greek for the first time, rather than pastors who need to recap.
If you’re a student at seminary, bible college, or university and are currently studying Greek, you will never have a better time to get it under your belt.
Keep in mind that you want to know Greek so that you can teach God’s word with depth of understanding, observing its subtleties and nuances, many of which cannot be conveyed in translation.
The more capable you become with Greek when you first learn it, the easier it will be to keep your Greek in the future.
If you can get yourself to that place, you will find it easy to keep your Greek. And that means that you’ll have years ahead of you to read the New Testament in Greek, study it in detail, and teach it with depth and understanding.
Posted by Con Campbell
Rick Creighton
Bruce Lowe
Con Campbell
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I can say that I really wish that I had done a better job of learning Greek at first. The best thing about the way I handled Greek was that it better prepared me for learning Hebrew. Obviously the languages are very different, but I felt like the mistakes showed me what I needed to do differently when I learned Hebrew. I became much more diligent with vocabulary and I also worked harder to retain the grammar I learned.
Doing it right the first time just makes it much easier.
Thanks for your candour, Jason.
I echo Jason’s comments; I too regret not learning Greek well the first time. Now as pastor I’m not sure when I’ll get a chance to “do Greek” again. I too found that Greek better prepared me for Hebrew. By the time I began Hebrew I had a painful awareness of what it’s going to take to successfully complete intro Hebrew class. Right from the get-go I poured all my energy into memorizing vocab and regurgitating paradigms. I think it was the fear of not being left behind that motivated me.
I suppose the unfamiliarity of language acquisition is the greatest hurdle at first. It wasn’t until I was out of seminary that I purchased and read “How Biblical Languages Work.” It certainly didn’t answer every question but it’s a good place to start to understand the basic concepts of ancient language.
Next is the hurdle of making language study a discipline. To adequately grasp Greek one needs to turn its study into a habit. Unlike physical excercise, it’s a habit of the mind, and if the student can enlist the help of other Greek students foraccountability, the greater chance for success long-term.
I have had several people make the comment that they wanted to learn Koine Greek. I told them that all they needed was a copy of Mounce, the workbook, and a way to do flashcards and I would be more than happy to help. However, I also give them the same warning that Yoda gave Luke. It’s not something that one can do casually.
The funny thing is that Mounce makes an admonition like this at the beginning of BBG, but I didn’t really believe it. Looking back, I wish I had taken him more seriously.
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Should the “cannot be conveyed in translation” be “cannot be easily conveyed in translation”? Otherwise there would be no point to learning Koine Greek.
No, Mike P, I mean “cannot be conveyed in translation”. My point is that there are some things in any language that cannot be conveyed into some receptor languages, and that’s one of the reasons to learn the original language: to understand what the Greek means, even if there’s no exact way to say it in English translation. We’re aiming for understanding Greek, after all, not just translating it into English.
Con