Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Keep up the Greek (and Hebrew) over the summer

Matt Harmon, New Testament professor at Grace Theological Seminary here in Winona Lake [and a friend, I might add—see, I have some :)], has just written a post on how to keep up your Greek over the summer in six easy steps.

6. Team up with someone else. Beyond providing accountability, it is more enjoyable for most people to work with at least one other person. When I was a Ph.D. student I met with my two pastors and another Ph.D. student to read Greek together most Friday mornings at a coffee shop. This was always one of the highlights of the week, and we often ended up having rich theological discussions based on what we were seeing in the Greek text. I was thrilled to find another group here in Winona Lake that meets every Thursday morning to read Greek one week and Hebrew the next. These times are an invaluable way to maintain and improve one's knowledge of the language.

<idle musing>
I can vouch for that. It is easy to fool yourself into thinking you “get it” when you are reading by yourself. The group reading times are a good way to test your knowledge—and have a good time reading as well. I don’t think we get into theological discussions as much as we share bibliography and grammatical insights. Of course, what do you expect when two of us work for Eisenbrauns?
</idle musing>

2 comments:

Alan Knox said...

James,

This is something that I try to do with several friends each summer. There is no better way to maintain a foreign language than to read in that language, especially with other people. We're planning to read a book of the NT in Greek this summer.

-Alan

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