Audio Lecture: English Grammatical Concepts for NT Greek

I just finished the audio of the lesson introducing English grammatical concepts that are important for learning NT Greek. It is the same PowerPoint from yesterday but this time I am taking you through the content. I was reminded yesterday, whilst reading a comment by Mark Goodacre, that you are inviting me in to speak to you and that should impact the way I speak in these lessons. So, hopefully I will keep them energetic but within the genre of the academically oriented-podcast. Also, I've begun working with the Internet Archive and may find this useful going forward. I've uploaded the PowerPoint for this blog entry there to see the way it works. Feel free to download it but it is quite a large file.

English Grammatical Concepts for Greek

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Let me know what you think and if you have suggestions please feel free to pass them on to me. Also, if you know of some good links for NT Greek that students should check out why not post them in the comments section below. Finally, the cartoon at the beginning of this blog post is from the Common English Grammar Mistakes blog.

English grammatical concepts for Greek

This post contains no sound but it is a fairly complete presentation on the important English concepts to understand when beginning your study of Greek. I am trying another service in search of my Greek font problem. SlideShare appears to handle Greek fonts but the sound is more difficult to manage.

Introduction to Grammar and Verbless Clauses

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New Testament Greek Writing System and Cognates

This lesson, which is part of lesson 2, covers the writing system for NT Greek and introduces the concept of cognates and their potential usefulness for vocabulary acquisition. I've also included a couple of audio readings in the presentation from the support files from Professor Kunjummen's text book.

This lecture provides readings from the genealogies in Luke and Matthew. Mark Goodacre has recently discussed these genealogies in a rather fascinating manner and I encourage you to take a few minutes and listen to those podcasts. The first one is episode 1, Matthew's Genealogy; whilst the second one is episode 10 which discusses Jesus' genealogy in Luke's gospel.

Presentation stream from the second class...

The Writing System and Cognates

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What are your thoughts about this use of technology? Is it helpful for learning Greek? Any suggestions to make it better?

Introduction to New Testament Greek: Alphabet and Sounds

Ever wonder what a first lecture in New Testament Greek might include? Well, look no further. The following is the content portion of my recent class at MTS. I recorded it after class as a way to help students review what I said or didn't say in class. It's not perfect, I still have not figured out how to edit myself (in real life and in this format). So, overlook those and other weaknesses and enjoy a nice relaxing and stimulating lesson on the Greek Alphabet and its sounds. This is the first part of the first lecture. If there is enough interest, I will publish more. So, let me know.

01a New Testament Greek pp. 1-4 [1 of 2]

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As it relates to my interest in identity formation. Learning Greek is an identity forming experience. One's scholarly identity is being developed and learning in the context of community provides many opportunities for ingroup/outgroup comparision, not to mention stereotyping and social categorization. Tajfel and Turner would be proud. The book I use was introduced in a previous blog entry. It is R.D. Kunjummen's New Testament Greek: A Whole Language Approach. This first part of the lecture only covers the first four pages of the book.

R.D. Kunjummen - New Testament Greek: A Whole Language Approach

R. D. Kunjummen, one of my colleagues at MTS, recently published a Greek textbook entitled New Testament Greek: A Whole Language Approach. Well, I’m not a paid endorser but if you are looking for a great book to refresh your Greek skills that are somewhat rusty, then look no further. Professor Kunjummen provides an exegetically-oriented and linguistically-aware approach to NT Greek that will offer those who have already studied the language a refresher that will remind you why you studied Greek in the first place.

The book uses an semi-inductive approach that provides textual examples from the beginning of the work. It introduces verbless clauses quite early and thus has beginning students translating Greek from the NT by the third lesson. I’ve been using earlier forms of this material to teach Greek for the past few years and like the way that the lesson sentences reinforce the grammatical points, while the exercises reinforce previous learning and provide a way for the student to determine his or her level of apprehension of the material introduced. The book is a combination workbook and reference grammar and would be a reference work that one will go back to quite often.

The book is a little under 450 pages and is a great deal at $62. It contains the expected appendices including a cumulative vocabulary list that serves as a great way to learn or review vocabulary. The text is oriented towards those using the Greek text in the exposition of the scriptures in faith communities; however, those needing to pass Greek proficiency exams will find this work quite useful. Professor Kunjummen, my former Greek professor, has written a thorough introductory and intermediate Greek textbook that is highly recommended and should receive wide use in both undergraduate and seminary Greek courses. If you can't purchase the book from Amazon, you can purchase it directly from Michigan Theological Seminary.

Edward Adams: Construction of Worlds and Group Boundaries

Edward Adams employs sociological, anthropological, and linguistic methods combined with traditional historical critical methods to focus on the way Paul’s discourse constructs the social world of its recipients. He notes that Paul’s letters ‘shape every aspect of their members’ social experience: the social identity, social relations, attitudes and modes of behaviour’ and that ‘language in various modes of discourse’ may ‘create, maintain, and change social identity’ (2000: 24-25). With regard to these two methodological commitments, I follow Adams’ approach. The social situation in Corinth is addressed, building on the work of Mary Douglas, in the context of weak group boundaries; he notes ‘strong group boundaries go hand in hand with strong group identity and group solidarity’ and ‘the lack of cohesion in the Corinthian church suggest porous boundaries’ (98). For Adams, Paul is seeking ‘to build up the boundaries…to engender in the congregation a clearer sense of its distinctive religious, moral, and social identity’ (102-3). While I am in significant agreement with Adams, especially with regard to the apocalyptic approach of Paul (169), it appears that the Corinthian Christ-followers actually had a strong sense of social identity with regard to the broader culture and thus the boundary marking that needed to occur was internal more than external, though it does not exclude the other option (211).

With regard to the emergence of Christ-movement identity in general, Adams builds on Barclay arguing that gentile converts ‘would have suffered a considerable loss of social identity’ (2000: 222). This understanding of the social situation in Galatia leads Adams to helpfully incorporate the research of Tajfel to understand the situation (223); my work seeks to apply the social identity framework to the situation in Corinth in order to understand how the social implications of the gospel were experienced in a setting quite different from Galatia or Rome. Tajfel and Turner’s work have been applied to Romans and Galatians by Esler (1998, 2003) because of the presence of ethnic issues in those letters; however, Tajfel and Turner may be used more broadly to address issues of social identity, of which ethnicity is but one component. Marohl has applied this to Hebrews because of the presence of ‘intergroup comparison’ in that letter (2008: 80).

References:

Adams, E. 2000 Constructing the World A Study in Paul’s Cosmological Language. (SNTW; Edinburgh: T&T Clark).

Esler, P.F. 1998 Galatians (New Testament Readings; London: Routledge).

Esler, P.F. 2003 Conflict and Identity in Romans: The Social Setting of Paul’s Letter (Minneapolis: Fortress Press).

Marohl, M.J. 2007 Faithfulness and the Purpose of Hebrews: A Social Identity Approach (PrTMS, Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications).

Anders Runesson: Apostolic Judaism

Anders Runesson rightly recognizes ‘the inseparability of ethnic, cultural, national, and religious aspects of identity in antiquity’ (2008: 71). He follows William S. Campbell and Mark Nanos in arguing that, early on, the Christ-movement remained within Judaism, and he suggests that the term ‘Apostolic Judaism to indicate a common religio-cultural and ethnic focus’ may be employed to describe the movement which ‘included various Jewish groups; Christ-fearers [who] accept Apostolic Jewish authority and theology about their place within the people of God but are not part of the Ioudaioi’ (72-74). Runesson also follows Campbell in arguing that, for Paul, ‘non-Jews remain non-Jews with regard to ritual and cultural behaviour’ (77; Campbell 2008: 127) but differs somewhat from him with regard to Paul’s role in the establishment of a religion (cf. Runesson 2008: 79, 88; Campbell 2008: 51-52). Runesson’s correct conclusion concerning Paul’s view of the ‘law and faith, is that all people must remain in the condition in which they were when they were called’ and that to be ‘“in Christ” reflects an eschatological worldview in which Jews and non-Jews…together form the people of God’ with ‘the basic difference within the people of God between Jews and non-Jews’ being ‘along the lines of ethnic-cultural identity’ where both groups are urged ‘to accept this difference and keep the peace (1 Cor 7:17-20; Rom 15:7-12)’ (2008: 81-82). Far from the abstract, non-ethnic understanding of later ‘Christianity’, Runesson rightly understands Paul as one who defined the early Christ-movement in the context of kinship and ethnicity and not in the absence of these vital markers of community life.

References:

Campbell, W.S. 2008 Paul and the Creation of Christian Identity (London: T&T Clark).

Runesson, A. 2000 ‘Particularistic Judaism and Universalistic Christianity? Some Critical Remarks on Terminology and Theology’, Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism, 1: 120-44.

Runesson, A. 2008 ‘Inventing Christian Identity: Paul, Ignatius, and Theodosius I’, in B. Holmberg (ed.) 2008: 59-92.

Holmberg, B. (ed.) 2008 Exploring Early Christian Identity (WUNT, 226; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck).