Burned out on Greek
OK, so three posts in one day might indicate that my mind isn’t exactly in my studies right now…
Which is a shame, because actually it is. I am super engaged and totally on fire...
For all my classes except Greek that is.
Systematic Theology? Fascinating and challenging.
Survey of the NT? Engaging, stimulating and exciting.
Christianity in the Non-Western World? Tons of reading, but awesome.
However, as far as Greek goes, I have reached the proverbial wall.
Not only have I reached that wall, but last week I ran smack dab right into the middle of it. I whacked my head on the hard brick, fell down on my butt, and now everything is spinning and I am seeing stars.
Except, instead of stars I am seeing case endings and morphemes and tense formatives whizzing around me. I feel like I’m stuck in a giant vat of koine alphabet soup.
Not really the best time for us to be moving straight into the ever-so-thrilling world of grammatical studies in Daniel Wallace’s super-exciting “The Basics of New Testament Syntax.” Now there's a page-turner.
Woo-hoo!
Syntax!
Joy.
All I do is scan my eyes across the page because the information is not sinking in at all.
What in the world am I doing? I like languages - I majored in French Literature for crying out loud! I even enjoyed Greek for a while, but this is getting nuts.
Surely not every seminarian needs to also be a linguist also, do they? Why is it so imperative that I learn every little subtle grammatical point? How do they know all this stuff anyways?
Sigh.
Please pray for me to cool my horses, take a deep breath, and keep plodding away. The joy of learning Greek is gone.
This is turning into a marathon and I am wondering why I need to be running it.
Which is a shame, because actually it is. I am super engaged and totally on fire...
For all my classes except Greek that is.
Systematic Theology? Fascinating and challenging.
Survey of the NT? Engaging, stimulating and exciting.
Christianity in the Non-Western World? Tons of reading, but awesome.
However, as far as Greek goes, I have reached the proverbial wall.
Not only have I reached that wall, but last week I ran smack dab right into the middle of it. I whacked my head on the hard brick, fell down on my butt, and now everything is spinning and I am seeing stars.
Except, instead of stars I am seeing case endings and morphemes and tense formatives whizzing around me. I feel like I’m stuck in a giant vat of koine alphabet soup.
Not really the best time for us to be moving straight into the ever-so-thrilling world of grammatical studies in Daniel Wallace’s super-exciting “The Basics of New Testament Syntax.” Now there's a page-turner.
Woo-hoo!
Syntax!
Joy.
All I do is scan my eyes across the page because the information is not sinking in at all.
What in the world am I doing? I like languages - I majored in French Literature for crying out loud! I even enjoyed Greek for a while, but this is getting nuts.
Surely not every seminarian needs to also be a linguist also, do they? Why is it so imperative that I learn every little subtle grammatical point? How do they know all this stuff anyways?
Sigh.
Please pray for me to cool my horses, take a deep breath, and keep plodding away. The joy of learning Greek is gone.
This is turning into a marathon and I am wondering why I need to be running it.
posted by Jonathan Ziman at
9:08 PM
1 Comments:
learning new testament greek was one of the more interesting/fun things i've done in my life. of course i learned it while commuting to a full time job. [doing flash cards while stopped at the traffic lights...or while driving.
i really enjoyed being able to read the new testament without another layer of translation. it made my devotional life richer.
note this is in the past tense. i've lost most of what i learned. but i retain the pleasant memory.
By
Anonymous, at 9:50 AM
Post a Comment
<< Home