Image source: Aqui se habla Griega— muy poquitisimo (HT Mike)
Each year before school starts in the fall, I like to post a little help for the poor suckers that are going to start “learning” New Testament Greek at the thousands of Bible colleges, universities and seminaries scattered around the globe.
Things to understand:
- Your prof memorized all those stupid declensions and by golly if you can’t do it then tough.
- Even if you pass this class you still won’t know diddly-squat about Greek.
- If Paul, Jesus or even the writer of Hebrews walked into a NT Greek class, they would not know what the heck was going on. (Well, maybe Jesus ‘cause of being omniscient and all…)
- Quote English poetry and a girl thinks you’re sexy. Quote Greek and you won’t get within a quarter mile of her couch.
- Memorizing all that stuff when it’s sitting on your computer is like churning your own butter, or cutting your lawn with a machete.
So, now that we’ve got that out of the way I want to help you, the poor passive victim, turn into a strong and manly, aggressive and proactive kind of student. No more skulking into the back of class and thumbing nervously through your flash cards. Instead, you will stride into that classroom just like Odysseus before he started kicking butt on all of Penelope’s suitors.
Lingamish’s list of ways to make your Greek professor look stoopid
- Whenever he says something like, “The subjunctive, aorist, passive 1st person plural of αἰσχύνω is αἰσχυνθῶμεν” immediately raise your hand and say, “What’s the indicative, perfect, active 2nd person singular?”
- Stare at his zipper with a nervous look on your face.
- Whenever he says a word in Greek, repeat it out loud several times and then raise your hand and ask, “Did I say that right?”
- Just as your prof launches into the latest arcane drivel about optatives and hortatives and whatever, interrupt and say, “You know, I’ve been in this class for four weeks and I still don’t know how to say, ‘Good morning, professor.’ How would I say that?”
- Visit him every day during office hours for the first week and say, “I’m having trouble. Can you help me?”
- Ask if he can help you pick out some Koine songs for your Greek club’s Praise and Worship time.
- Make up a sentence and say, “How would you say that in Greek?”
- After a particularly complex explanation, whip out your copy of Mounce, thumb through it, pretend like you’re cross-checking what he just said and then smile knowingly to yourself.
- As you walk into class softly sing Philippians 2:6-11 in Greek to the tune of “O Come, O Come Immanuel.”
- Tell him you’d like help translating a tattoo into Greek that says “What would Jesus do?”
I guarantee that if you use these strategies consistently you will reduce your professor to a quivering, twitching wreck in less than two weeks. If you can get fellow students to join in the fun you can achieve the same results in less than a week.
funny: you and your post
weird: your post’s serious implication that women do not teach or study NT Greek, that girls like English poetry better and have couches.
(ps: the girls in my first Greek class were the best students, despite the fact that the male prof–I’m not making this up–referred to them loudly as “goo-nayyy”).
Goony indeed. Weird would be me writing about trying to get a guy on the couch…
I once tried reciting Greek declensions to take my mind off a root canal filling. It didn’t work.
Weird would be me writing about trying to get a guy on the couch
Glad you clarified that. Your zipper comment had us concerned.
If Paul, Jesus or even the writer of Hebrews walked into a NT Greek class, they would not know what the heck was going on.
Well, of course not: they wouldn’t understand the modern language in which the class would be conducted!
(Well, maybe Jesus ‘cause of being omniscient and all…)
If it is the historical Jesus who is here in view, then no, he still wouldn’t.
Quote Greek and you won’t get within a quarter mile of her couch.
This is emphatically not my experience.
“What’s the indicative, perfect, active 2nd person singular?”
Very funny, Mister!
“You know, I’ve been in this class for four weeks and I still don’t know how to say, ‘Good morning, professor.’ How would I say that?”
Χαῖρε, διδάσκαλε.
The tattoo idea is fantastic. Maybe we could convince a celebrity to get one, blog about it, and get all the traffic that Hobbins gets from Victoria Beckham’s Hebrew tattoo.
Also, in my (admittedly very small) Greek classes at UPR, I was often the only male–and that’s even counting the professor.
Sincerely,
(The former Rev’d) Mr Esteban Vázquez
I imagine if Jesus walked into most Greek classes these days He’d say, “I’m from Galilee, where we pronounced nothing right, but I’ve never heard anything like your Greek accent. ”
Of course, how many academic Aramaic experts would get His accent, I wonder?
Wouldn’t he start griping that no one was studying the 6th book (יְהוֹשֻׁעַ) anymore (i.e., “Joshua” the first of the Prophets)?
Wouldn’t he say that “Jesus” is a name in vain in goyish English?
and that Ίησους is what those Greek deities (aka “demons”) yelled at him as he exorcised them out of the little girls whose Hellene mother’s demanded he do so?
and that καὶ ἀνέστη Ἰησοῦς καὶ πᾶς ὁ λαὸς ὁ πολεμιστὴς (Joshua 8:3 translated in Alexandria in Alexander’s conquering language) wasn’t an NT verse for “Rise Up O Men of God” or for “Onward Christian Soldiers”?
I think we can guarantee Jesus would complain people weren’t studying the Law and the Prophets enough. He did that repeatedly two thousand years ago, even when talking to scripture “experts”.
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