[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Wenham

I am most grateful to all for their comments on Wenham.  It is 
something of a relief to discover that it is still regarded as a 
useful introduction by others.  It is always easier to use what one 
is familiar with, for one's own sake as well as for the students. 

I realise that the issue over accents causes some anxiety.  My own 
feeling, though, is that the general lack of accents helps beginners 
to focus on the relatively few cases where they are used and 
are really important - the distinctions between TIS (interrog.) and 
TIS (indef. pronoun), and KRINW (pres. indic. active) and KRINW 
(future indic. active), etc.  Also, the general lack of accents helps 
to focus attention on iota subscripts and rough breathings, so easily 
missed in the early stages.

I agree too with Paul Dixon about the English grammar at the 
beginning of Wenham.  For a generation (at least in the UK) that goes 
throught school without much basic knowledge of English grammar, 
Wenham's introduction is most helpful.

I agree with Paul too about the usefulness of the charts at the back 
of the book.  I tell my students that everything they need to know 
about the Greek noun is contained in one page of Wenham (p. 229) 
which they can photocopy and put up next to their shaving mirror (or 
make-up mirror?) at home.

Jonathan - if you want to look at my review of Wenham with ref. to 
your comments on your web page, I would happily send 
you a copy.

I enjoyed Carlton Winbery's comments on 'eating' tea with John Wenham 
in Oxford.  I too used to go to see him on the Banbury Road where 
towards the end of his life he was living with his son David.  He 
made excellent tea.  He was never one to talk much about Greek or his 
own *Elements*, always preferring to discuss his Christianity.  He 
was an evangelical of the evangelicals, and I rather enjoyed his 
red-blooded, uncompromising (though very gently expressed) views - 
one knew exactly where one stood!

It is nice to hear Carl talking about Oxford via Colin Dexter and 
Dorothy L. Sayers.  It was an enormous privilege to study there 
for a decade, punting, having tea with dons, going to examinations in 
'subfusc' etc.  And a 'Gaudy Night' really is something special, and 
a good thing that they are only every ten years!

I too like Wenham's book on the synoptic problem, though I think he 
is quite wrong.  It is a great deal more astute than Linnemann, I 
think.

Finally, I don't think that I ever 'eat' tea or 'take' tea but rather 
I 'have' tea.  To 'take' tea is a little old-fashioned - I seem to 
remember Lewis Carroll 'takes' tea in the mid to late nineteenth 
century.  I had a friend in Oxford who 'took' tea, but this was an 
affectation.

Kind wishes

Mark

------------------------
Dr Mark Goodacre
Department of Theology
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham   B15 2TT

Tel.: 0121 414 7512         Email: M.S.Goodacre@Bham.ac.uk
Fax.: 0121 414 6866