From: Al Lukaszewski (alski@fuller.edu)
Date: Sun Apr 04 1999 - 10:27:19 EDT
The first round of Summers' NT Greek was a good introductory grammar;
however, the recent update is, IMHO, poorly done. I used it last year to
teach Greek and my class found more errors in the text and the workbook
than I was able to keep track of -- even simple copy errors from the former
edition!
My experience with the 8 case system was that my class became confused
about the extra three early on -- i.e., too early an introduction to syntax
on too little a grammatical base. I had to switch to the 5 case system and
tell them not to worry about the other three -- to learn them as
syntactical functions of 3 of the 5 cases.
Gradually I came to subsidize Summers' work with that of Machen and the
class turned out fine, but, sad to say, I lost a lot of people -- not only
mentally but attendance-wise -- because of the confusion and errors in the
new edition. If you have to use it, I would strongly recommend subsidizing
it from other grammars like Machen, et al.
Best wishes,
Albert Lukaszewski
FTS
alski@fuller.edu
At 07:59 AM 4/5/99, Jay Adkins wrote:
>Dear William Noel <noelfam@iolok.com>
> You asked.
><<Does anyone have experience with Essentials of NT Greek by Ray Summers?
>The college I'll be attending (Tyndale, In Fort Worth, TX) uses it. Thanks
>in advance>>
>
>I used Essentials of NT Greek by Ray Summers in Seminary some twenty years
>ago, it is a little dated in that it does not speak about verbal aspect and
>relies mainly on Aktionsart. It has been revised since then though by
>Thomas Sawyer in 1995 and now has a workbook to go along with it which may
>be purchased separately. The workbook does have additional information not
>in the text and is well laid out. I think the book itself was well laid
>out to begin with though and the revised edition has a new chapter on
>syntax which was totally missing from the first edition. Both include a
>Greek Verb Chart that detaches from the back of the book, very useful.
>
>Overall, I would see it as a fine first year grammar. Most of what you
>want to accomplish in the first year of study is a good understanding of
>accidence and the book does a good job of that. The revised edition even
>helps give you a good head start on second year Greek with the added
>chapter on syntax.
>
>I like the way it follows A.T. Robertson's case scheme which is based on
>function, with 8 cases instead of the normal 5 based on form. This helps
>to get the first year student to look at context for the meaning and usage
>of case instead of relying solely on form. There are those that disagree I
>suppose.
>
>I am learning the real key to learning Greek in the first year is not the
>text book you use, but the frequency you attempt to read the NT. Second
>year grammars on the other hand can make a difference and I have several to
>cross reference.
>
>Jay Adkins
>
>---
>B-Greek home page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek
>You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: alski@fuller.edu
>To unsubscribe, forward this message to
leave-b-greek-329W@franklin.oit.unc.edu
>To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu
>
>
>
>
--- B-Greek home page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu] To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-329W@franklin.oit.unc.edu To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:40:22 EDT