College

[Bootstrap]

I'm not afraid of people who know Greek. I appreciate them. I am happy they translate the texts effectively. However, I have more confidence in these translator's, who have made Greek and English their life study, than I do of folks who took a few intro courses in under-grad. That is my point.

Sure, me too.

Further, I don't think one needs to know the original language to "get" the good news. One needs a reliable translation of the text. That is all. And they exist.

Amen.

[Dan Z]

Further, I don't think one needs to know the original language to "get" the good news. One needs a reliable translation of the text. That is all. And they exist.

Amen.

And the Spirit of God as the ultimate "translator" to open up our eyes to God's truth.

[Bootstrap]

And the Spirit of God as the ultimate "translator" to open up our eyes to God's truth.

Exactly. Especially when we seek him together.

But one more footnote:

Further, I don't think one needs to know the original language to "get" the good news. One needs a reliable translation of the text. That is all. And they exist.

They don't exist in all languages, and even some major languages don't have great translations. Until recently, Chinese was one of them. In English, we have quite a few good translations to choose from, we should be grateful for that. Support Bible translation.

And most translations are not done by people who know the original languages. We need more people who do.

[Ernie]

The Sattler folks want to revolutionize instruction in biblical languages. If they succeed, more power to them. But they haven't gotten there yet.

They did receive 20 applications for this position already.

[Judas Maccabeus]

The Sattler folks want to revolutionize instruction in biblical languages. If they succeed, more power to them. But they haven't gotten there yet.

They did receive 20 applications for this position already.

Not surprising. Bible schools and seminaries in the evangelical camp are cranking out PhD's like Mars cranks out candy bars, mostly MDiv's that don't want to pastor churches, but want to stay in the religion game. The actual number that are needed keeps falling due to the increased use of adjuncts to teach online classes. There are relatively few tenure track full time positions out there.

Problem is, many if not most of these people will be reformed, since all of the SBC seminaries are (Except maybe Southwestern) so it will be hard to find someone with a commitment to Anabaptist thought.

J.M.

[Bootstrap]

The Sattler folks want to revolutionize instruction in biblical languages. If they succeed, more power to them. But they haven't gotten there yet.

They did receive 20 applications for this position already.

Great - I really do hope they get someone who can do what they want.

Their description of the job shows that they know about language acquisition using TPR and TPRS, but also want to make sure students understand the formal grammar. That's promising. There are other people doing this (Buth, Ricco, Streett, etc.), but it's a good approach. Inverted classroom can also mean they do a lot of immersive reading. There are environments set up to support that. I suspect they would work with other people who are doing similar things instead of inventing everything themselves.

I'm not afraid of people who know Greek. I appreciate them. I am happy they translate the texts effectively. However, I have more confidence in these translator's, who have made Greek and English their life study, than I do of folks who took a few intro courses in under-grad. That is my point.

If you think about German or French literature courses, students typically start reading literature seriously in the third year, though they use small portions and short stories earlier. A German literature major would stop taking language classes after the third year and focus on literature in the fourth. Most seminary students take no more than one year of Greek.

If Sattler really wants to get people good at biblical languages, they might want to consider allowing biblical languages as a major and setting up a 4-year program that is equivalent to a German literature major. Creating such a program would be a massive amount of work, especially for both Greek and Hebrew, but if they can find the extraordinary person who could do that, it would be really great.

[Judas Maccabeus]

Most seminary students take no more than one year of Greek.

True. But not universal. When I went to grad school, the Mdiv program at Capital Bible Seminary had 3 years of Greek and 2 of Hebrew. Granted, the last two years of Greek were exegesis courses, but the whole program was language intensive. That is why it was so easy to get someone to show me the Greek I really needed right before class. When Lancaster Bible college took over, they cut it back to something like you describe and laid off a few language professors. They may be among the 20 who applied, accd. to Ernie. One of them does not even use powerpoint.

Sattler really wants to get people good at biblical languages, they might want to consider allowing biblical languages as a major and setting up a 4-year program that is equivalent to a German literature major. Creating such a program would be a massive amount of work, especially for both Greek and Hebrew, but if they can find the extraordinary person who could do that, it would be really great.

It would be my contention that a Greek concentration like you describe may be better done in grad. school. I don't know what someone with that as an undergrad major would actually do with it.

J.M.

[Bootstrap]

It would be my contention that a Greek concentration like you describe may be better done in grad. school. I don't know what someone with that as an undergrad major would actually do with it.

That's fair. And for what it's worth, that's precisely what most people in the Classics get when they study Greek.

But for perspective, undergraduates would have frequently had this level of Greek by the time they graduated in the late 1800s or early 1900s. And you can see that in the depth of discussion among commentaries like ICC, Meyer, Expositor's Greek, etc.

Digital resources don't replace that level of knowledge. They can allow someone with a term or two of Greek to read texts that would normally be beyond them, though, making it a lot easier to do lots of immersive reading, and I think 30 minutes to an hour a day of reading Greek texts adds up over the years. Ultimately, you learn a language by using it. And there are online forums where people can ask questions and get answers from experts.

I think we need better digital resources, though, resources that show things like the structure of complex Greek sentences using accessible notation. We need them to be available in software that normal human beings can afford.

And we also need better programs in Greek and Hebrew at universities and seminaries. Most colleges and seminaries are slashing these programs. Some of this is happening in a lot of places right now, and maybe Sattler will be part of the solution.

There are also a lot of people who would do the work to learn these languages but can't afford to go to a university or seminary. In 5-10 years, I bet there will be reasonable ways to learn these languages online.

[Neto]

Sattler really wants to get people good at biblical languages, they might want to consider allowing biblical languages as a major and setting up a 4-year program that is equivalent to a German literature major. Creating such a program would be a massive amount of work, especially for both Greek and Hebrew, but if they can find the extraordinary person who could do that, it would be really great.

It would be my contention that a Greek concentration like you describe may be better done in grad. school. I don't know what someone with that as an undergrad major would actually do with it.

J.M.

Bible translation. My graduate level courses were almost all in linguistics and literacy methods. (Two courses was sort of Biblical in nature, Translation I & II. But that was actually applied linguistics.)

[Judas Maccabeus]

Sattler really wants to get people good at biblical languages, they might want to consider allowing biblical languages as a major and setting up a 4-year program that is equivalent to a German literature major. Creating such a program would be a massive amount of work, especially for both Greek and Hebrew, but if they can find the extraordinary person who could do that, it would be really great.

It would be my contention that a Greek concentration like you describe may be better done in grad. school. I don't know what someone with that as an undergrad major would actually do with it.

J.M.

Bible translation. My graduate level courses were almost all in linguistics and literacy methods. (Two courses was sort of Biblical in nature, Translation I & II. But that was actually applied linguistics.)

Yes. But somehow I do not think translating minority languages, or foreign missions in general are the focus of Sattler, at least what I have read so far.

J.M.