Introduction and announcement of a Mounce study group

[fool4jesus]

First, I'd like to briefly introduce myself. I've been trying to work my way through Mounce. I love this textbook. If anybody ever said you can't write a combination devotional/language textbook, I think Mounce has proven them wrong (just as Wayne Grudem has shown you can produce a devotional systematic theology).

In January 2003 I started a free on-line study group doing Mounce. Unfortunately, due to dropoff in attendance as well as my own job situation I had to terminate the group after chapter 22.

Now, Josh Henry is re-starting the group. Like my group before, this group is free and intended solely to provide a forum for cooperation between the group members. Below is his announcement. He is scheduled for the beginning of January, but he might be willing to move the date back a little for people to get set up.

In nomine Eius,
<>< gary

-------------------------------------------------

Hello Greek List Readers:

I am happy to advertise a new Koine study group starting in January
2004.
The plan is to study through William Mounce¹s ³Basics of Biblical
Greek².

Koine, also know as Hellenistic or Common Greek, was the common
language
spoken throughout the empire of Alexander the Great, and is perhaps
most
famous as the language of the Septuagint and the New Testament.

In much the same way as other groups on this list, participants will
submit
exercises to the moderator (that¹s me) and they will be collated and
posted
each week so we can learn from one another's mistakes and enlightened
translations. Discussion of questions and observations via the list
will
also be strongly encouraged.

The group web page is at the following URL, simply send email to me if
you
would like to join.

http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~jkhenry/koine.html

Please pass the word to anyone you think might like to be a part of
this
group.

Humbly,

J.K. (Josh) Henry <><
Urbana, Illinois
December 12, 2003

[klewlis]

Welcome here!

I haven't used Mounce but have heard very good things about it. One friend said that I need to check it out if only for its treatment of 3rd declension nouns, so I will do that someday (can't see spending the money *just* for that).

Anyway, we need more koine people around here! :)

[Jeff Tirey]

IMOHO Mounce does a far better job on noun stems and case endings than other modern classical greek textbooks.

[fool4jesus]

IMOHO Mounce does a far better job on noun stems and case endings than other modern classical greek textbooks.

I haven't used many: only Hansen and Quinn. I suppose H&Q may have some good points (at least, some people like it), but overall I thought it was horrible for self-study. Everything is presented as rote memorization. Almost like they didn't tell you that, for convenience in memorizing, we categorize Latin verbs into four conjugations. I much prefer Mounce's method of making you do the absolute minimum of memorization - learning rules plus exceptions. That's the way I learned Latin too and I think it worked out very well.