Supplementing JACT

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mtcougar832
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Supplementing JACT

Post by mtcougar832 »

Hello everyone! There is a new JACT group starting up on the Greekstudy list, and I'm thinking about joining. I'm a beginner/dabbler with Greek, though I have a little Latin (via Lingua Latina and Linney's Latin Class) so I am not unfamiliar with declensions, etc. I was originally hoping to start with Homer, and had bought "A Reading Course in Homeric Greek". I completed to lesson 16, but stopped last year.

The schedule for JACT will be a section a week, so the first assignments are 1a, 1b, 1c, ... with a seperate week for grammar exercises. Would it be possible to go ahead and start JACT in 2 weeks, but do the Reading Course in Homeric Greek as well? Would it help or be confusing? At the groups pace, if I did the Homeric Greek course quickly I would finish the "grammar" portion while the JACT group was in section 2, and the entire book while the JACT group was in section 3.

I've read its good to have a grammar supplement with JACT, but would using a Homeric grammar be confusing?

My goal is to read ancient Greek, from Homer to the New Testament. I can throw some time at Greek this summer, probably up to an hour a day on most days.

Thank you all,
Amy

Markos
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Re: Supplementing JACT

Post by Markos »

You can never go wrong learning Homer. It will not confuse you to learn him at the same time you study Attic or Koine. Homer IS Greek.
οὐ μανθάνω γράφειν, ἀλλὰ γράφω τοῦ μαθεῖν.

LSorenson
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Re: Supplementing JACT

Post by LSorenson »

Amy,

I had about 3 years of Koine (later New Testament and 1st Century common Greek) before I read Homer. Homer was the first non-New Testament Greek I read. I had an old professor for Homer who had excavated the Mycenae site. He smoked a pipe in class - cherry tobacco. (It was the early 1980's). Homer is in the Ionic dialect which has many similarities to the Koine dialect of the New Testament. Homer is wonderful -- few writers have the sensitivity and allusions that Homer has. The Iliad and the Odyssey (my favorite) are the most engaging Greek you will ever read. So I agree with Markos, you can never go wrong with Homer.

What helps you when reading Homer, is that you see the uncontracted form of many words. This actually helps you understand later Greek forms. Attic (600-350 B.C. Greek) is a little more rigid and inflexible than later Greek. Later Greek was kind of like English in that it did not care if it borrowed a word from a foreign language, coined new words, or stretched the grammar to fit the meaning.

Whatever Greek authors you read or learn first, there is no wrong Greek.

Louis

mtcougar832
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Re: Supplementing JACT

Post by mtcougar832 »

Thank you both for the reassurance. :D

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