Is the Goodwin Greek Grammar Collection Useful for Non-Specialists?
The William W. Goodwin Greek Grammar Collection (4 vols.) has what looks like an attractive price, but the contents come from the late 19th century. There are a lot of other Greek grammars available in Logos. Does anyone have a sense for how much value this has for the average, garden variety Greek student? My instinct is that it probably has significant historical value for the specialist, but would probably be just one more book on the shelf for the average Joe. Is that fair, or am I missing something?
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I would recommend a modern Greek Grammar book such as Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics.
http://www.TrinityExamined.com
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Thank you. That's what I was thinking.
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Goodwin's is a wonderful grammar and its age does not diminish its value. Furthermore, its value isn't dependent upon whether or not you're a specialist. (It is, in fact, a beginner's grammar.) The issue lies in the fact that its focus is not Koine Greek -- the language of the New Testament.
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Which form of greek does it focus upon?
I can see value in learning some of the greek that was used in scholarly, or literary persuits around the time of scripture. It could add depth to ones understanding of a word as we might pick up more on the sub-textual connotations.L2 lvl4 (...) WORDsearch, all the way through L10,
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abondservant said:
Which form of greek does it focus upon?
I can see value in learning some of the greek that was used in scholarly, or literary persuits around the time of scripture. It could add depth to ones understanding of a word as we might pick up more on the sub-textual connotations.Goodwin's book focuses on "classical" Greek (generally, the Attic dialect).
This was useful to me because I relied heavily upon Aristotle and other classical writers in my earlier work. The value for reading other Greek texts (at least for me) was not so much to fill out the meaning of specific words (although there is value in understanding use of certain words like "faith" and "grace" in New Testament times because it gives us insight into the first readers' perceptions; this perception was probably anticipated by the writers), but to understand the broader literary world into which Scripture's books were presented.
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EastTN said:
The William W. Goodwin Greek Grammar Collection (4 vols.) has what looks like an attractive price, but the contents come from the late 19th century. There are a lot of other Greek grammars available in Logos. Does anyone have a sense for how much value this has for the average, garden variety Greek student? My instinct is that it probably has significant historical value for the specialist, but would probably be just one more book on the shelf for the average Joe. Is that fair, or am I missing something?
Thanks for mentioning that.
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You can view the content of these volumes many places on line in PDF. Look at them closely and ask yourself, "What purpose will these serve for ME." I have been reading Greek for 35 years, and probably have all of the Greek resources available in Logos. But I really don't see a day that I will get $20 of value out of this. You might. But how many reference grammars does one need on these minuscule technical topics? I have enough (BDF, Robertson, et al.), but maybe others need one more.
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Thanks to everyone for the input. It has been very helpful to me. I've put a bid in on the collection, primarily because I do have some interest in the classics. The grammars that I have in Logos at this point focus on New Testament Greek.
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