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Can the communicative method (e.g. CI) of teaching Koine Greek assist biblical exegesis?
While it's true that there are permanent limitations we have to face, we should also ask: What can CI still do for us as exegetes? Buckle up.
Can the communicative method (e.g. CI) of teaching Koine Greek assist biblical exegesis?
While it's true that there are permanent limitations we have to face, we should also ask: What can CI still do for us as exegetes? Buckle up.
(1) CI can remove obstacles for processing morphology. This is probably the best benefit at the beginning. Developing active knowledge (producing Greek sentences) is worth its weight in gold. It allows readers to get past morphosyntax to think about the text as discourse.
(2) CI allows us to internalize Greek phonology. Exegetes with CI backgrounds hear what they read and are quicker to pick up on alliteration, assonance, irony, leitworts, etc.
(3) CI helps readers form intuitions about grammaticality. Developing active knowledge requires learning and storing loads of constructions for use in conversation. Good CI forces us to form comprehensive knowledge of Koine conventions. There is PLENTY of data. We can know a lot.
(4) CI can deepen attention to texts. Rather than working from artificial categories, exegetes with a CI background think about specific usage events: "How else might Paul have said this (& what's the difference)?" When you actually speak Paul's language, you are apt to answer.
(5) CI accelerates text processing and brings exegetes closer to 'fluency' as readers. How much time do exegetes waste being detained by slow, painful reading of texts? CI doesn't make Josephus simple, but it does give exegetes an advantage at handling complexity.
(6) CI helps exegetes build long term memory. We are wired to learn language through CI. Exegetes not only internalize the grammar and lexicon, they also build long term memory of them. CI makes long term investments on exegesis.
(7) CI helps accelerate the ability to read Greek as Greek by granting us freedom from stale, pre-packaged English glosses. Interference from English is less problematic because we know how to use the language itself.
(8) Enjoy Koine Greek as a real language! This is the real benefit. Anything lawful we can do to raise appreciation of Greek is good. CI allows us to 'inhabit' the linguistic world of the NT authors & to hear their lexicon in our mouths. CI is more natural & enjoyable.
Are there shortcomings? Sure.
(1) Information Structure & prosody. English speakers will tend to use Greek words with English prosodic conventions. Of course, this happens even in modern languages and we don't let that stop us!
(1) Information Structure & prosody. English speakers will tend to use Greek words with English prosodic conventions. Of course, this happens even in modern languages and we don't let that stop us!
(2) Pragmatics. We can't know the conversational implicatures of our novel utterances (although Gricean Maxims still apply) & we may misuse found data in conversation (e.g. register).
Fair enough. But we also have nothing to lose! We can always introduce controls through texts.
Fair enough. But we also have nothing to lose! We can always introduce controls through texts.
(2) Polysemy. We can't reproduce synchronic polysemy at the level of a living community. We can reproduce some level of polysemy, but we may end up extending semantic networks in ways the data doesn't support.
Again, we can always introduce controls through texts.
Again, we can always introduce controls through texts.
(3) Constructions. Similar to 2, we can form novel utterances but we can't know how natural they might have sounded—and we can't assume such novelties will assist exegesis.
Same as above, and there are still other benefits (e.g. internalizing grammar).
Same as above, and there are still other benefits (e.g. internalizing grammar).
As you can see, there are enormous benefits to CI for exegesis and even the drawbacks aren't substantial enough to warrant the widespread dismissal. As many of us have said, the people who dismiss it have almost never tried it themselves. It's the Dunning-Kruger effect.
As a postscript, we do need a distinction speaking 'the' language of 1st c Palestinian Koine (1CPK) and reproducing 1CPK for CI teaching. We have more than enough data to excavate 1CPK as a serviceable vernacular for CI teaching. But this is not 'the' 1CPK. We never said it was!
The problems listed above are not insurmountable. They're challenges that call for further research. I just finished researching the diachronic history of περι. I know how to use it now almost exactly as it was used in conversation in 1CPK. That's what further research is about.
Building communities of communicative 1CPK is a long road & much research is needed, but this is the way forward if we want to build thriving, vibrant international communities of biblical linguists and exegetes. What voices from the majority world are we missing?
Perhaps it calls for another thread, but there's a case to be made that communicative 1CPK is also useful for Bible Translation & missions. Our resources are too focused on English. There are no Koine grammars in Swahili, for example.
Imagine having to learn English in order to learn Koine and then needing to translate that English *back* into your native language before you can exegete the biblical text. Your exegesis would be twice removed from the source text. CI helps mitigate this.
At the end of the day, we have students who can discourse about a billion artificial categories of the genitive but can't read the book of Hebrews. It's time for a change.
