It's hard to believe that already a week has gone by since the end of BLC's second Koine Greek Fluency Workshop. For those of us involved in the planning and/or the instruction, it was obviously a very busy time for us. I won't recap all that took place, as a detailed summary has already been [...]
A group of sixteen facilitators and participants recently gathered in Jerusalem (Dec 28, 2011-Jan 6, 2012) to speak Koine Greek, while reading select New Testament texts associated with Jesus in Jerusalem and visiting the ancient sites connected with those narratives. The group gathered in Jerusalem's Old City for over 50 immersion Koine Greek hours, interacting [...]
As a result of the BLC's Koine Greek immersion programs, and especially the Workshop for Instructors this past summer in Fresno, CA, there has been growing interest in a song written and composed by BLC's Sharon Alley. See for example this thread on the b-greek list. Here is an original recording of the song sung [...]
From August 3-11, the Biblical Language Center (BLC), in association with Fresno Pacific University, led a fluency workshop for instructors of New Testament Greek in Fresno, California. The effort to renew the speaking of New Testament Greek was the first of its kind in North America. To ensure the highest quality possible, the workshop was led [...]
I've recently (re)read an article sent to me this past summer entitled "Preparing Latin Teachers for Second Language Acquisition," pp. 184-191 in Teaching Classical Languages (Spring 2010) by Robert Patrick, PhD. (This online peer-reviewed journal can be found here, and the article in question, about halfway through the PDF here.) While the BLC does not [...]
On day two of BLC's "With Jesus in the Galilee" we went to the historical site of Cana. Most people think of an Arab village just outside Nazareth, Kfar Cana, as the location of where the miracle took place. However, Kfar Cana was "introduced" in the Byzantine period so as to allow pilgrims walking from [...]
At a guest house in the modern town of Migdal, overlooking ancient Migdal on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, about twenty individuals have come together for ten days of intensive Koine Greek. We are attempting to do something that has rarely, if ever, been done in modern times: speak only Koine Greek from [...]
Greek inscription at Hippos One of many inscriptions in Sephoris synagogue. Notice spelling of και. Overlooking 'parable bay', a nice place to preach from a boat Imagine breakfast to bed overlooking the Lake of Genneseret, all in Koine Greek. Reading the gospels, discussing them in Koine Greek, some fluency pedagogy, and visits to sites around [...]
[Excerpts from an email exchange between Randall Buth and others on whether a "dead" language, Greek in the discussion below, can ever be taught as a "live" language.]> I think that what is happening is that there is a clear distinction between> learning, reading and speaking a language that is NOT DEAD and learning, reading> [...]
BY RANDALL BUTHThis is a parable written in Koine Greek, challenging Christian students to use common sense when setting goals of biblical language learning. What level would be honoring to our scriptures?Ἆρά γε τιμῶμεν τὰς ἡμῶν γραφάς;παραβολή, τίνι ὁμοιοῦται ὁ λόγος; ·ἄνθρωπός τις ἀπὸ τῶν Ἰνδωνησίων ἦν σόφος τοῦ Κωρᾶν,ἀποδημήσας δὲ εἰς τὴν Κάϊραν (ἐν [...]