Ep. 46 - Expand Your Biblical Greek | Beyond the Greek New Testament by Dr. Max Botner
In this episode JC Schroeder talks with Dr. Max Botner about his new book "Beyond the Greek New Testament: Advanced Readings for Students of Biblical Studies" published by Baker Academic. They talk about theological education, how to communicate that with others, as well as some tips and tricks for learning and advancing in Greek.
⏰ Timestamps
0:00 Introduction
0:55 Who is Dr. Max Botner?
5:03 The Center for Bible Study and Online Theological Education
11:33 Why Go Beyond the Greek New Testament and the Problem of Learning the Biblical Languages
20:38 What Makes This Book Unique?
29:27 Tips for Learning Greek
39:22 Conclusion
📚 Dr. Botner's Resources
Beyond the Greek New Testament By Dr. Max Botner: http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/beyond-the-greek-new-testament/409900
The Center for Bible Study YT Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@dr.maxbotner/featured
On the Way Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-way/id1674692806
-------
🎧 Listen to the podcast:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bite-size-seminary/id1588657153
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6rzuso0r2D8XHOp0b8Cc4G?si=lt773C3cQaKFFeF-qB1GXw
📬 Connect with JC:
Website | bitesizeseminary.com
Facebook | Bite Size Seminary Podcast
Twitter | @bitesizesem
YouTube | @bitesizeseminary
Expand Your Biblical Greek | Beyond the Greek New Testament by Dr. Max Botner
Actually I don't think. I feel very strongly that the way that Greek has been taught in seminaries for the last couple hundred years has been highly deficient. I really do feel like if you read this book, work your way through the readings, you're really getting your confidence in your ability to read Greek, your love for the language, your understanding of the New Testament is really going to grow.
Speaker 2:0:25
This is my friend and former professor, Dr Max Botner, and we have a conversation about his new book Beyond the Greek New Testament, as well as discussions about theological education, how to communicate that with others, as well as some tips and tricks for learning and advancing in Greek. I know you're going to love this conversation. It was a huge blessing to me. Thank you, Dr Botner, for coming on, so let's dive into our conversation. I'm JC Schroeder and this is Bite Size Seminary.
Speaker 3:0:55
All right, I'm so happy to have my good friend, dr Max Botner here with us and we're going to be talking about as I mentioned in the intro, we're going to be talking about his book Beyond the Greek New Testament and just going to say right here from the beginning it is awesome, you need to go buy it. It's just a really great resource and so glad to have you, dr Botner. Yeah, thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 1:1:21
Yeah, thanks, jc. It's such a treat. We obviously go back a few years now and it was such a privilege having you as a student, one of the best students I ever had. And yeah, I really am grateful. I mentioned you at the opening of the book because I'm really grateful to you and other students that took that Advanced Greek Reading course. That was kind of the impetus for writing the book. So thanks for having me on.
Speaker 3:1:45
Yeah, yeah, we were talking earlier and I was just telling Dr Botner like I knew this book was going to be great before I saw it because it was so great, just like in its beginning form in the class, seeing the readings there. So, yeah, fantastic, fantastic book. Well, Dr Botner, we want to talk about the book, but first, maybe before you that, can you just tell us a little bit about yourselves, who you are, your background, what do you do?
Speaker 1:2:11
Yeah, be happy to. So I am a professor at a Christian Leroy Art School in Northern California called Jessup University. It's formerly William Jessup University, but the marketing team pulled some folks and said that it's better to just be Jessup University now for marketing purposes. So that's what we're called. I still call it William Jessup, but in any case it's also my undergraduate alma mater. I kind of bounced around a bit in undergrad, but it was coming to Jessup that I first took a Bible class and that really got me excited about studying the Bible. And yeah, it was my first class here, just the first Bible class, old Testament intro with Dr Marilyn Copeland, and that really kind of lit a fire under me. And so really from then on I had been on a path of working towards some kind of teaching ministry, kind of a lot like you actually it, just passionate about teaching the Bible in church context and classroom setting. And so I did some of both. I went to Fuller Seminary so that's where I did my seminary degree and then, after a little bit of time doing some work in a classics department at UC Davis and doing some adjunct teaching, I ended up in the UK in St Andrews, did my PhD there, which was a really wonderful experience and kind of got me ready for more of the life of teaching. Still wasn't sure where I'd work, but, yeah, through God's providence, I was at a postdoc in Germany, which was in some ways really great, in other ways just really hard on our family, and so I was looking for something full-time and something that could get us back to the United States, and that's when I got the job at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary where we met and that was a really wonderful. Last few years prior to coming to Jessup, I'd been teaching there and again really just confirmed for me that I love all facets of biblical studies, but what I probably love most is working with people who are in full-time ministry pastors and other leaders and so that was really wonderful, and that's also part of the motivation for why, in addition to teaching in a classroom setting here, I'm also doing a lot of online public scholarship stuff, just because I love engaging with people and I love like you, I love trying to make the Bible alive and active Well, obviously the Spirit does that but helping give people resources to engage scripture on a more popular level. So, yeah, that's a little bit about me. Feel free to ask more if I didn't answer sufficiently, but it gives you a little bit of sense of where I'm coming from.
Speaker 3:5:01
Yeah, that's wonderful. That's great. Give us the name of your YouTube channel and your podcast.
Speaker 1:5:07
Yeah, thanks. So this is really, it was really wonderful. This is probably the coolest thing that happened to me this past year Coming back to Sacramento a dear friend and mentor of mine, retired Episcopal rector Peter Rogers. He's also a former Fuller professor. He is kind of stepping into full-time retirement and he had the wonderful idea of launching something called the Center for Bible Study a while ago and it was basically just like the premise was sort of what would it look like to bring kind of seminary or seminary light to churches? And so he asked me you know, hey, would you like to take this over? And I thought about it and I was like, actually, because he's stepping into retirement, I thought, yeah, actually this seems like really providential, just the way the whole thing came about. And so what we started doing is I've been teaching classes that are kind of just open to the public in person and online, and my university's gotten behind that. And the other facet to that is I launched out into the social media and all these different things. And that's been the craziest aspect of it, because the teaching thing I'm used to but trying to figure out, before this year all I had was a Facebook account that I never used and I have, like all these different social media accounts trying to figure out how to do YouTube. So that's been really crazy. But, yes, I have a YouTube channel called the Center for Bible Study, named after the center that I'm the director of and we put out, you know, content pretty regularly, both from the classroom so the public classes that I teach we try to make the content available there and then the podcast that I'm running, called On the Way. You can listen to it, but you can also watch all the episodes on the Center for Bible Study YouTube channel. So I'm really trying to build that up. You know, as you know, with all these kind of online spaces, there's all kinds of weird stuff that's on there as well. But I do think YouTube is someone told me this, I think they're right like the primary purpose of YouTube is entertainment, right, so people go into social media to be entertained before they go on to be educated. But you know there are people that go on YouTube for educational purposes, and so it is actually a really good medium for making education about the Bible broadly available publicly. So that's one of the things that I'm committed to over the coming years is really building up that channel with resources for people on the Bible, and so, yeah, it's a little bit about what I'm doing.
Speaker 3:7:51
Yeah, that's so cool and I love just your heart for the church, not just for, like, the Ivy Tower Academy, which is a very helpful aspect of your ministry, and just ministry in general, but like it's not just for the Academy, for the tier one, but it's for all believers. And I think you're right that, like the podcast and the YouTube, like that's really where, for better or for worse, a lot of discipleship happens, at least on like an educational level, because it's just it's expensive to go to seminary, it's a big time commitment or you just you know, you hear, you know funky things and you're like, oh, I guess maybe that's true, and so I'm very appreciative of people who put out really great content in that way but then also, like, have the credentials and the study that they put into to actually justify what they're saying, unlike me, just like I think that's what it is, but like you know, yeah, people who've actually, like, done serious work and I think that's really valuable.
Speaker 1:8:54
So you know, you know what you're talking about, though you do, you do. You don't have to undersell it. You've done, you've done a lot of work, but yeah, but you're right, and I actually did a couple episodes on this for the channel and the podcast, just kind of trying to help people explore, like, what is theological education, Like what's its purpose anyway, Cause I think there's a lot of lack of clarity in the church on that. Like you know, many people in the church, I don't think, see any value to theological education just because it hasn't really been been discussed and many people just don't have a vision for what that would look like, and then they're the only vision we've seen to have had in the church. You know is well, if you want that, you go here, you go to seminary or whatever, and I think seminary is really great and I hope, you know, I pray for seminaries to thrive. But I'm also trying to think about, you know, two things. One, we have to be realistic that many, the model on which many seminaries are based is just not sustainable for what's coming in the future, on the one hand. And then two, on the other hand, maybe there's more local churches could be doing through partnerships to ensure broad theological education in churches, right, and so I'm kind of like I don't see like what we do like as competing with seminaries so much as trying to fill in like a really big gap, I think, within spaces of theological education. You know, in the church so, and I think that's really important, right, I think you know how we do, how we as the church do. Theological education is negotiable. It's always been changing over the past 2000 years, but the importance of it is not. We have to be doing it because the mission of the church hinges upon us knowing what the mission is like and constantly being going back to scripture and being faithful to what God's saying to us through scripture today. So, yeah, it's cool. I'm excited for you, I'm really excited that you're doing the work you're doing and I think it's really important.
Speaker 3:11:07
Yeah, appreciate that. Yeah, and I think, like it's, you're right, like this is not a substitute for seminary, but I think, hopefully, it leads almost into a further realization of the benefits of further education, cause, like there's no substitute for sitting down in a class with other people, with a professor to help guide you along in there. Yeah, it was good. Okay, that's, yeah, that's a great, great conversation. But let's talk about your book. All right, we got your book here. They can hold it up right here, all right. So beyond the Greek New Testament, advanced readings for students to be able of biblical studies, I can try to read backwards here. Yeah, so this is a fantastic book. I was, as we already mentioned, I was kind of one of the maybe guinea pigs in your advanced Greek reading class for part of it and, yeah, maybe, just maybe, we can begin with like, why? So the title is Beyond the Greek New Testament. It's already hard to learn Greek to read the New Testament. Why would, why do we need to go beyond the Greek New Testament?
Speaker 1:12:18
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean there's a couple of ways to address that question. I guess one is, I think, sometimes the way that Greek has been taught. Actually, I don't think I feel very strongly that the way that Greek has been taught in seminaries for the last couple hundred years has been highly deficient, meaning most people who've come in as training to be pastors have learned, haven't learned, to read Greek, they've learned to maybe use it, and what that does is it leads to a lot of frustration, like if all I do is give you a bunch of charts to memorize and a few words here, there to parse, and then at the end of that I say, okay, now you're educated. Or maybe then you take it exegesis course, which, again, maybe you do read, maybe you don't read in that course, and you write a paper on it At the end of that, are you really prepared to deeply engage the Greek of the New Testament? Probably not, which is why when you hear Greek used in sermons, 99% of the time it's gonna be used incorrectly, and most of the time when pastors are using it, I think they are using it because they're like well, dang it, I spent all this money and time like taking these Greek classes. It says on my transcript I learned Greek and so, gosh darn it. I want my congregation to know I know some Greek and I'm gonna throw a word out there or something like that. So I don't think the fruit of it has been that good, to be honest. So, with that said, does that mean scrap Greek? Cause that's one thing that a lot of people have done is just say a lot of students don't wanna take this anyway, and the fruit of it's been kinda mixed, so should we just scrap it? And some people have gone that route when I feel like for some people, I feel like people should kind of make a decision in terms of like do you wanna learn it or not? If you don't, you shouldn't have to and there's other ways. Like there's other tools you can learn how to use and you could just kind of know what are your limits gonna be in terms of the language of the New Testament, and that's fine. Like there's actually, I would say, learning how language works, like having a basic kind of framework for how language works, and the cultural world of the New Testament is actually more important even than being able to read Greek. So I would put that first and then they're interconnected. But if you can't, if you don't have time to learn the language, okay, but I would prioritize that first. But if you're gonna go for learning the language and put in the work, then you might as well really come away with something like where you can actually reuse it and read it and okay, we're all on a path. I say this in the book. None of us have, like arrived at the destination, because none of us are first century Greek speakers, right, but we are all on this path together and you should hopefully be on a path where you're like, for the rest of my life I'm gonna be engaging this because I have the foundation with which to do that. So back to the whole, beyond the Greek New Testament thing, I wanna highlight for people one there's a lot more Greek out there than just the New Testament. So if you care about understanding the world of the New Testament, you might wanna read that, right, and even if you're reading the New Testament, you're gonna be reading Greek. That came from other texts, primarily the Greek, jewish scriptures, so, so, so there's yeah, there's gonna be that in there. But also it comes out of my own personal experience, I guess, a little bit of being in a classics department. I know you took classes in the classics department at U Michigan. I just feel like when you read more authors it broadens your ability to read any author and also, I mean, it makes it easier sometimes to read the New Testament, right, like I was kind of ashamed and amused when I found out at UC Davis that when you're in the first year program of Greek and classics, after you've taken like the first quarter or two of grammar, they put you in an easy readings course just to practice reading and stuff. And guess what text they use for the easy readings course? The New Testament, right. So this is the point is right, like if you read a lot of this stuff outside of the New Testament, not only are you gonna get a broadened your framework for the cultural world of the New Testament and see all kinds of new connections there, but you're also kind of stretching your muscles or working out your muscles so that when you go to the New Testament you come back with a bit more like developed muscle, like reading muscles. So yeah, it's a roundabout way of saying that I actually think doing that kind of an exercise puts you in the best position to be a really good reader of the Greek New Testament. If that's even if that's like your only goal at the end of the day is like you just want to read the Greek New Testament, better. Well, just reading a lot of Greek and reading some Greek, that's gonna challenge you and stretch you beyond what you're even gonna encounter in the New Testament. That's only gonna be to your benefit when you go back to the Texan New Testament.
Speaker 3:18:07
Yeah, and I think like Sorry, go ahead, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:18:14
No, no, yeah, I was just gonna say I feel, like some this may be slightly an unfair comparison, but this is kind of like an analogy that comes to mind Reading someone like a Plato or Aristotle or something like that would be maybe like reading a very technical piece of work, and then, if you go from that back to like reading a New Testament author, you might feel like you're reading a simpler novel or a comic book or something like that, and I don't mean that in a pejorative sense, just in terms of what it demands from you as you're reading.
Speaker 3:18:50
Yeah, yeah, I think that's really true and I think one of the difficulties for especially New Testament students people who care about Scripture and are people of faith they know what the text says from English. So you're already you kind of know what it says because you know some of the words and so you can kind of guess the right answer even without really knowing Greek, and so you can almost kind of go like well, of course, the ESV got the translation right or the NLT got it right, and so when you kind of like move from more difficult to an easier, then you can see oh, there are different options here. I see why the ESV took it this way, I see why the NLT took it this way, but I think maybe it might be better to take it this way or whatever. So definitely strengthens you for doing that exegesis later.
Speaker 1:19:44
Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right, and that's another issue with a lot of the Greek New Testament textbooks, when the exercises or workbooks are. Here's a verse from the New Testament and you're going to demonstrate to the teacher that you understand what the text is doing simply by providing an English translation which you might have already memorized. So that becomes a real issue of you already kind of know what it should say in English and you just kind of translate it that way, rather than, if you're working with a text that you have no framework for, you're going to have to struggle more through or really think more in a Greek sense than just hey, I know what it says. Here's what the English says. Yeah, exactly, that's a good point.
Speaker 3:20:39
So since you've got many different readings and just looking at the table of contents here, you've kind of got this broken up into five parts. I know more than that Eight parts.
Speaker 1:20:52
There's like yeah, eight parts, yeah.
Speaker 3:20:54
Yeah, so you've got like the Septuagint Apostolic Fathers. Then you get into more, almost like beyond the type stuff Old Testament, psygrafa, philo, josephus, historians like Herodotus, thucydides, and then philosophers and even poets like Homer. I guess, like what makes this? Maybe it's part of the table of contents that you have here, what makes this book unique to what else is out there for advancing your Greek.
Speaker 1:21:29
Yeah, I think the way it's designed is pretty niche, because I'm not aware of any book that selects readings specifically for people that are interested in biblical studies, obviously the first couple chapters aside. But, like, the other readings are texts that are all in some way or another, going to contribute to your understanding of the Bible. So like, not only are you learning Greek but you're also engaging a text that I have notes on for you at the end and connections to other biblical passages or suggested biblical texts you're going to want to read along with that. So it's kind of doing two things at once. It's Greek readings that are curated to people with interest in understanding the Bible in its cultural context. So I think that makes it a little bit different you can get. I think the note structure is also pretty different in that I don't think there's many books out there that give you the extent of help that I do, because I wanted this book to be something that someone with at least a year of Greek could use. You don't have to be an expert to benefit from it. So I went a little bit over the top maybe with the notes, but I did it because I figured a lot of people that are using it may actually be using it outside of a classroom setting, like for self-study, and I didn't want them to have an experience of throwing the book that I created around the room, like I've done with some books sometimes, because you're constantly looking for other, you constantly have to go elsewhere to find the help you need to read it. So I think that's unique. I'm not aware of a book that does the two like focusing on Greek reading and specifically kind of trying to cover a broad array of texts that are going to contribute to somebody's understanding of the New Testament.
Speaker 3:23:46
Yeah, yeah. Let me just ask you about those notes. What are in those notes exactly? What kind of notes do you provide? I got to give my total two thumbs up for that as well.
Speaker 1:24:01
Yeah, yeah, I don't have to give credit to you and the other students in the class too, because I tried different structures of notes for that class and I tried to kind of take into account everybody's input. Obviously, people have different feelings about things, but I tried to take into account everybody's input of what they liked and appreciated the most, and so what that came with was several features. One is everybody felt like, hey, I'd like at least some kind of introduction to who I'm reading, because I have a. Each thing begins with a brief introduction, so you know who is this person that you're reading and why they're important, followed by some suggested biblical texts that you might want to read alongside that or compare after you're done with the reading. And then, in text I have like at the foot of the page, there are help with vocabulary. So, especially when you get outside of the first couple of chapters, your vocabulary might struggle a little bit, and so I didn't want people to constantly be flipping through dictionaries. You may still have to from time to time look at a dictionary, but hopefully minimize that. So there's vocabulary. I think I aim for any word that's used less than 30 times, or something like that in the New Testament. I just provide a gloss for at the bottom and also just some basic information about what it is. And then anything grammar-wise that I've found as a teacher of teaching Greek to New Testament students at a seminary, any piece of grammar that I found students tend to struggle with or that might be newer for them because it's a construction that's not used as often in the New Testament or not at all. I provide an explanation for that so you might run into things and you're like I don't know what's going on grammatically. Hopefully you won't run into an instance where there's not an explanation there in the foot of the text for you, and I keyed those references to the grammars that most people will want to be familiar with. So the main classical grammar is smith. I really like the New Cambridge grammar of classical Greek and so I use that extensively as well. And then for a New Testament, a lot of people like Wallace. I think Wallace is good. I didn't do Wallace, but I use Blasted Brunner Funk, which is still often considered as the standard. So yeah, so you can look up the more detailed explanations, grammatical explanations based on the keys there, and hopefully that makes it easy. And then at the end I provide I would kind of call it like a light commentary, if you will on the passage. So it's not like detailed or extensive, but things that I think people will be particularly interested in. With that passage I provide a little brief commentary with reference to most of the important secondary literature. So, again, if you're like a person that's really interested in understanding this better, you'll have a lot of avenues into further exploration, like if it's a research topic or just a topic of study. So yeah, that's kind of a brief outline of what you got.
Speaker 3:27:35
Yeah, and I will say just like looking at it in print and then using it as a student, like it is so helpful to not have to. Like it's already a difficult task to read in Greek something that you're unfamiliar with, and then it's even more difficult if you've got to look up like every other word and having all of that right there on the page I don't think it's a crutch. I think it's like it really helps you to enjoy what you're doing and actually make progress. So then you're actually like dealing with the text. I remember when in my undergrad we're reading Lucian's A True Story and I found this free PDF that somebody had made. It's a, which is a wild, wild work, and somebody made this free PDF of like of a reader with it, with commentary, like kind of like you have for the whole text, but it was so not well produced. It had so many like just typos and errors that a beginning student doesn't always catch. So then you're just like, oh, it's that Okay. And then you look like an idiot in class and then you're like, oh, that's not what it is, and all the definitions totally wrong. And so I like I stopped using it because it just wasn't helpful and like. Your book is really well like edited. There's lots of thought in the, in the, the glosses that are given in the commentary, the notes at the end of like here's something that only happens five times and so don't worry about it. They didn't know this. This is really helpful, so I really think this is a real game changer for upping upping someone's Greek. Yeah, so super, super great job. Well, yeah, that's great. Let me ask you this too Like beyond, beyond, beyond, just like reading more Greek. What do you think are some good tips and tricks for for those that are learning Greek now? Maybe they're starting Greek. When we're recording this, it's like the beginning of the semester. Maybe they're starting Greek or they're continuing on in their Greek. They just want to improve. What tips and tricks do you think would be helpful for them as they continue on that journey?
Speaker 1:30:01
Yeah, that's a great, great question. I don't know like. So the number one thing I would say is actually just exposure. I think one of the things that beginning students make some mistake beginning students make some times or just people we continue to make is trying to do language learning in like isolated pockets, but the more that you can kind of spread it out throughout your week, so if you can develop any kind of habits that become daily for you, that's going to pay dividends over the long run. I think sometimes it's not a bad idea to just practice reading out loud Also, I think even if you're alone. So one of the mistakes people make is they just do it in their head. But the more you can say it out loud, get comfortable with it, hear yourself say it, even if you're not comprehending everything because you're a beginning student. Doing that I think is really helpful, really helpful practice to do. Memorizing text in Greek I think can be a really great idea. I know of several people. I think Tom Wright, nt Wright, was telling me he back when he was a student he would record himself reading Greek passages and then just listen to the recordings over and over and over, and I noticed that with just being around him and stuff. He would just spit out Greek texts that I could tell were the product of having it memorized. And again, that's another way of having it kind of sink in the more you hear it and expose yourself to it, I think, the better. And then, yeah, I'm trying to think what else? So I recently was interviewed by Kevin Grasso, who does BiblioLingo. It's this program that he was showing me around and so, yeah, I think programs like his are also really helpful for people and I think we'll encourage people, especially if someone's trying to do like independent learning or whatever, and maybe even as a supplement to what you might be doing in the classroom, because it's a model of teaching Greek. That's basically saying, okay, what if we taught Greek the way we teach every other language that you would learn? So it's based on actual evidence of how people learn languages and I think that that's one of the reasons why people get so frustrated in the classroom sometimes with Greek is because it can be this very artificial experience of just, you know, trying to memorize vocabulary words in isolation and then trying to memorize a paradigm, you know, declension and anything you can do to make it feel more organic, like that you're using it, even if you're just having fun, like trying to write out simple sentences of Greek too. I mean, I think that could be a great exercise, like yeah, I want to say something, and how would I say that, and try messing around with it, and you know anything you can do to have fun with it, to make it more a part of your daily life. I'm a big you know, a big fan of that. I think that's a helpful way to go. You do have to do some. You know memorization, of course, and so you know, if you take some like maybe in the beginning you have, I used to have a set of flashcards that I'd carry around with me and when I was bored or waiting in line or something like that, you know, just pull out a little stack and start going through them and saying them. Again, I think saying it out loud, hearing yourself say it, is very important. So when you're going through your vocabulary, don't just look at the card, look at the back. I've made that mistake before, but I really do think, say the word out loud, say it, hear yourself say it, keep comfortable with saying it. You know as you're going, but yeah, just anything like that, anything you can do to kind of make it feel more natural, depressurize. Don't put pressure on yourself to, like you know, be a certain way. Just have fun with it and make it as much as you can make it a part of your daily life. That's what I would say that's good advice.
Speaker 3:34:43
I appreciate that. Thank you so much. All right, so the book is as we wrap up here. Beyond. The Greek New Testament by Max Bachner, published by Baker, just came out, so definitely go get it. What links for Dr Botner's podcast and YouTube channel in the description? Dr Botner, is there anything that you wanted to share that we missed out on? That you want to share for us?
Speaker 1:35:14
Well, I mean, for those that are, you know, feeling like, hey, is this the book for me or not? I'll say, you know, if you're just starting reading Greek, this is just very beginning. You may find that the book is a little bit too advanced, but maybe it's something that you get as a resource and work your way towards. But I do feel like anybody that's had, you know, had a year or so worth of, maybe, formal training or feels confident that they worked through some the major grammar components of Greek and reading and maybe taken a course or they're reading some of the New Testament, I really do feel like, if you read this book, work your way through the readings, you're really getting your confidence in your ability to read Greek. Your love for the language, your understanding of the New Testament is really going to grow. And I say this in the introduction my ultimate goal is that you will get to a place where you put the book down and start reading one of the authors that you're reading sections from, because that then I'll feel like you know, job well done, right If you're, if you're, that's. That's the whole goal, and keep in mind it is a journey when I read an author that I'm familiar with and knew even for myself. At this stage it takes me a little time to acclimate to what's going on here. You know I'll have to read a passage very slowly and several times over and over again. That's another thing that I didn't mention. One of the best things you can do is read a text and read it over and over and over again to kind of ingrain what you've picked up right, and through that repetition you gain more and more comfort with that text, to the point where you do get to a point where you're reading it at a faster pace and having a different reading experience, right? But yeah, I just end by encouraging people, like, if you wanna do Greek, do it. You can do it. I believe in you. Everybody's journey is gonna look a little bit different, but it is an incredible. I mean, I was telling this to somebody else. I feel like out of everything I got out of my education, I would put reading Greek at the very top, because that's something that you have with you for the rest of your life and it's such a joy to open up Greek and read it and just enjoy it. And that's something we're all working on. None of us are perfect. None of us always know what we're looking at. It can take some time, but go for it, like, don't limit yourself in what's possible, and I hope that, whatever resources you end up using, however, you get there. That your goal is to be a reader of Greek, that you'll get there. And ultimately, if it's you know, the goal is reading the New Testament, that you'll get there. And keep working out, keep chipping away. Find community. That's another important thing. Right, this is always easier. It's very hard to do this alone. So, you know, find community. And last thing I'll say, I guess, is if anybody is doing like independent study or trying to learn this on their own and is a bit frustrated, they're more than welcome to reach out to me via email and I can give some recommendations on. You know kind of where they might get started and may even share some free resources with you. You never know. So don't hesitate. But I want to encourage people because I mean, man, I love getting to teach Greek. I don't get to do that much of it these days now, ironically, now that the book came out, I'm in a different situation. So if I can be of encouragement to you in any way, don't hesitate to reach out.
Speaker 3:39:09
Yeah, that's right generous of you. So that's awesome, that's super great. Well, thank you so much, dr Botner, for being with me, being with us, and yeah, thank you so much and we'll see you next time.
Speaker 1:39:23
All right, my pleasure.
Speaker 2:39:23
Thanks, Jaycee. As we conclude here, I just want to say thank you again to Dr Botner for coming on his time and just for a wonderful conversation with him. I want to just give my full, 100% endorsement. Go buy his book Beyond the Greek New Testament. It's fabulous. As I've said before, If you're also interested in learning more about the Greek New Testament, I have a playlist of several videos that can help you, maybe help you in learning Greek as well, as there's other things on my channel as well. So thank you so much for watching and may the Lord bless you.