On July 5, 2001, Brian Blount convened the first of two week-long consultations on the teaching of Biblical Greek. Sponsored and funded by the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Religion and Theology, the consultations met on the campus of Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Members of the consultation included the following scholars: Andrew K.M. Adam, Seabury-Western Theological Seminary; Brian K. Blount, Princeton Theological Seminary; James Bury, Harding University College of Bible and Religion; Steven Cox, Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary; Clayton Croy, Trinity Lutheran Seminary; David Fredrickson, Luther Seminary; Susan Garrett, Louisville Presbyterian Seminary; Wayne Merritt, Interdenominational Theological Seminary; Mitzi Minor, Memphis Theological Seminary; David Rensberger, Interdenominational Theological Seminary; J. Ross Wagner, Princeton Theological Seminary; Sze-kar Wan, Andover Newton Theological Seminary; Fred Weidmann, Riverside Church. Paul Myhre, associate director of the Wabash Center, met with the consultation.
The participants had the opportunity while on site at Wabash to dialogue and brainstorm about pedagogical strategies involved in the teaching of Introductory Greek. The event was first and foremost an opportunity for sharing such strategies and then contemplating various ways in which those same strategies might either be improved or perhaps even transformed. Some ideas rose out of the creative and challenging interchanges between the scholars, others came from their encounter with the various materials gathered by the Wabash Center and the consultation planning team. One of the most invigorating and pedagogically helpful sessions was a conversation focusing on essays about language acquisition with the Hebrew Teaching Consultation that was meeting on the campus at the same time. During that session, the scholars not only learned new strategies from their encounter with the theoretical material on language acquisition, but realized great practical benefit from the Hebrew teachers who shared many of their instructional methods and tactics.
Other sessions during this first summer were oriented around topics such as Institutional Context, Context and Pedagogy, Learning Styles and Teaching Methods, Inductive vs. Deductive Methods, Syllabi and Teaching Aids, and Effective Testing.
When Blount convened the second week-long session on July 11, 2002, the consultation members were ready to make a move from conversation to the implementation of a product that would share the fruits of their conversation with other Greek teachers and Greek students across the country. The consultation decided that their “project” would be the creation of a web site that would share bibliographic resources (acting as a resource clearing house for websites that would be helpful for teaching and learning Greek), pedagogical aids, grammar examples, vocabulary helps, and even fun and games that might foster a more creative teaching and learning environment. Most of the second consultation was devoted to work on this project.
At the conclusion of the second consultation the Wabash Center agreed to fund a web manager who would stabilize the site constructed by the consultation during the week and publish it to the web. It is expected that the site will be available in a preliminary way by the middle of November 2002. In the meantime, the consultation formed an editorial board that would maintain oversight of the website and solicit further contributions to it so that it could continue to be an ongoing resource for Greek teachers and students. Blount agreed to serve as primary editor for the first year’s work board. It is hoped that the website will provide a resource whose impact will continue the dialogue and push the boundaries of teaching possibilities with the same spirit that motivated the consultation participants.
Photograph of the Consultation Participants
A link to the website will be provide HERE once the site is functional.