Jim Davila
A hearty εὐχαριστία to Jim Davila at PaleoJudaica, one of my favorite blogs, for mentioning my blog and the recent Greek quiz (see also here, where James McGrath notes our quiz). More than that, Prof Davila reports his results — very courageous! 4/10 – not too shabby for a scholar in Early Judaism!
I speculate that if I had given the quiz to a group of Classics scholars, they would have done better on it, as a result of their wider reading. It’s rather appalling how few NT Greek professors, in my experience, spend any real time reading outside of the NT!
καὶ τὰ λοιπά 
The largest part of the reason that I want to learn Greek is so I can read outside the NT. I already know what the NT says and it’s available in more English translations than I can shake a stick at, but there are so many patristic texts that have yet to be translated, and I love me some patristic theology!
Amen, Nick! I love Patristics. One of my passions is also early Jewish/Christian pseudepigrapha and apocrypha. I use those texts for my Greek reading courses so my students can’t just recite from memory their NASB translation of the NT. 🙂
Not to mention, Nick, that some of the various translations of the Father’s (I am thinking largely of the Victorian Translations) are very poor. Most of the St. Vladimir’s press translations, the ones I have consulted at least, have been decent translations.
Indeed, Daniel, to not read beyond the scope of the New Testament should be considered a high-handed sin. In my second year speed reading courses, part of our reading was Acts. It was tough going at first. I never felt very confident in my ability to read Acts or Hebrews, even after having spent several weeks reading it (and my oral exam happended to be Acts 27 . . . arrgghhh). However, the following year in my Greek major, we spent the entire year reading Hellenistic and Classical Greek. After reading the discourse of Thucididyes, the prose of Sophocles, and arguments of Aristotle, I went back to read Acts again. It was a breeze! BTW, I am reading Plato’s Republic these days.
χαῖρε Ἰάκωβος,
ἄρα ἔιδες τοῦτο?
http://geoffreysteadman.wordpress.com/files-republic-i/
καλὰν βιβλίον τουτ’ ἐστιν. εὔκοπον μέν, δωράν δε. ἔρρωσο.
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