I continue to get up every morning and read Greek.

I recently stumbled upon a web site that had some interesting insights about teaching yourself Greek.   It’s called POCM which stands for “Pagan Origins of the Christian Myth.” Hmmm.

I began reading this site and was amused at its style and information.  It began this way:

If Christian origins gets to be your hobby, watch out you don’t get sucked in to studying ancient Greek

It went on to talk about how curiosity aroused in this way is a “gateway activity.”

My conscious motivation in studying Greek has been a love of Homer. I would like to read him in the original.

At the same time my working life and personal history is inextricably connected to the Christian church.

Which means that I also use Greek that way.

For example, yesterday I was reading in my MacCulloch church history book and he mentioned that Paul’s use of the image of living stones was “a rather idiosyncratic Greek usage … centered on the idea of Temple-building.”

I pulled out my Greek New Testament and was actually able to track down the verb Paul used in this way. Cool.

Homer as a gateway to New Testament Greek? Who new?

Anyway, I thought it was funny that the POCM website spent several paragraphs telling the reader how impossible learning Greek is and then observing that “You’re still reading. You do want to learn Ancient Greek! Good. Let’s talk.”

Then it goes on with lots of tips and observations and links to help someone like me. The person writing has obviously been down this road and has lots of good criticisms and analyses of what’s available and how well it works. Very helpful.

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Excellent little article. Thank you Sarah for posting it on Facebooger.