From: Jane Harper (jharper@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Sun Apr 26 1998 - 13:51:43 EDT
> >How about using the church fathers here? Then one could test one's
> >fluency AND
> >be edified at the same time...
>
> There's nothing wrong with the idea of reading the fathers at all, but
> there's a hint here that reading the non-Christian literature is not
> edifying--and if there was any such notion intended, I think that a taste
> of some of the patristic literature, e.g. Clement of Alexandria, will give
> a sense of the sort of pagan Greek literature those writers were familiar
> with. But there is both pleasure and edification in the reading of Homer
> and Herodotus, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Thucydides, etc. And, of course, those
> who wrote at the same time the NT was being composed, Philo and Josephus.
Sorry--I meant "edifying" in the sense of strengthening one's knowledge of the
Christian faith. As a believer, that's important to me; but I recognize it
isn't important to everybody. With the classical Greek authors, I'd be
concerned that my abilities in Hellenistic Greek would make the effort more
frustrating than if I confined myself to that period. Philo, certainly; and
for some reason I had thought Josephus wrote in Latin...
Showing my ignorance,
Jane Harper
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