Kata Markon

[Jeff Medkeff <medkeff AT mindspring.com>]

At 12:12 AM 10/15/00 -0700, you wrote: 


>MacDonald begins by describing what scholars of 
>antiquity take for granted:    anyone who learned to 
>write Greek in the ancient world learned from Homer.

I'm skeptical that classical scholars take this for granted. It certainly
wasn't the case that this was a majority view when and where I went through
my undergraduate career ten years ago or so.

Of the several writings that we have which indicate that Greek was taught
from Homer, about two thirds as I recall are Latin: they would mostly
reference Greek as a second language for Latin speakers. If the author is
positing a Roman (or otherwise Latin) AMark then use of Homer would make
sense; on the other hand the fad in much Greek literature from about 50 to
about 120 CE was to have a strongly Atticizing flavor (cf. Plutarch). If we
put AMark in the eastern Med in the latter half of the 1st century CE, then
this makes even less sense.

There are several Greek authors from the classical period (Herodotus is
one, Aristotle another) who make reference to Attic (in its geographic
sense) pupils learning from Homer, but I did not think that this resulted
in a consensus on how Greek was taught in the 1st century CE. It is, for
one thing, a long chronological leap from Herodotus or even Aristotle to
the post-Alexandrian Koine of Mark. I am not familiar with indications that
Attican educational practices were very much copied elsewhere even in the
classical period. They certainly weren't emulated only several dozen miles
southwest in Sparta.

I would point out though that I am speaking to the pre-Alexander time
period, which to me is the definition of "classical" when speaking of
things Greek. What Alexander and his successors did with education is not
known to me, and that may be very important to the author's thesis. But:

>I have doubts that acquiring Koine competence in the 
>eastern Mediterranean by someone like the Markan author 
>included a classical Attic Greek "textbook."

I have my doubts too; but it is rather clear that the Homeric influence
pervaded nearly all of the ca. 1st century Koine literature I know of (with
the probable exception of most of the NT). This pervasive influence need
not have come from lessons with a written Homer, though: the Homeric
stories were most probably well known, much like Mother Goose and Hansel &
Gretel are known in modern America.

However I would amend your statement to say that competence in Koine need
not have been achieved through the use of a *Homeric* Greek textbook: Homer
is sufficiently different from Attic to recognize it as a different
dialect. In fact, I would suggest that a foundational use of Homer
mitigates strongly against achieving competence in Koine Greek (I know from
personal experience that it often inhibits competence in Classical Greek,
whether Attic or otherwise, even though it is much 'closer' to Homer than
Koine both in time and in grammatical tendencies).

>It is also difficult for me to envision Mark, on the 
>basis of his Koine grammar and style, having rewritten 
>Homeric prose in Attic.

I'll have to read this review when I get a moment, but you have me
scratching my head. Based on your statement, the author you are criticizing
seems to hold the position that Homer was prose (it is verse), and that
Mark wrote in Attic Greek (as sure as I'm sitting here, he didn't do that)?
This seems like too fundamental an error to be true. No doubt I should quit
nattering on here and go read the review....


--
Jeff Medkeff
Hereford, Arizona