Past Projects

Spring 2023 project:

Your individual projects will be the main focus of this module of our class. The projects will consist in working on a piece of the Gospel of John you were assigned: reading it, living with it, understanding its grammar, and working out your individual translation of it. Below, I suggest a possible workflow and tools that might help you in this process. 

You can find the Greek text in many places online (see Resources). However, I wouldn't recommend working with the interlinear text from the start. One version of the Greek Gospel of John with a limited apparatus can be found here.

To help you pace your work, I suggest the following sequence of deadlines:

• 10th of May - Scan (or a photo) of a handwritten copy of your text (in Greek)

• 24th of May - Recording of you reading your text aloud (in Greek)

• 7th of June - Draft of your translation

• 14th and 21st of June - Presentations

It would also be nice if you could share all of that not only with me but also with your fellow students.

You are free to bring any questions arising from your work to me, either via email or in class. I hope that the large part of the class will consist in discussing your questions and your process of working on this project. You are also free to schedule individual Zoom meetings with me to discuss your project. 

Suggested workflow:

1. I would also recommend copying the Greek text with your own handwriting at least once. That could help one to slow down and live with the letters and sounds of the text. Doing that, you could also think about how you would arrange the text, or the pieces of the text if you would think about it as poetry. Of course, you don't have to copy the whole piece all at once. And you can empathize with medieval scribes! -- The deadline for sending the handwritten copy is 10th of May.

2. I would recommend that you establish the practice of regularly reading the whole Greek text aloud. That could mean doing it daily or every other day, for example. You don't need to be able to fully understand what you read. But it might be valuable to read an English translation before or after reading the Greek text for the first few times. However, I wouldn't recommend doing it always, and it might be helpful to read different translations instead of staying with one so that it doesn't stick too much and block your creativity in the future. It is probably a good idea to also read the English translation aloud. -- The deadline for sending the recording of your text is 24th of May.

3. The next step would be to work through the grammar of each individual sentence in your text.  It's good, if, in the end, you understand how every single word in the text functions, what is its place and its context. The updated algorithm of translation may be of help here. It would be a good idea to be nearly finished with this work by the end of May, so that you have a bit of time to work on the translation as a whole. So, I suggest that you organize yourself to work in this way regularly.  Doing 4–5 verses a week should be enough to get you through the assigned text. But you are also free to only work on the part of the verses assigned or add more verses to your text. I would also advise you against using the interlinear version from the start. You will learn much more if you try to parse each word only using online dictionaries (see here). Katabiblion and Wiktionary often have the non-dictionary forms listed. But if something is too hard to recognize, you are of course free to look it up in the interlinear text or ask me by email or during the class. -- I encourage you to send me your work regularly (for example every week) so that I could comment on it, make suggestions, etc.

4. Once you have a grasp of the whole text in terms of grammar and the sound and rhythm of the text live in you through reading it aloud, you can start working on translating the text as a whole. It might help to do some small word studies at this point if some particular words catch your attention. You could read other translations (for example on StepBible) and get some inspiration from them. But I encourage you to be creative and come up with your own unique translation! There are many possibilities to consider. You could aim for a more literal translation that catches the rhythm and form of the original, or you could try to come up with a more interpretative translation that tries to express the same ideas without being too literal with the grammar, or you could do a translation that highlights one certain idea present in the text, or something else. You can also do a few different translations with different styles! -- The deadline for the draft of the translation is 7th of June

5. Think about how you would present it in the class. You will probably have around 30 minutes to do so. Of course, you should read your translation and maybe also the Greek text, but the rest is up to you. You could highlight some interesting grammatical or compositional points in the text, tell us about some interesting words it features, about your struggles and joys with it or about your creative process! -- The presentations are due on 14th and 21st of June.

Winter 2023 projects:

Final project

Deadline: 27th of March

The aim of the project is to understand the similarities and differences between a set of Greek verbs that are roughly synonymous in their meaning.  The topics were assigned via an e-mail from this list. You will then have 10-15 minutes to present your findings to us on Zoom on the 27th or 29th of March.

The guiding question that I would like you to consider is as follows: "Why would someone use this or that word for the action in a certain context? How do New Testament authors and translators of Septuagint use these words? What is the unique shade of meaning of each one?"

You can begin by going through the 4 steps of research for each word:

• What is the sound of the word? How it affects me? What kind of gesture does it carry?

• What is the etymology of the word? Do ancestors and descendants of this word tell anything about its meaning?

• What is the actual meaning of the word if you go to the dictionaries? What cultural context did it have in the Hellenistic world? 

• What is the usage of the word in the New Testament? How do different translations render this word?

Also, if you find any other interesting Greek verbs that fit your category, please, feel free to add them to your research.

You can find a lot of useful links in Vocabulary and Resources.

Click here to see an outline of an example of how one can go about such a project in case of two nouns.