1001 Mnemonics for Learning Biblical Greek Vocabulary
by Jonathan Perreault
Some time ago, I came across Bill Mounce's "Call for mnemonics" on the ibiblio.org website. I wholeheartedly agree that mnemonics can be a powerful aid in learning Biblical Greek, especially for memorizing vocabulary.
What I find quite surprising is that today, almost thirty years after Mounce's "Call for mnemonics" (written in late 1995), there are still very few mnemonics available for learning Biblical Greek! Mounce includes a modest collection of reader-submitted mnemonics on his website, mostly for commonly used Greek words. There are also a few apps and one or two books that offer mnemonics for the higher-frequency vocabulary. But to my knowledge, a more comprehensive mnemonic resource (especially one that is free of charge) is not currently available. Lord willing, I intend to fill this gap by creating a list of 1001 mnemonics — one for each vocabulary word in Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek Vocabulary Cards. I hope this effort will also inspire others to contribute their own. Praise the Lord!
The vocabulary words and definitions listed below are keyed to Bill Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek Vocabulary Cards. The mnemonics are not necessarily original with me. If the source is not cited, I came up with the mnemonic myself. If someone else came up with the mnemonic, I will cite the source.
Please keep in mind that, for the most part, these mnemonics are not primarily intended to convey doctrinal truth; rather, they are simply intended to be memorable (and oftentimes silly) memory aids to help the student learn the Biblical Greek vocabulary.
If you have a mnemonic that you'd like to share, feel free to post it in the comments below. I’d love to include helpful contributions from fellow students of the Word.
I will be adding to the list of vocabulary words as time permits.
—J. PERREAULT
1 comment:
For those who may be curious, here is the story of how Greek mnemonics are said to have originated:
“Once upon a time, according to Cicero, there was a banquet given at Kranon, in Thessalia, by a man named Skopas, in honor of a victorious gladiator.
Simonides, the poet, recited some verses he had composed in honor of the hero. He was then called outside, and, (who shall call it ‘chance’?)—the ceiling fell in, so completely crushing Skopas and all his guests that friends and relatives who came to bury the remains could not identify the bodies.
But Simonides remembered the relative position of each person, which he had observed when reciting his verses to them. Hence he was able to name them all, though otherwise unrecognizable.
In this was the dramatic birth of Greek ‘Mnemonics,’ (a word applied to artificial memory systems), because Simonides from this conceived the idea that nothing could better assist the memory than to associate whatever we might wish to remember with a fixed position, by placing each thing to be remembered in a different place in the Imagination.
A complete and elaborate system was developed from this among the Romans and Greeks, who created imaginary villages in their minds, associating with each house the thought of something they wished to remember. Some went even so far as to visualize the rooms in each house, subdividing the rooms into sections as a mental ‘filing cabinet’ or ‘warehouse’ in which to tuck away the thoughts they did not wish to forget.”
Source: To You! (October 1937), p. 246.
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