From Thayer's Greek Lexicon, bold emphasis is mine, and pertinent to the discussion

1. a general appellation of deities or divinities; plural, of the gods of the Gentiles; of angels;
   
2. Whether Christ is called God must be determined from John 1:1; 20:28; 1 John 5:20; Rom. 9:5; Titus 2:13; Heb. 1:8f, etc.;
   
3. spoken of the only and true God: with the article, and very often; with prepositions, and often in John's writings, and many other examples without the article: Matt. 6:24; Luke 3:2; 20:38; Rom. 8:8,33; 2 Cor. 1:21; 5:19; 6:7; 1 Thess. 2:5, etc.;
   
4. is used of whatever can in any respect be likened to God, or resembles him in any way: Hebraistically, equivalent to God's representative or vicegerent, of magistrates and judges
   
   So God, without the article ("the") can and does refer directly to God as the divine entity, not simply his counsels and interests.
   
   So...
   
   >But you can see clearly that Theos means a plethora of things
   
   Yes, I can. And in John 1:1 it refers at least to divine qualities, that which is divinity, and most probably to God himself, given the context of the verse containing the article in each other instance. To better understand why there isn't an article in the third part of the verse, I'll refer to Wallace (pages 266-267):
   
   >► 6. Application of Colwell’s Construction to John 1:1
   >
   >John 1:1 states: ᾽Εν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. In the last part of the verse, the clause καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος (John 1:1c), θεός is the PN. It is anarthrous and comes before the verb. Therefore, it fits Colwell’s construction, though it might not fit the rule (for the rule states that definiteness is determined or indicated by the context, not by the grammar). Whether it is indefinite, qualitative, or definite is the issue at hand.
   >
   >c. Is Θεός in John 1:1c Qualitative?
   >
   >The most likely candidate for θεός is qualitative. This is true both grammat­ically (for the largest proportion of pre-verbal anarthrous predicate nomi­natives fall into this category) and theologically (both the theology of the Fourth Gospel and of the NT as a whole). There is a balance between the Word’s deity, which was already present in the beginning (ἐν ἀρχῇ . . . θεὸς ἦν [1:1], and his humanity, which was added later (σὰρξ ἐγένετο [1:14]). The grammatical structure of these two statements mirrors each other; both emphasize the nature of the Word, rather than his identity. But θεός was his nature from eternity (hence, εἰμί is used), while σάρξ was added at the incarnation (hence, γίνομαι is used).
   >
   >Such an option does not at all impugn the deity of Christ. Rather, it stresses that, although the person of Christ is not the person of the Father, their essence is identical. Possible translations are as follows: “What God was, the Word was” (NEB), or “the Word was divine” (a modified Moffatt). In this second translation, “divine” is acceptable only if it is a term that can be applied only to true deity. However, in modern English, we use it with ref­erence to angels, theologians, even a meal! Thus “divine” could be mis­leading in an English translation. The idea of a qualitative θεός here is that the Word had all the attributes and qualities that “the God” (of 1:1b) had. In other words, he shared the essence of the Father, though they differed in person. The construction the evangelist chose to express this idea was the most concise way he could have stated that the Word was God and yet was distinct from the Father.
   
   Hope that's helpful.

I learned Koine at Mattersey Hall and our textbook was Wenham's Elements of NT Greek which was ok, provided you already had a perfect understanding of English grammar and language in general. I distinctly recall my entire class finding it hilarious that Wenham "helpfully" pointed out that to remember that "eleeo" means "to have mercy upon", the student should merely recollect that the English word "eleemosynary" means "pertaining to charity"...

So perhaps Wenham's not the best starting point these days!

A better bet might be the book our teacher, Dr Glenn Balfour wrote from his course notes: A Step-by-step Introduction to NT Greek. I don't have a copy, but knowing Glenn, it'll be precise, clear and demonstrating his heart for educating people in the study of God's word.

Having worked through a book like that, you should be able to make good use of an interlinear and an analytical lexicon like this one. It's my most used reference book.

I use Olivetree Bible Reader on my iPhone as my primary Bible, and I keep umming-and-ahhing about buying their Greek NT with Mounce's morphology in there, but it's pretty expensive and never included in their (infrequent) sales for some reason. So, I switch to this site for specific lookups when I need to. Part of me thinks that not having the Greek text so readily available to me, say, in Church, is a good thing - because there's a very thin line between listening "critically" in the good sense and becoming critical in the bad sense if you see what I mean... but that said, gaining a reasonable measure of understanding of the Greek text, the ability to use reference tools properly, and most of all, enough knowledge to admit how much you don't know (and therefore not make the same appalling mistakes we've all heard from the pulpit sometimes), are all things which will help you appreciate the beauty of God's word all the more... of course then the struggle is to be a doer and not just a reader, but that's another story...!

Hope these ramblings help - learning NT Greek is very worthwhile!

(originally posted in this thread which might be useful to you as well)

For learning Ancient Greek (as an autodidact), start by signing up for The Great Courses Plus and take the Ancient Greek course, taught by Hans-Friedrich Meuller:

Greek 101: Learning an Ancient Language | The Great Courses Plus

You can sign up for a free trial on The Great Courses, for just long enough to complete the Greek course. But I think it’s totally worth paying for ALL of the content.

I recommend downloading the guidebook and doing ALL of the homework. Copy and paste the exercises into a Word doc and type out the answers/translations. Take the course as many times as you can for mastery.

I’ve created a couple of free courses on Memrise for Ancient Greek verbs that (I hope) people may find helpful. I use (my best attempt at) Modern Greek pronunciation. Audio can be disabled by anyone who has a problem with that. My Memrise account (Diachronix) has some other Modern Greek courses.

Paradigms of Ancient Greek Verbs

Principal Parts of Ancient Greek verbs

Professor Al Duncan produced an excellent series of Ancient Greek videos (on Youtube: Learn Attic Greek with Al Duncan - YouTube), which follows along the exercises in chapters 1–10 and 30–34 of Cynthia Shelmerdine’s Introduction to Greek.

That textbook is a bit error-prone, but it’s still pretty good for beginners. I recommend using it to follow along in Professor Duncan’s videos, at least until they cut off at chapter 10. But you’re on your own between chapters 11 and 29. Again, I recommend typing out ALL of the exercises.

The Athenaze Book 1 and Athenaze Book 2 are good self-study resources for intermediate learners, with a lot of excellent reading material. I also have a Memrise course for the vocabulary in these texbooks.

Athenaze: Book 1

Athenaze: Book 2

Leonard Muellner (Professor Emeritus of Classical Studies at Brandeis University) has a Youtube series on Ancient Greek: Learn Ancient Greek, with Prof. Leonard Muellner - YouTube

Unfortunately the audio throughout most of this series is terrible. But if you manage to listen closely (and not fall asleep), it’s quite edifying. Meullner is a genius. The course follows along the Greek: An Intensive Course textbook by Hansen & Quinn. You could try getting that textbook and following along, but I would recommend this last. I just can’t imagine most people having the patience for it. And I’ve heard mixed reviews on Hansen & Quinn, which professor Meullner criticizes ad nauseam throughout his videos.

Another resource I really like is the online version of ΓΡΑΜΜΑΤΙΚΗ ΤΗΣ ΑΡΧΑΙΑΣ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗΣ by ΟΙΚΟΝΟΜΟΥ. You can turn the audio in the bottom right and a robot reads it out-loud. It’s helpful to learn the grammatical terminology in Greek and, if you can manage reading demotic Greek, you can experience the way the Greeks approach Ancient Greek (and observe the notable differences). They have interesting grammatical category distinctions that we don’t have in the West, many of which are quite handy. But this textbook doesn’t have any engaging reading material, aside from bland descriptions of the language. So it’s not for everyone.

Most other learning material I could recommend is mentioned in the various links above. But here are some key items for building a collection of self-study material:

*Geoffrey Horrocks’ “Greek - A History of the Language and Its Speakers” (MUST READ)

Plato: A Transitional Reader

Kaegi’s Greek Grammar

Smyth’s Greek Grammar

Plato Apology

Homeric Greek - A Book for Beginners

Rouse’s Greek Boy - A Reader

Basics of Biblical Greek

A Graded Reader of Biblical Greek

Geoffrey Steadman’s Ancient Greek reader SERIES

As I said above, I think your better off focusing on your Greek studies. Learning Greek well through self-study is challenging enough, Hebrew promises to be much more difficult and less rewarding. I think Hebrew in particular benefits greatly from a classroom teacher. If you do want to learn Hebrew now, I'd try to find a local one. All that said, here are some online options I've heard good things about (but no direct experience):

• Isreal Institute of Biblical Studies - University level classes, affiliated with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Pricy, but you get what you pay for. This would be my pick if you can afford it.
  
• Bill Barrick, Emeritus Prof of the Masters Seminary. Free video lectures and resources. Excellent budget option. Being free you don't get the valuable support you get with paid options.
  
• Dailoy Dose of Hebrew - Free Videos tied to Mark Furtado's [Beginning-Biblical-Hebrew] (https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Biblical-Hebrew-Mark-Futato/dp/1575060221). Both 'learn from the beginning' and review videos. Furtado is the Hebrew Prof at RTS Orlando. Mark is a great guy, the videos are super helpful for review, I'm not the biggest fan of the textbook, but it's fine.
  
• Biblical Language Center - Their schtick is live skype classes teaching Biblical languages like living languages - i.e. conversationally. Not my thing, but some people swear by it.
  
  
  
  

It's part of the MA program at my university. At the risk of being spammy, I'll take a minute to plug the university (I'm very happy with the education I'm receiving, and I receive no advertising royalties, I swear)

I go to a small Catholic university in San Diego, CA.

Undergraduate^(click for more info)

The undergraduate programs focus on business, film, animation, and video game design. But all the undergrads have to take as part of the core curriculum classes in biblical studies, philosophy, and theology. The religious and philosophical courses are rigorous and students come out very well formed. The mantra of the university is to Impact Culture for Christ. So we bring philosophy, the bible, and theology into the fields of business, film, video games, etc. I got my undergraduate degree here, my major was New Evangelization (we're the only university of which I am aware which has such a major). My major focused on biblical studies, philosophy, and theology, with strong emphases on Entrepreneurial Business and Film. The point is to train effective evangelizers.

Graduate^(click for more info)

I'm currently studying for my MA in Biblical Theology. The program here is taught by young Catholic scholars who are very active in the scholarly world (for example, they present regularly at national SBL conferences, and contribute to multiple journals). To understand how amazing our program is here, you have to understand a bit about the current field of biblical studies:


It is largely dominated by secular historical study of the bible. Bible scholars aren't allowed to look at the bible as the word of God. They are to assume that it's merely a human work, and they study it using what's called the Historical Critical Method (for examples, check out /r/AcademicBiblical). There are positives and negatives to this situation, but for believers, the negatives are quite important. Essentially, you can do theology or serious historical work on the bible, but these are seen as two separate disciplines.

My university seeks to integrate the two. Our professors believe that you can be a believer and can also do serious biblical study. So, we have rigorous courses in biblical languages, textual issues, historical concerns, and the other good and helpful aspects of the Historical Critical Method. But these classes are integrated with robust theological courses. We don't see the two as separate disciplines. So we look at the bible critically as a scholar should, but we don't "check our theology at the door" so to speak. We do serious theological exegesis. Not just one or the other. I personally think that the formation I'm receiving is necessary for any believer. But obviously, that's just my opinion.

We have two tracts in the MA program: Exegetical and Cetechetical

• The Exegetical tract is for people who want to engage with modern scholarship (many in this tract will try to get a PhD in a similar field). I'm in the Exegetical tract.
  
• The Catechetical tract is for people who want to work in dioceses and parishes or other apostolates, that they may teach lay people.
  
  

  Greek
  

  The greek classes are focused around a few text books. We basically just follow the texts:
  
  

• This is the foundational text for Greek I. It is paired with the corresponding workbook, and we're recommended to get these study aids.
  
• For Greek II, we finish out the Greek I book, and then move toward this text and work on being able to translate 1 John with the help of this text
  
  Because I'll be seeking out a PhD, I'll have to do extensive further study in Greek and I'll have to learn Hebrew (which my university offers as an elective), along with some other languages. But these courses were a great start, and have made me capable of reading approx 80% of the NT without a Lexicon. I hope to eventually have a command of Greek so that I can read the NT and LXX (greek Old Testament) with only rare need to recourse to a lexicon, along with being able to do serious exegetical work in the original language of the New Testament.
  
  ***
  
  

  Concluding Thoughts
  

  Our students are largely Catholic, but I see no issue in a serious Protestant coming here. The program can be taken entirely online as well (of course, a film-oriented school ought to be able to offer online courses).
  
  If you'd like me to elaborate on any of these points, I'd seriously LOVE to discuss it. I am head over heels for our graduate program. It's something I really believe in, and its rapidly growing, so it seems to me that others feel the same way. By 2022, we're projected to be the largest graduate program in theology in California:
  
  > Since 2009, JPCatholic has developed a strong competitive position in Biblical Theology - the study of Scripture and Theology. With our state-of-the-art online learning system, students around the globe now participate in our MA program. We are teaching the teachers of our Catholic faith. We plan to launch a BA degree [in theology, I think] in 2017 and a PhD in 2022, and will become the largest School of Theology in the State of California.
  
  
  ***
  
  Edit, added links, and a bit of text.

I almost feel like having a teacher is necessary. It is murder trying to learn this language on your own. A teacher will motivate you. A teacher will be able to drop useful information as you go, "Actually, this text says that 'ekklesia' means 'church', but the Romans first used the word to describe public meeting areas that recognized the Lordship of Caesar..." and that'll help keep you interested when you'd rather give up. A teacher helps keep you accountable.

That having been said, Mounce might be good for you. The textbook comes with a CD containing lectures and other study aids that you'll find helpful for learning the language on your own. You can buy the workbook here separately if you'd like, or scroll down to the "Frequently Bought Together" section and get the textbook, the workbook, and the flashcards for only $57.86.

There are simply a lot of resources available for this curriculum, and the CD that comes with the textbook is a passable substitute for a teacher in the absence of one.

Also check iTunes U, I'm pretty sure I've seen classes on Biblical Greek there. If you find one you particularly like, you might want to figure out what textbook they're using and get that.

Before you do though, consider that you don't need Greek to understand the Bible and that learning Koine Greek to the point that you actually glean original insights from the text that you otherwise wouldn't demands a life-long commitment to the study. I've taken two years at university and my handle of the language is, relative to others, deplorable. Most of the insights I've gotten from Greek have come from other more learned people pointing out things I wouldn't have noticed on my own.

Good luck.

Wow! Good on you for taking that time and putting it to use. And you taught yourself Arabic last time! You sound like an impressive person! So remember that the Old Testament or the Tanakh was written in Biblical Hebrew that is not exactly the same as modern Hebrew. So here's what I would recommend. First get the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible. This is the scrolls put into a book with vowels so as to make each word more more distinguishable (the original scrolls do not have vowels, just consonants). So make sure the Hebrew Bible you get is the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS), because that's the text us academics use for translation purposes. This is usually the cheapest option or this one if you need bigger print. Many, many people complain when they're learning Biblical Hebrew about the small Hebrew print and how it gets in the way of the learning process! You'd be amazed. I've been teaching Biblical Hebrew for a while and in my modest opinion the best book and workbook to learn Biblical Hebrew is Seow's book
and workbook. It's intense and demanding, but somehow I think you might be okay with that. You sound like a determined person. If you'd prefer a book that demands a slower pace or doesn't go in too much depth, then I'd suggest Pratico and Van Pelt's Basics of Biblical Hebrew and its workbook. They have a really helpful Laminated Sheet that's like a helpful cheat sheet. Another thing I would suggest is focusing on narrative in the Hebrew Bible and, at least in the beginning, staying away from poetry and songs. Those are a genre of their own and are much harder to translate. Focus first on narrative (Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Joshua, Judges, Ruth and others). This link talks a little bit more about which books are which genre. Start with narrative and once you get a handle of that you can move on to poems like Lamentations or songs like the Psalms or the Song of Solomon. I hope this helps! If you have any questions at all please feel free to pm me!

Thanks!

>I have never tried in the Greek.

You should! It's quite rewarding.

As for what I'm using. I thankfully was a step ahead, as I'd studied Classical Attic when I was in college. That was awhile ago, but the alphabet and basic grammar was still floating around my memory. Vocabulary was and is my biggest shortcoming.

To refresh my grammar (and help me with changes in the language from Athens ca. 600 BC to the 1st century Roman Empire), I bought this textbook: Reading Koine Greek by Rodney Decker. It's an introductory one, so I was able to blow through the early lessons quickly enough, while focusing mainly on vocabulary. He structures his vocab lists based on word frequency in the New Testament and Septuagint, meaning you learn more common words first, which in turn helps to quickly build reading comprehension. It also focuses on the grammar of that time period and specifically early Christian writing (with reading exercises mostly from the NT, but occasionally the Septuagint or something like the Apostolic Fathers).

Once I was ready for some more advanced references, I picked up Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, which is a more general reference book (focused on the NT) recommended by Prof. Decker. I also splurged, thanks to some spare cash, and bought myself the BDAG, an incredibly thorough dictionary of Biblical Greek. The amount of scholarship in that one book is nothing short of mind-boggling. It has an incredible number of references to both the New Testament and tons of other contemporary usage, as well as citing to journal articles about certain words, the works. Oh yeah, I also got a dual-language (Greek and English) edition of the Apostolic Fathers somewhere along the line, although I haven't read it much yet.

So that's where I am. As I said, it's slow going for now since my vocabulary is still pretty bad, but it's improving. And I find that learning by seeing things in context is much better for me than just trying to do flashcards or something (although I may supplement with those).

I have two more books on the way: Metzger's Textual Commentary (where he talks about the decisions that went into which reading they chose in the UBS edition of the NT), and the most recent edition of his The Text of the New Testament (as updated by Bart Ehrman), which is an introduction to NT textual criticism and a kind of summary of various scholarly research on the subject.

So yeah, it's quite an undertaking!

>I honestly have never gone to far into the source material for all this, so I can't offer much help up there if your question is regarding source material.

Thanks, but I have. ;-) If you'd like a primer, wikipedia has a decent intro for the NT, but the OT info is kind of lacking. You can click around the sidebar on the right all day and learn a lot though if you're interested.

The short version is our NT is pretty good but still has some open questions, but the OT, while probably pretty good in a few books, is horrible on many others, and we're fairly sure we often don't really know what the original source was. Of course, many scholars think there wasn't really a single original source at all, that it was compiled and redacted over the course of many years.

For the NT, this is an excellent intro to the field. There's not one standout good book for the OT that I know of, but that's partly because of the difficulties of the text and partly because I've studied the NT much more. ;-) The Septuagint (which the NT writers used)and the Masoretic text are in many of their books quite different in length and content, while being still different from the Dead Sea Scrolls which is sometimes closer to the Samaritan Pentateuch. We have few OT manuscripts, and they're all fairly modern, and we've lost touch with the originals so much that trying to pull them out from history is difficult.

If you want good bible study tools, I highly recommend Accordance if you have a Mac, or Logos if you don't. They co$t though. Blue Letter Bible is quite good for being free. If you're serious, you'll eventially want to learn at least basic biblical Greek though, as the greek tenses are different from ours and contain a lot of the useful information.

I am not sure I completely understand the question, but if you are looking to do an in-depth study of the New Testament, I would recommend getting some Bible commentaries.

Concordia Publishing House has a nice series called Concordia Commentary. Here is a link to the volume on Galatians:

https://www.amazon.com/Galatians-Concordia-Commentary-Theological-Exposition/dp/0758615523

Typically you would want something that discusses the original Greek (the actual words, the cases that some words appear in, the grammar (or lack thereof :))) . Most Bible commentaries will also contain commentary on the text, but I guess you could skip that.

With this, I think a good concordance is helpful.

You probably would also want a good dictionary that can discuss the uses of important Greek words.

EDIT: I wanted to add: If it isn't clear, you would want to try and understand the original Greek (including the different manuscripts). As such a serious study might start with a study of Biblical Greek. I can recommend:

https://www.amazon.com/Basics-Biblical-Grammar-William-Mounce/dp/0310287685

(From what I understand this textbook is widely used.)

One more thing: I would also recommend looking at the history of the Biblical canon. Something like:

https://www.amazon.com/Canon-Scripture-F-Bruce/dp/083081258X

might be helpful.

I'm trying to learn Hebrew from the Bible as well currently, and have found a couple of resources: Hebrew for Christians

Has a lot of the basics and some helpful information like grammar and help with a lot of info. It's got a lot of free information.

I've been using Bible hubs' interlinear bible which has some translation and pronunciation with links to Strong's and occurrences of words in other verses. There is also text analysis. A lot of really good, powerful tools for Bible study and teaching yourself Hebrew. I've been trying to find a guide for the pronunciation marks they use, but so far no luck.

Also, just google "Learn Biblical Hebrew" or "learn torah hebrew" or "learn hebrew tenakh" Lot's of sources. Some sites I've used a little bit:

http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/

http://www.jewfaq.org/index.shtml

Some resources are on Amazon as well. Pratico and Van Pelt are commonly used by seminaries. Here's a study guide they put out: http://www.amazon.com/Biblical-Hebrew-Laminated-Zondervan-Guides/dp/031026295X/

Click on the picture to "take a look inside" for basic information.

Hope that gives you some ideas on where to begin. Good luck, fellow student!

Visual Greek. Learn using cartoons!!!! A similar method is Greek To Me. Again, learn using cartoons! I've read most of the book and it was a HUGE help. Also, both are Koine, and the visual greek method uses Mounce's book, which is THE standard intro. Mounce also wrote an easier intro for people who just want to know enough to do basic bible studies and use some of the better Greek tools out there, it's called Greek for the rest of us. Other books that take it easy on you are Learn Biblical Greek by John Dobson and English Grammar to Ace New Testament Greek. If you're wondering "Why grammar?" it is because you need to know how grammar works. If you know how it works in your language, you'll have a better grasp of grammar in other languages (at least you'll know what the books you read mean when they talk about active and passive verbs etc...).

> I was wondering if anyone has some solid, unbiased sources for serious Bible study?

They don't exist. Everyone has biases. The very best scholars are those who can divulge their biases and give reasons for them and reasons against the biases of others. That's part of the scholarly conversation.

For background stuff, maybe check out:
David Aune's The New Testament in Its Literary Environment

I liked Shaye Cohen's From the Maccabees to the Mishnah when it comes to understanding "Judaism" in the first century AD.

NT Wright's The New Testament and the People of God is very good.

I also really liked Brant Pitre's Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of Exile - a reworking of his Ph.D dissertation at Notre Dame (under David Aune).

Mark Goodacre's work on Q is good. I read it early in my academic career and it has kept me from believing in the Q theory since.

The biggest journal in the field is probably Journal of Biblical Studies. New Testament Studies is another big one (from Cambridge).

Edit: Also, learn Greek. There are grammars specifically for New Testament Greek (Koine) like David Alan Black's Learn to Read New Testament Greek - which is fine for an NT Greek grammar (though he barely covers the optative since it's so little used in the NT). I would just learn Classical Greek using something like Hansen and Quinn. If you can read Classical Greek, nothing in the Bible (either LXX or NT) will give you a problem.

If you're familiar with another language or two, then you know how language learning goes: Pick up some vocabulary and very basic grammar, and practice. Assuming you're willing to practice, Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar is a great place to start.

Once you learn the alphabet and start recognizing basic vocabulary words, you'll want to get a copy of the Greek-English New Testament - it's got Greek on one side and English on the facing page. Since you already pretty much know what the scripture says, you can read it aloud phonetically in Greek, and your vocabulary will grow automatically.

Finally, see if there's a Greek church near you - there may be a whole community of folks who worship in the same language as the New Testament, and they may be very happy to help you learn :-)

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The first Hebrew primer is the bulk of our class. We have been using third edition because it also has flash cards, an answer key, and a boatload of other add ons I highly recommend.

Teach yourself to read hebrew is super helpful for pronunciation and it comes with an audio book you can purchase on Audible. I highly recommend the audio book.

A lot of people in my class use this cheat sheet. I personally don't like it, but if you like cheat sheets it's super helpful.

Lastly Quizlet is full of free flash card sets of Hebrew words, it's my go to for practicing words besides the word flash cards First Hebrew Primer has.

Not free, but not expensive either: all the Greek I know comes from John Dobson's Learn New Testament Greek, which is a pretty good introductory text. The accompanying CD is pretty good too for practicing pronunciation.

It's syntax and grammar. I'm not going to give you a third year Greek course on Reddit. Grab Dan Wallace's Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics and make it your best friend.

After that, grab Moises Silva's Biblical Words and their Meaning. And remember the central rule - just because it's the first definition listed doesn't mean it's the definition of the word you're looking at.

Finally, grab a copy of D.A. Carson's Exegetical Fallacies. That'll help you out quite a bit.

That's assuming that you would actually read non-Watchtower approved materials. I know how touchy they get when people branch out from the approved list.

Most editions of the NT don't include Loeb-style facing Greek and English texts. The most popular editions include Greek-only with an apparatus, footnotes, and dictionary. A Reader's Greek NT (amazon link below) has the best footnotes for the best price (mostly just uncommon words). There's also an interlinear lexicon available, if you want the extra help. It speeds up ease of reading, with common words listed by book and chapter, but you may not need it (link below).

As far as dialect goes, most people find Attic easier than Koine. The exception is that some vocabulary is context-driven, with meanings which are specific to the NT, Septuagint, or both (which is where Kubo is useful). Sometimes, authors use Hebrew expressions translated literally into Greek. I would start with John, and I John (and Mark is probably too easy), if you want to get a grasp of the style. Move into Luke/Acts if you want something that more resembles Attic style narrative (i.e. harder). Hebrews also resembles Attic grammar in some ways, but contains more Hebraisms.

If you are stuck on Greek/English interlinears in the Loeb style, you might want to consider reading Flavius Josephus (available in Loeb). His works on the History of the Jewish War and Jewish Antiquities use an Attic/Koine mix that might be more useful than trying to slog through new NT vocabulary. The Apostolic Fathers, which are post-NT Christian authors, are also available in Loeb, and they have similar themes and vocabulary to NT.

Ultimately, I would not recommend reading the NT unless your goal is to read the NT. If you want to get better at reading Attic, go read something written by native Athenians (Xenophon, Plato, etc.).

Links:

Reader's NT: https://www.amazon.com/Readers-Greek-New-Testament-Third/dp/0310516803/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1542997817&sr=8-5&keywords=greek+new+testament

Sakae Kubo: https://www.amazon.com/Readers-Greek-English-Testament-Zondervan-Reference/dp/0310269202/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542998398&sr=8-1&keywords=sake+kubo

Josephus (War I-III): https://www.amazon.com/Josephus-Classical-Library-English-Ancient/dp/0674992237/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1542999070&sr=1-3&keywords=loeb+flavius+josephus

Apostolic Fathers I: https://www.amazon.com/Apostolic-Fathers-Vol-Ignatius-Classical/dp/0674996070

I'm not familiar with it, but if you are interested in learning Koine Greek, I'd recommend some online courses from DTS on iTunesU - as well as this book

That will cover your vocab in an easily digestible way. As far as grammar and syntax, many have recommended William Mounce thought I am unfamiliar with that book.

For entry-level Hebrew insights into scripture? a year, maybe. For serious hardcore academic exegesis? A PhD.

I just finished two semesters of Hebrew at university. I would be totally willing to sell you my textbook "Beginning Biblical Hebrew" It's a wonderfully accessible entry point to Biblical Hebrew. If you are even casually interested in learning a little Hebrew. You might also consider buying a good Hebrew-English parallel Tanakh

If not, you could always just read articles and scholarship published by people who do study Hebrew exegesis. You can find a lot for free on the webs.

http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/7_home.html for Hebrew
http://www.ntgreek.net/ for Greek

More dedication than I could possibly muster to get it done!

For Greek you might want to consider Mounce's Book and workbooks. When we learned Greek in Seminary, we used Wenham but I imagine he's probably out of print now. For hebrew we use La Sor which was great. It used to come in two volumes which was handy, as you basically wind up tearing the one volume book in half to be able to switch between the teaching and the exercise part of the book. I also own Gary Pratico's Basics of Biblical Hebrew and found it helpful trying to recapture some of my lost languages. Overall, my learning style is better matched to the books/workbooks model if I can't get into an actual teacher led class - more than online lessons, but naturally, your mileage may vary.

The whole half of the sentence is kai ho logos en pros ton theon kai theos en ho logos.

You are right, the ho before logos makes it more definite in focus than theos, which makes it the subject of the predicate noun. This means that the correct translation, if you were writing an exam for early Greek classes, is "the Word was God," not "God was the Word." It is because logos is the subject that the definite article was likely left off of theos, but you would need to argue this based on context

We are talking about two distinct clauses here. Grammatically, there is no reason to translate this as "and the word was with [the] God and the word was [the] God." You could translate this as "and the word was with [the] God, and the word was [a] god."

In fact, if taken in isolation, the latter would probably be a better translation. If, for example, you read the sentence kai ho oikos en pros ton anthropos kai anthropos en ho oikos. the slightly better translation would be "and the house was with The Man and the house was a man."

So, in summary, greek grammar doesn't tell you one way or another if the second clause should be read "[a] god" or "[the] God." It is a judgement call the translator needs to make based on context. And the context is glaringly obvious (IMO) that the correct translation is "[the] God." However, that can't be backed up using grammar, only allowed.

Are you teaching yourself greek, or taking a class? Might I suggest getting this if you are? It is a unique resource that is by far one of the best things you can own if you want to start reading the NT quickly.

Usually what happens is you memorize a whole lot of words , but never get all of them down. Naturally, you focus on the words you will use the most (I memorized all words appearing 25 times or less in the NT, if I were to do Greek again I would limit it to words appearing 40+ times). The problem is, every few clauses or so you encounter a word you don't know and waste lots of time flipping through or typing into a lexicon. This book does away with that. It has every word appearing 50 or less times in the NT. The catch is, it puts these words in the order in which they appear. So, if you have all the words appearing 50+ times memorized (which you really should do) and are translating Romans 5, all you do is open up this book to Romans 5. Now, every time you encounter a word you do not know, it will be the next word on your list. Seriously, I cannot recommend getting this book enough If you are going to spend serious time in the Greek NT, it will save you hours and hours and hours of useless work. </tangent>

>As I said, I grew up as Catholic as one can.

You also said you attended seminary for four years. One would think that you have studied the Summa upon immediate entry into your pre-theology.

>I actually studied for a year the Acts of the Apostles.

Then surely, as a former Seminarian, you have a Reverse Interlinear and a Greek Primer to study Scripture as in-depth as possible? Because, as every good seminarian knows, Scripture is written in Koine Greek, and we need to study various facets of language to understand the full meaning of what is recorded.

>Do I try to seek answers? Everyday I do. I visit /r/Christianity to check on discussions often

I would not qualify visiting an online forum as a means of seeking answers.

>I read a lot about the history of the Bible.

Whom have you read?

Surely, as a seminarian, you have read An Introduction to the New Testament by Brown and Reading the Old Testament by Boadt. Both are standard readings in seminary.

>I would never have known that creationism is a Jewish folklore.

Eh...I wouldn't say that "creationism if a Jewish folklore." I would say that Creationism is a non-Catholic interpretation of the Genesis myth (here I do not mean today's understanding of "myth").

For me the constant crush for language class was vocab. I felt like the lectures were there to explain grammar. For my 2 cents:

• Learn your English grammar inside out. Something like this
  
• Learn the alphabets inside out, upside down, back to front.
  
• Learn vocab vocab vocab. Greek flashcards & Hebrew flashcards
  
• Just start thinking grammatically. When you read something, look how it is constructed. Consciously say "Oh, that's an adverb" or "Duh - noun!" It's free and you can do it anywhere.
  
  The grammar will come through lectures and practice. If you know the concepts by being familiar with English grammar and build a good vocab bank, you'll take a lot of strain off your first month or two. That was my experience, anyway.

Aramaic was the spoken language in the Middle East, as was Greek and Latin. Hebrew was the written language of the Old Testament (Masoretic Text). Greek was the accepted written language of the Old and New Testaments (Septuagint).

If you would like to learn Classical Greek, I recommend Greek for the Rest of Us by William D. Mounce. He also has free resources available online.

Here's a list of resources I put together on my bible blog. Basics of Biblical Greek by Mounce has been widely favored, and he now offers video lectures which I found to be a helpful supplement.

Hope this helps!

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It's certainly possible, but you would have to keep in mind that they are different. I'd recommend starting with Modern Hebrew. (I'm not sure exactly which book to use, but Ha-Yesod looks decent.) After you've done the equivalent of two college semesters of Modern Hebrew, use Biblical Hebrew for Students of Modern Israeli Hebrew by Marc Brettler to learn Biblical Hebrew.

The reason I recommend starting with Modern Hebrew is because Marc Brettler's rocking awesome textbook assumes you've stared with Modern Hebrew. Additionally, you're probably more likely to find resources about Modern Hebrew aimed at a new learner, much like how anyone might start to learn a new language. In contrast, in my small experience (seriously, it's small, because I learned in Hebrew school instead of online or through a book), beginner's Biblical Hebrew will likely be taught as if it's some Latin-like dead language without the usual practices and with using confusing, archaic descriptions.

Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek + its workbook is kind of a standard at seminaries, and the one I used. I think its okay, but I don't really like the limited number of sentence translations.

Athenaze is one I'm currently trying out to better my Greek skillz. So far I really like this one, it teaches you Greek by making you read through it, along with a continuous story.

>Mostly what u/koine_lingua said. I think a lot of people have recommended this book and the accompanying materials. I minored in Ancient Greek, so my preference is to study Attic Greek.

Since you will be on your own, I would recommend this vocab book. It will break vocab up into manageable sections and if you learn all the words in the book, BOOM, you know like 75% of the most frequent words. The Mounce materials have accompanying flash cards.

I'd see if any churches in your area have any classes or search YouTube for some grammar videos (I know of at least one series that does a fairly decen job).

All that being said, I'd caution you against any preconceived notions that you will obtain some esoteric hidden knowledge by learning this magical language. It's not necessary at all to understand the Bible. I enjoyed the language and in reading Homer, the plays, and some other documents. I also enjoy the knowledge base I have to better understand textual criticism, but it's not like I possess some mystical insight into God's revelation. That's Gnosticism.

FTFY

As far as an internet resource for biblical Hebrew, this is top to bottom, the best. Videos taking you from the very basics up.
He also has a book teaching biblical Hebrew that I believe this video instruction follows.

My textbook is this: http://www.amazon.com/Learn-Read-New-Testament-Greek/dp/0805444939

My prof (Dr. Robert Plummer at SBTS) is supposed to be really good at teaching Greek. I've watched a couple lectures ahead of this week and I'm ready to go!

I used the book Introducing Biblical Hebrew by Allen Ross which I thought was excellent.

These flash cards correspond with Mounce's book and are extremely helpful.

And when you're ready for it ... it's time to get serious.

Buy or make vocab cards. Just do it and study them. My biggest advice is buying this bad boy. Seriously, I'm a Hebrew tutor and I tell all of my students to get this. It helps condense all of the information and is super helpful when you get to translating.

As was mentioned, Ashkenazi Hebrew / Sephardic Hebrew are really just pronunciation differences, there's no real syntactic or grammatical differences.

To put simply (and avoiding the question of what exactly Biblical Hebrew is as it is not necessarily a unified language but a hobgoblin of various significantly diverse dialects and Aramaic) , Biblical Hebrew is to Modern Hebrew as Shakespearean English is to Modern English. Learning Modern Hebrew will make it exponentially easier to learn Biblical Hebrew. And, once you learn it I would suggest this book: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0300084404/?tag=stackoverfl08-20

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310287685/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0310287685&linkCode=as2&tag=drmicsheihom-20&linkId=A4GYGIZVB4WCZP3N

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805444939/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0805444939&linkCode=as2&tag=drmicsheihom-20&linkId=MP6OQRFHYWQ76PVZ


These are recommended from a biblical scholar off of this page:

http://drmsh.com/recommended-reading/#ANELanguages

Here are some book recommendations:

• Biblical Hebrew for Students of Modern Israeli Hebrew, Marc Zvi Brettler
  
• Hebrew Verb Tables, Asher Tarmon and Ezri Uval
  
• For those who already understand Hebrew well enough: מילון אבן שושן המרוכז (great dictionary, and there is a grammar reference in the back)

Highly recommended.

This book: http://www.amazon.com/Basics-Biblical-Grammar-William-Mounce/dp/0310287685/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415037619&sr=1-3&keywords=new+testament+greek