Reddit mentions of Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar

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.

>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").

>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.

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 :-)

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.

The classic example here is John 1:1.

My translation (RSV2CE) says:
> In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Theirs says,
> In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god.

The original greek says,
> Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.

This is an huge translation error on their part. Greek doesn't have the indefinite article ("a" or "an"). It only has the definite article ("the"). In order to make the JW translation correct, it would have to read in greek,

> καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν θεός.

>> "and the Word was a god."

Otherwise, they should provide very good linguistic reason to place the indefinite article where I can see no reason for it.

*


The following is an excerpt from a standard basic introductory New Testament Greek text book^(page 27-28):

> ...word order is employed especially for the sake of emphasis. Generally speaking, when a word is thrown to the front of the clause it is done so for emphasis. When a predicate nominative is thrown in front of the verb, by virtue of word order it takes on emphasis. A good illustration of this is John 1:1c. The English versions typically have, “and the Word was God.” But in Greek, the word order has been reversed. It reads,


> καὶ | θεὸς | ἦν | ὁ | λόγος.
---------|---------|---------|---------|---------
and | God | was | the | Word

> We know that “the Word” is the subject because it has the definite article, and we translate it accordingly: “and the Word was God.” Two questions, both of theological import, should come to mind: (1) why was θεὸς thrown forward? and (2) why does it lack the article?
In brief, its emphatic position stresses its essence or quality: “What God was, the Word was” is how one translation brings out this force. Its lack of a definite article keeps us from identifying the person of the Word (Jesus Christ) with the person of “God” (the Father). That is to say, the word order tells us that Jesus Christ has all the divine attributes that the Father has; lack of the article tells us that Jesus Christ is not the Father. John’s wording here is beautifully compact! It is, in fact, one of the most elegantly terse theological statements one could ever find. As Martin Luther said, the lack of an article is against Sabellianism; the word order is against Arianism.

> To state this another way, look at how the different Greek constructions would be rendered:

> καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν ὁ θεὸς.
"and the Word was the God" (i.e., the Father; Sabellianism)

> καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν θεός.
"and the Word was a god." (Arianism)

> καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.
"and the Word was God." (Orthodoxy)

> Jesus Christ is God and has all the attributes that the Father has. But he is not the first person of the Trinity. All this is concisely affirmed in:

>καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.



EDIT: cf. also This text book, ^(pages 266-269)

EDIT 2: fixed a copy/paste error

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

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!

I suggest studying Biblical Greek. I used an older edition of

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

and I found it helpful. (I have forgotten most of it now.)

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

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

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.