The following readers for students of Biblical Greek are unique. Each volume contains, for each word in the text, a simple translation, grammatical description, lexical form, conjugation / declension forms, paradigm type, and paradigm endings. Students who master this basic information for each word as they read will soon see the benefits of their labors. They will recognize alternative forms of words as they encounter them in other contexts; they will associate inflectional patterns with meanings and thereby understand essential information in the passage; and they will begin to process the Greek text with greater confidence and fluency. Perhaps most importantly, these books can facilitate the reading process by making reading both possible and enjoyable. Our prayer for every student is found in St. Paul’s second letter to Timothy. “14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” 2 Timothy 3:14-17.
Newly Released
Counting the Cost and Developing a Strategy
Jesus said: “For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’” (Luke 14:28-30)
How often has a student begun a course on Biblical Greek, wanting to learn to read the original text of the New Testament, yet having no idea about the magnitude of the challenge or how to achieve success? His professor inspires him with a lecture about the insights available to those who learn to read and understand the very words of the New Testament writers, cautions them that the course will be demanding, and begins to introduce the Greek alphabet, vocabulary, and morphology. The student trusts that the traditional approach to learning Biblical Greek, employed by so many for multiple generations, will achieve the desired result. Yet, after one or two semesters of arduous and painful labor, the student discovers that the Greek text of the New Testament remains a mystery and concludes that he must not have a “gift for languages.” Still having no sense of the scope of the challenge or a strategy to achieve his goal, the student decides to focus his efforts on “more achievable aspirations.” Sadly, this tragedy occurs all too often. Yet, this scenario could be avoided if the student were able to count the cost and had an effective strategy for learning to read the Greek New Testament with fluency.
Counting the Cost
The Greek New Testament consists of approximately 138,020 total words. Many of these words occur multiple times, resulting in a total vocabulary consisting of only 5,437 unique words. Of these unique words, only 1,121 words (21%) occur ten times or more, and some 90% of the words encountered consist of these 1,121 words. So, is it enough for students to simply learn these 1,121 most frequently occurring words? No. Learning those words is necessary, but insufficient.
This is because Biblical Greek nouns and participles decline (change their form to reflect gender, number, and case) and verbs conjugate (change their form to reflect tense, voice, mood, person, and number). These morphological changes may cause a word to become unrecognizable to a new student. That is a challenge. On the other hand, students who master the most frequently occurring declension and conjugation paradigms discover that Greek morphology contains information that is invaluable to understanding the text.
Simply learning vocabulary also is insufficient because Biblical Greek syntax (the order of words in a phrase or sentence) is more flexible than English, and this flexibility may obscure the meaning of the text when morphology is ignored. In English, we understand who is doing what to whom through word order; but the Greek language makes use of morphology to convey this information. So, students who wish to read the Greek New Testament with fluency must learn both the most frequently occurring words and the most frequently occurring declension and conjugation paradigms.
Traditional Biblical Greek textbooks introduce Greek morphology paradigm by paradigm. These explanations are helpful. Yet, as students focus on memorizing paradigms, they often forget what they managed to learn in one chapter as soon as they turn to another. Formal instruction is helpful; but students must do more if they hope to master and retain what they have learned.
Developing a Strategy
As students begin to acquire a basic vocabulary and learn to understand the workings of Greek morphology, they also should begin to read the Greek New Testament. Every student surely wants to do this, yet as soon as they try, they discover that they need to look up the meaning of almost every word in the text. The task becomes so challenging that they quickly decide to wait until they learn more from their formal instruction – maybe next year they will be able to read. But that is a huge mistake!
Students must read to learn to read. This statement seems like an impossible contradiction. Yet, our readers are designed to help students do just that. See The Epistles of John: An Essential Reader for Students of Biblical Greek, The Epistles of James and Jude: An Essential Reader for Students of Biblical Greek, and The Epistles of Peter: An Essential Reader for Students of Biblical Greek. By reading the Greek New Testament every day, students will begin to master Greek vocabulary, morphology, and syntax – to the degree that they can read without assistance.
Students also should make use of our free PDF resources below. These aids will enable students to focus their energies on the most frequently occurring vocabulary and morphology of the epistles of John, James, Jude, and Peter – in that order to progress from easier to more challenging levels of Biblical Greek. Students who learn to read these seven epistles will be able to read any other text of the Greek New Testament.
Sample Thirty Minute Daily Greek Study Plan
- Memorize one verse from our Essential Readers for Students of Biblical Greek. (5 minutes)
- Memorize ten vocabulary words from our PDF entitled Frequency Lists of Vocabulary in the Biblical Greek Texts of the Catholic Epistles. (5 minutes)
- Memorize one noun declension paradigm from our PDF entitled Frequency Lists of Grammatical Forms in the Biblical Greek Texts of the Catholic Epistles. (5 minutes)
- Memorize one participle declension paradigm from our PDF cited above. (5 minutes)
- Memorize one verb conjugation paradigm from our PDF cited above. (5 minutes)
- Read one chapter from our Essential Readers for Students of Biblical Greek. (5 minutes)
Do not become discouraged if you cannot flawlessly recite what you have memorized at the end of the day, or on future days. In time, your consistent effort will yield the desired result. Whole passages of the text – rather than individual words – will become embedded in your memory. These memorized phrases will constitute your first steps to developing fluency in Biblical Greek.
Free PDF Downoads
The following free PDF downloads provide helpful resources for students of Biblical Greek. We hope they help students learn to read the original text of the Greek New Testament with fluency and also inspire students to grow closer to our Savior Jesus Christ.
Modern Pronunciation
Language learning experts agree that the most important factor in language acquisition is exposure to authentic language. For students of Biblical Greek, this means reading and listening. Unfortunately, many non-Greek scholars teach their students to pronounce Biblical Greek according to a method developed in the Middle Ages. This method lacks the fluidity of natural speech, and students that follow this approach have no — or few — authentic audio recordings to utilize in their studies. Fortunately, there is a solution to the problem. Native speakers of Greek offer records of themselves reading Biblical Greek texts. These recordings possess the essential features of natural speech that are so lacking in other recordings. Learn more with the following resources.
