Learning The Biblical Languages.

[wboydsp]

I am currently a grad student in theology. For my program I will have elementary Greek and elementary Hebrew. However, I am wanting to study both languages to get a bit of fluency in both. I would like to have the ability to read the New Testament in Greek as well as the church fathers and to be able to read the Old Testament in Hebrew. Are there modules or books that can be suggested that will be able to teach advanced levels in each language? What I don't want is to go over several books that cover first year in both languages. I would like the equivalent of maybe  2 and 3 year studies in both languages.

[ukfraser]

Hi, welcome to the forum!

 

I would start by seeing what your listed reading is for the 3 years and talk to your tutors as it makes sense to be using what others on your course are.

 

I would then suppliment it with recomendations from this forum. the original language package may be a good reference to compare recomendations and tutor titles with.

 

;o)

[wboydsp]

Thank you for the reply. The only two classes of the languages that I will have in the 3 years of my program is the Elementary Greek and Elementary Hebrew. Only one class in each language. I do have the beginning Grammars for each class. So basically, I will be going forward on my own and am looking for the advanced resources.

[Λύχνις Δαν]

My guess is that you'll want a reader or two that goes beyond first year vocab and grammar. Rod Decker produced one I used and liked. Mounce produced one also, which is fine too. I rather liked Decker's approach, but Mounce's phrasing technique is useful too.

 

I'm not far enough on to say anything useful on Hebrew but here are some thoughts on Greek.

 

Koine Greek Reader, Selections from the New Testament, Septuagint and Early Christian Writers., Rodney J. Decker.

 

I also liked David Alan Black's It's Still Greek to Me, An Easy-to-Understand Guide to Intermediate Greek

 

Another thing I recently found and find good is Rodney Whitacre's book. Using and Enjoying Biblical Greek, Reading the New Testament with Fluency and Devotion, Rodney A. Whitacre.

 

None of these are in Accordance.

 

For grammars etc in Accordance, Wallace's Wallace’s Greek Grammar Beyond Basics is good, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Wallace Greek), Daniel B. Wallace is worth having. I prefer long stretches of it in print, but searching it in Accordance is great. You'll probably want a copy of MBG, Bill Mounce's Morphology of Biblical Greek.

 

You'll no doubt also want an LXX, perhaps more than one GNT, possibly the Greek syntax add on, and the Apostolic Fathers in Greek and/or the Pseudepigrapha.

 

There are a slew of more specialized grammars, dealing with idiom, prepositions, particles and so on. A number of these are available with the Original Languages add-on. Others are individual modules.

 

What you need will rather depend upon where you land up at the conclusion of the elementary courses, but that's a few things I've used to gain fluency. My approach has tended to be to read Greek and then go after the grammar I need when I hit problems. Simply reading grammar in English about Greek doesn't get me into the Greek enough, so I do it the other way around.

 

Thx

D

[wboydsp]

Thank you for your reply and the information. I have about everything from Bill Mounce. Including his videos, flash card set, Morphology and Lexicon. My school is the one that set up the Accordance collection and looking at the comparison chart of the collections I can tell that it is not quite the languages collection. But my first upgrade in a few months will be the essential collection. At the moment I will have my hands full with the introductory stuff that I have with both Hebrew and Greek but it should not be that long before I am seeking the more advanced works. To read the church fathers is that going to take me beyond Koine Greek?

[Λύχνις Δαν]

Koine is supposed to be about 330BC to 330AD or thereabouts. I would expect the AF would be all Koine but I've not really looked at it near enough yet. The Church Fathers though I don't know. I would expect most to be Koine but it's really just a guess - I have not studied it.

 

Thx

D

[wboydsp]

Thank you for the information.

[gbjohnston]

"The Church Fathers" is a big tent! Remember that you'll be able to read only the Greek/Eastern fathers and not the Latin/Western Fathers (like Cyprian, Ambrose, Augustine, Hilary etc.)

 

Within the Greek Fathers there's a remarkable amount of variation in the style and register of their writing. The texts of the Apostolic fathers writing around the 2nd century are on par with the NT for difficulty, and you should have no trouble. Many later writers are highly educated and writing in an Atticizing style. While theoretically you're equipped to read some of these later authors you may want to get a little Attic reading under your belt as well. The difference is not solely change over time, but register: the NT etc. are written in an everyday, conversational style while much later theology is highly rhetorical, the equivalent of what today we would call academic writing.

 

But the short version: you will be able to read anything! It might just be slow going with some authors.

[wboydsp]

Thank you for the information. It is good to know!

[R. Mansfield]

Rod Decker's Koine Greek Reader is mentioned earlier in this thread. It is now available for Accordance!