Basics of Biblical Greek or Greek for the Rest of us?

[Paul Daunno]

I'm trying to decide which of these books to buy. I have absolutely no formal training in Greek and what little Greek I do know has been self-learned by spending time in Accordance. I'd like to learn much more but at this time of my life I can't commit to taking classes or any other formal training.

 

From what I've read, BBG seems to be one of the must-have's and perhaps working through it in conjunction with the BBG workbook would be a good place to start. Then again, GFTROU might be an even better place for a total newbie to start. From what I've read it seems like it's suited to a novice (me) and would give me a good overview and would be a good place to get my feet wet so to speak.

 

If you were me which one would you buy *or* is there something else I haven't considered that I should consider?

[John Fidel]

Hi Paul,

 

The two books have different goals. BBG is a first year textbook to learn Biblical Greek, while GRTRU is to help those that do not know Greek have enough of a working knowledge to be able to use more technical commentaries and resources to aid in the understanding of the English text. There are some audio lessons from each book available online at

http://www.biblicaltraining.org/

 

You may want to listen to a few of the lessons and see which suites your needs better.

 

Here is Biblical Greek: http://www.biblicaltraining.org/biblical-greek/william-mounce

 

Here is Greek Tools for Bible Study: http://www.biblicaltraining.org/greek-tools-bible-study/william-mounce/foundations

 

Hope this helps

[Paul Daunno]

Hi Paul,

 

The two books have different goals. BBG is a first year textbook to learn Biblical Greek, while GRTRU is to help those that do not know Greek have enough of a working knowledge to be able to use more technical commentaries and resources to aid in the understanding of the English text. There are some audio lessons from each book available online at

http://www.biblicaltraining.org/

 

You may want to listen to a few of the lessons and see which suites your needs better.

 

Here is Biblical Greek: http://www.biblicalt.../william-mounce

 

Here is Greek Tools for Bible Study: http://www.biblicalt...nce/foundations

 

Hope this helps

 

Thank you for directing me to those lessons. I just listened to the first one of GFTROU and I think that may be a good first step for me. I appreciate your help!

[Steve King]

Hi Paul,

 

I would encourage you in what you are doing. I have recently been through BBG myself using the workbook and personally found it really good. Many years ago I did a correspondence course in NT Greek but had forgotten most of it. Having a little knowledge before doing BBG was very useful and therefore going through GFTROU first is a good idea. However I would encourage to go onto BBG if you think you can do it. It does require consistent effort and memorisation but is well worth it if you are willing to put the time in.

 

There is a set of answers for the workbook available online - which is very helpful to check how well you have done. There is also a flashcard program (flashworks) to help in memorising the vocabulary which I found extremely helpful and you can add vocabulary and grammar to it.

 

You can search them out at http://www.teknia.com/

 

Regards

 

Steve

[Michael J. Bolesta]

David Lang has a blog on BBG today you may be interested in: http://www.accordancebible.com/Teaching-Grick-1?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AccordanceBlog+%28Accordance+Bible+Software+Blog%29

 

I used a variety of books to acquaint myself with koine Greek, but it really stuck when I used BBG (first edition; David hints at a third edition). Mounce really is a superb teacher. I am not an expert, but I am comfortable reading the GNT. It is a great help in ministry.

[Paul Daunno]

Thanks for the help and suggestions. I decided to start with GFTROU book and the associated lessons on Teknia to get started. Once I get through that I will get BBG and go through that.

[Bill D]

Thanks for the help and suggestions. I decided to start with GFTROU book and the associated lessons on Teknia to get started. Once I get through that I will get BBG and go through that.

GFTROU paired up with Accordance will let you know whether you will want to (or need to) take the time to learn Greek the old-fashioned way, starting with BBG. Knowing how the verbs conjugate and the nouns, pronouns, and the article decline - and being able to recognize inflected forms at sight - will ultimately save you time, but this requires great diligence. As a lay person without having had a seminary Greek course, I took Gospel intensives at a DMin level at a seminary, using Accordance, the GNT-T (NA27), and BDAG lexicon. Since the Gospels assume a working knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures, I also had BHS-W4 and the LXX modules. I was easily able to keep up, and classmates complimented me on my ability to work with Greek.

 

Neither GFTROU nor BBG will give you enough of a background in Koine Greek to be able to challenge the work of a true scholar, but they (especially combined with Accordance) will certainly help you with Bible study.

 

I think that working through GFTROU first will help you a lot as you enter the "fog" (Mounce's term) produced by working through BBG.

[Paul Daunno]

Very good insight Bill. Thanks. Hopefully my copy of GFTROU will arrive today. Couldn't find it as a ebook http://www.accordancebible.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/sad.gif

[CWW]

Some time back I thought about learning greek attempting to work through Steven's Greek which I have in Accordance. That was tough and slow going on my own without any help. Then I found out about GFTROU and bought it in my local Christian bookshop. Loved it! It provided me with exactly what I was trying to achieve in my desire to learn greek. That is, not to be a scholar able to translate greek on the fly, but to understand why the English translations differ, reference the greek to understand the case endings for subject, object, verbs, etc and how they are significant and unambiguous (compared to English which is dependent on word order and differs between translations). I can then use tools like NIDNTT to deepen my understanding of the nuance of the greek that may be absent in English. Not that it is not valuable, but learning "full" greek is now lesser of a priority for me at this time.

 

In short, I highly recommend GFTROU as a next step Bible Study approach. All the best

Wei