Learn New Testament Greek

Let me state up front: I am extremely skeptical that one can adequately learn Biblical Greek inductively. With that caveat, this is the best inductive grammar that I have ever seen. For those who have used previous editions of Dobson's grammar, the third edition offers significant improvements. Some of the noteworthy features include: 1. The book is unusually well printed and a delight to read. If you have ever tried to read books created with inadequate Greek or Hebrew fonts, you will appreciate how important a feature this is - particularly in a grammar for beginners. 2. The book is essentially error free. This is one of the benefits of a third edition, but it is a meaningful benefit. There are few things more frustrating to a new student than trying to figure out why he or she is wrong when it is the text that is in error. 3. Dobson does a superb job of selecting exercises throughout the work. He keeps introducing minor variations so that students don't become lazy knowing what the answer "should be" in this section. This ringing of changes is the genious of inductive language study, and Dobson is a master in this art. 4. Dobson has added simple, brief, grammatical explanations throughout the book that will help students relate what they are learning to traditional deductive grammars. My concerns: 1. In trying to create excitement about learning Biblical Greek, Dobson implies that the student is becoming more competent than anyone could become through one year of language study. Would you hire someone with only 1 year of German to teach German literature at a University? Of course not! But I fear that students reading only this work could wrongly think that they are ready to criticise the scholars who do the incredibly demanding work of creating quality Bible translations. Mastering Greek is worth the effort - but we should not underestimate the amount of effort and discipline required. 2. To gain an adequate facility with Greek, a student will need to move on to "second year" grammars such as Dana and Mantey or Wallace's "Biblical Greek Beyond the Basics". If the student hasn't worked through a deductive grammar, it will be almost impossible for him or her to grapple with these more advanced works which are necessary for sound exegesis. So how can I give this book 5 stars? 1. It is the best inductive grammar you can find and just plain fun to read. 2. Dobson's superb selection of material makes this grammar one of the best "readers" available for New Testament Greek. Most students (myself included), need a great deal of practice to achieve proficiency in the language. This book goes a long way toward providing that practice. My advice: Work through a traditional grammar such as David Alan Black's "Learn to Read New Testament Greek" or Mounce's "The Basics of Biblical Greek". When you are done, turn to Dobson for some delightful practice and continued learning.

Some people love it, some people don't. So you can decide for yourself, let me tell you how the book is set up: BACKGROUND Greek is 'inflected' -- depending on their meaning in a sentence, nouns have several forms. The word is 'o logos'. But if you're saying it, the word is 'ton logon.' And if it's Mark's, the word is 'tou logou'. And if you're convincing someone with the word, it's ... well, you get the idea. The word(s) = o logo, ton logon, tou logou, oi logoi, tous logous, tw logw, etc. So having a "vocabulary" of Greek words isn't particularly helpful until you get the endings in your brain and tou logou makes you think "[of] the word" more or less automatically, without you really thinking about it. How hard is it to learn the endings? Plenty. For nouns there are three genders, five cases, single, plural, double, all done in three versions = declensions. 230 endings, all nicely tabularized in my old Greek textbook (not this one). Verbs have tenses, moods and voices. So all you have to do to read a sentence in Greek is figure out each word's root, identify each ending, match it with the table in your head [nominative, dative, accusative, genitive, dative, or vocative; singular or plural; masculine, feminine or neuter] ... and translate the grammar into English -- quick, you do know the English equivalent of the dative plural of 'book', right? And what's the English aorist subjunctive active form of 'go'? -- and viola, you're on to the next word. Did I mention "the"? My old text lists 30 !! versions. Thirty ways to say "the": o, tou, ton, to, ta, tw, tous, oi, etc. etc. METHODS #1 TRADITIONAL Greek textbooks list tables of noun endings = "declensions." You memorize tables of endings and this helps you read Greek -- the same way, presumably, memorizing the interval of a diminished-minor-7th helps you play Bach on the piano. If memorizing 230 noun case endings and transmogrifying accusative-ablative-optative-nickelodeons into English is the sort of thing you're good at, traditional Greek textbooks are for you. #2. THIS BOOK uses THE OTHER METHOD. It teaches you Greek a little bit at a time, by having you practice short grammar-rich sentences. You're learning Greek not by memorizing case ending tables, but by getting your brain to recognize, without stopping to think about it, that ~ou words mean "of ~". This is the way you learned English. You speaks English good, right? Each section (just three or four pages) introduces a new topic -- little drills on how to say 'the book' or 'the books' for eg. Then there are practice sentences and their translations -- you cover the translation with a card, read the greek, translate it yourself, then move the card and check your translation. "You are saying." " We are saying." " They are saying." " You speak the words." -- they get tougher as you go along -- "You are writing the words and the prophet is reading the words." " They are the people saying these words." There are 30 or 50 little

I studied the first edition of this book perhaps 10 years after I graduated from college, and I found the pedagogy was far superior to the language learning methods we had used in school.On the very first reading of this book you should be able to recognize some words. The method immerses you immediately into the language before you even have memorized the alphabet! It gives you a few letters and you are already reading sounds with just those letters. Then it reinforces what you have just learned through repetition and adds a little bit more. The immediate and continued rapid progress will keep the student interested and will help him to stick with it. For beginning students, this is the book to have.

I tried several beginner's books on NT Greek before discovering this one, and I loved it. This is the one that made it all fun. After 5 years of study, I still enjoy thumbing through it.The accompanying tape is just OK, but good for gaining elementary oral fluency. I believe the pronuciation presented here is not generally considered correct but is still the pedagogical standard.