New Testament Greek for Beginners

Machen's work is still used at many schools decades after its initial publication, and for good reason. Other reviewers have extolled the virtues of Machen in general, so I'll limit myself to one additional comment. Many other Greek grammars are massive, or require a separate 8.5" x 11" workbook. Machen's little black book, on the other hand, is wonderfully compact and portable. Students can take it anywhere in a coat pocket and study whenever the opportunity presents itself - on the bus, on their lunch break, etc. The book itself is very well made and should last indefinitely, but the price is still awfully high. Buy it used!

I took four years of high school Greek and we used this book all the way through. I am now taking Greek in College and we are using Croy's book: A Primer of Biblical Greek. After using Croy's book for two semester's, I can say that I prefer Machen. He is very thorough and yet very clear in his presentation of beginning concepts. Machen's dictionary in the back is also invaluable for the beginning student. It is truly a great work.

I am a Lutheran pastor. Forty years ago I used Machen as the first year text by which I learned New Testament Greek. Over the years, I have used this text to teach a few interested persons New Testament Greek one-on-one. I tried another text once, but its arrangement of subjects seemed out of place. For me, the great feature of Machen is the numerous exercise sentences at the end of each chapter. Too many first year texts provide the students with too few exercise sentences by which they can practice what they have learned. It is not really a book for self-study. But, with the help of a teacher who has studied New Testament Greek, it is simply the best book available after its nearly 80 years in print. That alone speaks much in its behalf.

I have used this book as a classbook, to teach Greek, since the late 1980's. Just as important, it has been a concise, reliable, and lucid reference, far exceeding any other grammatical reference books in my entire library. I continue to add new Greek references and study books, but this is the one I keep coming back to.

Machen's book, though dated (c.1923) is still in use in leading theological seminaries and the text chosen by the Newark (NJ) School of Theology for its first and second year NT Greek courses. Machen is a no-nonsense, no frills, dead serious introductory text, but a student who has completed it will be able to read NT Greek. Each of the 33 lessons concludes with 20 Greek to English sentences and 16 English to Greek sentences to be translated. At the end of the first year of Machen, I discovered that Zodhiates (AMG Publishers, Chattanooga, TN) has published keys to these exercises, together with cassettes covering all 33 lessons, and a workbook with its own key booklet for each lesson. Gresham taught NT Greek at Princeton Theological Seminary in the early 20's and was a fundamentalist preacher there of considerable renown. I recommend Machen's text without reservation for serious students of NT Greek.