Greek Books

Biblical Greek (Zondervan Get an A! Study Guides)

William D. Mounce

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Not a must have 1 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

It is a handy tool for reviewing, but you don't have to buy it. As he/she make progress through the first year of Greek class, one can make his own review or cheat sheets, more through than this one, focusing on the issues he/she need to learn better. Not to mention the reviewing and the systematizing work itself that can provide a great help in order to organize the Greek grammar knowledge in one's mind (using different colors and highlights, tips and tricks, and so on).

You can spend your money more wisely by buying Mounce's BBG vocabulary cards, which are really helpful (unless you decide to make your own cards...)

Nice to have... 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I have found this little cheat sheet very helpful. As one reviewer mentioned, its not a must have, but it is certainly nice to have. Wile learning another language, it is nice to have a quick reference guide readily available instead of thumbing through your textbook. If you are just learning Greek, you could certainly live without this chart, but its cheep and personally has helped me.

Editorial Review:

This series of laminated sheets enables students and pastors to see critical material at a glance and serves them well as they review for tests, for comprehensive exams, and for later on in life.

Minimus Pupil's Book: Starting out in Latin (Minimus)

Barbara Bell

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

This elementary Latin course for 7-10 year olds combines a basic introduction to the Latin language with material on the history and culture of Roman Britain. Highly illustrated, the book contains a mixture of stories and myths, grammar explanations and exercises, and background cultural information. Pupils are drawn into the material as they read about the lives of a family living in a community at Vindolanda; the adventures of the children and the family cat and mouse provide interest throughout. As well as offering a lively introduction to Latin and classical studies, Minimus also has cross-curricular relevance. The material on the community at Vindolanda can be used to supplement studies of the Romans at KS2. The grammatical content helps to develop language awareness, and provides a solid foundation from which learners can progress to further English or foreign language studies. The Teacher's Resource Book provides support, particularly for non-Classicists. It includes teaching guidelines, English translations of the Latin passages, and additional background information, plus photocopiable worksheets.

Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics

Daniel B. Wallace

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 42 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

After all these years ... 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

It has been 36 years since I graduated from seminary and, now retired, I am trying to relearn Koine. In reviewing the advances in our understanding of etymology and syntax, I realize that some of the older texts I spent scarce money on years ago are simply not up to speed. Wallace's Inter.> Advanced grammar is a truly great text. I used to consider a grammar to be a reference work; I'm reading this thing like a novel! I own Dana&Mantey, BDF, Moulton (Prolegomena), and Burton; this work includes virtually everything in the sum of the others. I have also just ordered the "holy grail" of grammars: AT Robertson. I am very anxious to compare them. Even this early in my 2nd life with Greek, I can see that this grammar is a must-have.

Editorial Review:

This Greek grammar text integrates the technical requirements for proper Greek interpretation with the actual interests and needs of Bible Students. It is the first textbook to systematically link syntax and exegesis of the New Testament for second-year Greek students.

A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature

Walter Bauer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 36 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Described as an "invaluable reference work" (Classical Philology) and "a tool indispensable for the study of early Christian literature" (Religious Studies Review) in its previous edition, this new updated American edition of Walter Bauer's Wörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments builds on its predecessor's staggering deposit of extraordinary erudition relating to Greek literature from all periods. Including entries for many more words, the new edition also lists more than 25,000 additional references to classical, intertestamental, Early Christian, and modern literature.

In this edition, Frederick W. Danker's broad knowledge of Greco-Roman literature, as well as papyri and epigraphs, provides a more panoramic view of the world of Jesus and the New Testament. Danker has also introduced a more consistent mode of reference citation, and has provided a composite list of abbreviations to facilitate easy access to this wealth of information.

Perhaps the single most important lexical innovation of Danker's edition is its inclusion of extended definitions for Greek terms. For instance, a key meaning of "episkopos" was defined in the second American edition as overseer; Danker defines it as "one who has the responsibility of safeguarding or seeing to it that something is done in the correct way, guardian." Such extended definitions give a fuller sense of the word in question, which will help avoid both anachronisms and confusion among users of the lexicon who may not be native speakers of English.

Danker's edition of Bauer's Wörterbuch will be an indispensable guide for Biblical and classical scholars, ministers, seminarians, and translators.

Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek

Constantine R. Campbell

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Great Overview and Introduction to the Verbal Aspect 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

As soon as I received this book, I was flooded with memories of the time I was first introduced to it during my college days as a classics major. I remember how elusive the concept was back then, and it does not surprise me how quickly it still returns to its elusive state. The lecture was delivered by Dr. Erwin Cook at University of Texas, who admitted that aspects was just not part of the English language as much as it is in Russian. He bemoaned the fact that his Russian did not fully grasp verbal aspect as it one should to appreciate Dostoevsky's works.

Despite its elusiveness, the Greek verbal aspect is making its way into the scene of biblical studies, where a command of the biblical languages is simply a must to engage in proper exegesis. As many others have already observed, Campbell's work has made verbal aspects accessible, both in the publisher's pricing and the readability. H.W. Smyth's Greek Grammar devotes a whole sentence to aspects: "Greek also makes extensive use of aspect distinctions to qualify the type (rather than the time) of an action." The extensive work of Smyth ironically does not lend itself to an extensive treatment of aspects.

In line with Zondervan's widely-used series of Greek textbooks, Campbell's work makes the complicated subject more engaging and accessible for even the beginners of biblical Greek to become quickly acquainted with the theory, the need, as well as the issues in verbal aspect. The book is divided into two main parts.

The first part explains the basic features of the verbal aspect, tracing its history and getting the reader up-to-snuff with the main voices in the field. In biblical studies, two names traditionally come up when speaking of verbal aspects: Porter and Fanning. Campbell briefly assesses those voices, along with others like Olson, Decker, and Evans, in terms of their contributions and the receptions of their works. Campbell sides with Porter and Decker, downplaying the role of tenses, while emphasizing the pragmatic use of their reference to time.

Despite the lack of consensus in verbal aspect studies, Campbell lists the agreements:

* Aspect holds the key to understanding the Greek verbal system.
* There are at least two aspects in Greek: perfective and imperfective.
* Debate about aspect must come to some kind of resolution as quickly as possible.
* Greek grammars and New Testament commentaries need to update and come to grips with the new playing field.
* Responsible exegesis of the Greek text must incorporate aspectual sensitivity (32).

And there is also room for more exploration in the areas of :

* Temporality and tense. Are Greek verbs tenses?
* Number of aspects. Should the stative aspect be included with the perfective and imperfective? (31-32)

The second part deals with the verbal aspect in the New Testament. Campbell offers examples that have these features of semantics, lexeme, and context, which lead up to the Aktionsart. What kind of an action is presented? The types of action range: progressive, stative, ingressive (beginning and subsequent progression), iterative (repetitive), and conative (attempted but not accomplished). Exercises and answers are included to help the reader to think and work through the grammar.

This book is highly recommended. It makes verbal aspects intelligible for biblical Greek students, and is very affordable.

Editorial Review:

In this book, Constantine Campbell investigates the function of verbal aspect within the New Testament Greek narrative. The book includes exercises, an answer key, glossary of key concepts, an appendix covering space and time, and an index to Scripture cited.

A Graded Reader of Biblical Greek

William D. Mounce

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Not bad, but the notes need work... 3 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Mounce's "Graded Reader" is intended as a transitionary textbook for students who are in their second year of Greek. I give it three stars because, while it is better than any alternative I have found, I think it is lacking in several respects and is somewhat disappointing given the quality of Mounce's BBG.

The book consists of 20 extended passages in Koine Greek, coming primarily from the New Testament. The readings cover all four Gospels, several letters, and Revelation. In addition, a Septuagint Psalm is thrown in, as well as an excerpt from the Didache, one of the earliest teaching documents of the Church. In addition to the passages, there is an introductory section on a technique, developed by Mounce, called "phrasing." It is essentially a means of diagramming Greek sentences to clarify the relationships of the parts of the sentence. Also, the book has a synopsis of Wallace's extensive "Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics," and a "cheat sheet" which lists the various cases, tenses, etc., and their uses.

The passages themselves have footnotes, which are primarily used for vocabulary. The footnotes gloss words that occur 20 or fewer times, and in addition to a definition provide the number of occurrences of the word in the NT. This is useful for finding the words in Mounce's flash card deck, if you have that. Aside from the vocab notes, each page explains various theological and/or grammatical concepts. At the end of each passage is a grammar summary and reflections on the text. I agree with a previous reviewer that Mounce's theology can be ignored.

My biggest complaint about this book is that the commentary in the notes is not very useful. The footnotes consist primarily of references to other author's commentaries. They tend to be in this form: "Why did Paul use the aorist here? See John Doe, p. 100." This is not terribly helpful, since he references 15 or 20 books, few of which I have. If Mounce is simply going to refer to someone else's commentary, why not just buy the commentary and skip Mounce's book? Since 90% of his notes are question format (e.g., p.7 "What is the antecedent of auto?") without answer, they do serve to call attention to important concepts, but if you can't answer his question you are out of luck.

That Mounce is the master of morphology is certain. However, one can see from his BBG that he is light on syntax, and I found many challenging concepts unmarked even by one of his questioning footnotes. After struggling through Ch. 7 (Romans) with extreme frustration, I recalled that at the beginning of the chapter he said the grammar was not difficult. If Mounce is in tune with students' morphological struggles he is not in tune with their syntactical struggles. Nonetheless this book is more useful than a non-commented text, and better than the JACT New Testament reader. Still, one hopes that a better reader with commentary will show up some day.

Editorial Review:

This companion to Basics of Biblical Greek and Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics contains annotated readings from the New Testament designed for second-year students of the Greek language.

Greek: An Intensive Course

Hardy Hansen, Gerald Quinn

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 31 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

very intense 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 3 people found this review helpful.

The author of this book is the head of the classics department at my college. He is a great guy who wrote a great book. The book is very intense, as suggested by the title. Everything is well explained, however I found the exercises to be too difficult. Also, there is no answer key so you can't check your work. However, it's still a good book if you wanna learn ancient greek.

Editorial Review:

The first edition of this extremely popular two volume Greek text has been successfully adopted in many high schools and colleges; the organization and approach used by the authors, make it an equally effective tool for those who would enjoy learning the language on their own.

The set is designed for a two semester course at the introductory level. This second edition incorporates the authors’ improvements and corrections gathered from users’ commentary. Those who are currently using the first edition will find this update valuable, those who are seeking a Greek language text will find Greek: An Intensive Course one of the most complete and accessible books on the market.

The Complete Wordstudy Dictionary: New Testament (Word Study Series)

Spiros Zodhiates, Spiros Zodhiate

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

EXCELLENT! 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This dictionary has so much more information then Strongs. It really expands the meaning of words and helps give a more accurate understanding of scripture.

Great NT dictionary 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This far exceeds any other book or computer document that I've seen. I like the convenience of a book because I'm not on my computer that often. The words are set in Greek alphabetical order, so even if you don't know the STRONG'S number, the word can be readily found. The definitions and usage explanations are very thorough, for us non-Greek students.

Good Starting Point for Greek Reference 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I use an Interlinear Greek New Testament-KJV, and I found this book helpful when referring to basic Greek words and it's way of expounding on their meanings. I don't tend to use a concordance however, since I am familiar with basic Greek, but the numbers match with Strong's Concordance. If you are looking to increase your knowledge of basic Greek, and expand into Bible STUDY, not just reading (2 Tim 2:15-KJV), this is a very valuable tool. My only complaint about this Study Guide is that it doesn't have an exhaustive list of cases, tenses, gender and other aspects of Greek grammar. I am not sure if any such book exists, that is why I am learning Greek on the side. But it is, overall, a great tool to help study the Scriptures!

Editorial Review:

A detailed study tool for Bible scholars, this dictionary is the perfect companion to The Complete Word Study New Testament. Each Greek word in the New Testament is defined and explained, providing readers with all they need to explore every idiom and nuance of the original Greek text. Each entry includes word derivation, exegetical commentary, word history and etymology, and synonym and antonym lists.

Greek Grammar

Herbert Weir Smyth

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Still the best Greek grammar 5 out of 5 stars.
27 of 29 people found this review helpful.

I am sad to say that I never bought this Grammar during my four years of studying Classics while in college. If I had been smart and actually bought this when I started I could have saved myself a lot of time and prevented a lot of headaches. Now I know that Smythe is old, and some of his approaches are outdated, but that does not mean his grammar book is still effective. His work on both prepositions and moods of verbs are the best I have found and have helped me tremendously. There are some scholars who have surpassed Smythe's work in other areas of Greek grammar and syntax, but as far as a basic and comprehensive grammar goes, Smythe is still the best for your both your wallet and your studies.

Comprehensive but totally overwhelming 4 out of 5 stars.
11 of 11 people found this review helpful.

Since most of you are probably required to buy this for class like me, this review may not be the most useful. But anyone thinking of buying this should know that it has every possible bit of information about Ancient Greek--and every tidbit, every little comment, is numbered. This means the student ends up reading a chapter, say, on verb stems, and reading numbers 1024 to 1112. Since the data is so organized, you'd think it's an easy reference, but no. If you're looking for something specific, it'll take some wading through numbers and symbols. Whatever you want is definitely in there--it just might take some time to find it.

Greek, Classical Vocabulary Cards: Academic Study Card Set

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A Clarification of Mr. McMenomy's comment 5 out of 5 stars.
40 of 42 people found this review helpful.

Mr. McMenomy writes: "Another Greek set, specifically devoted to Biblical vocabulary, is not quite as good -- not because the vocabulary is somehow inferior, but because the set is not as well assembled and as complete."

I often wondered what he meant by the set not being quite as good; I have it now myself, and would like to clarify. The verb cards have only the first principal part, lacking the other five; all the cards lack the lists of similar Greek words (i.e. in the Classical set the card for the verb "to live" will also have the words for "life, course of life"; "life; living, sustenance"; "worth living"); and there are no English cognates and derivatives. The lack of principal parts is a serious problem; the other two are pleasantries which can be done without.

For what it's worth the noun cards do offer the genitive singular endings in addition to the nominative singular.

A good set if you like to have your Greek words printed, instead of sloppily scribbled; but if you're expecting a lot of nice extras you may be disappointed.