Greek For The Rest of Us: The Essentials of Biblical Greek, 2nd Edition
Greek For The Rest of Us: The Essentials of Biblical Greek, 2nd Edition
Greek For The Rest of Us: The Essentials of Biblical Greek, 2nd Edition
Codex Sinaiticus is an important majuscule manuscript from the 4th century. The images posted
here are from the full-sized black and white facsimile of the manuscript produced in 1911 by
Kirsopp Lake and Clarendon Press. The Codex Sinaiticus Project website (http://codexsinaiticus.
org) has new images and information about this manuscript.
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Table of Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii
Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x
What Would It Look Like If You Knew a Little Greek? . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Part I: Foundational Greek
1. The Greek Language . . . . . . .
2. The Greek Alphabet . . . . . . .
3. Pronunciation . . . . . . . . .
4. English Grammar: Noun Inflection . .
5. Greek Grammar: Nouns . . . . . .
6. Prepositions . . . . . . . . . .
7. English Grammar: Verb Inflection. . .
8. Greek Grammar: Verbs (Indicative) . .
9. Greek Grammar: Verbs (Nonindicative)
10. Word Studies . . . . . . . . . .
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. 2
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. 41
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70
80
84
93
116
121
126
133
139
146
157
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176
182
188
192
199
214
222
226
237
250
264
279
287
289
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7/26/13 10:43 AM
Preface
When people learn that I am a Greek teacher, one of the more common responses is, I
have always wanted to learn Greek. (It may not be the most common, but it has happened
repeatedly.) I always ask them why they want to learn Greek. To date, only one person has
said he really wants to learn the language. What they want is to understand the Bible better,
and especially to know what the Greek words behind the English translation mean.
In a perfect world, we would all know Greek and be able to understand the Bible better
because we would not rely on translations. But the world is not perfect, and many people are
not able to spend the years required to learn Greek properly, even those who have a
seminary education.
As I thought about how I might help the situation, I came to the conclusion that if people
knew a little about Greek and a lot about how to use the good biblical study tools, they could
in fact glean much from the Bible and from other resources that are otherwise beyond their
grasp. This includes:
reading good commentaries and using other biblical tools that make use of Greek
Several years ago I wrote The Interlinear for the Rest of Us: The Reverse Interlinear, which
helps people get to the Greek behind the English (and this data is used by some of the Bible
software programs), and now I am writing this text to help you learn how to use IRU and
other such tools.
There are, of course, many dangers in relying on tools rather than fully learning Greek,
and I expressed those concerns in the preface to IRU. My fear is that people will think they
know Greek well enough to come up with their own interpretations without commentary
support. However, this is the same concern I have for all my first-year Greek students learning Greek in a traditional manner. Alexander Pope once said, A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. But as I indicated in IRU, I saw that it is a little bit of arrogance that is dangerous. So I offer this text, trusting that you will recognize the limits of the approach.
GRU is divided into three sections.
viii
Foundational Greek teaches you enough Greek so you can use the Bible study
software, understand a Strongs Bible, and do Greek word studies.
Church Greek teaches you more Greek so you can understand a reverse interlinear
and use better reference works, especially commentaries.
Functional Greek teaches you even more Greek so you can be comfortable working with a traditional interlinear and go even deeper into the best commentaries.
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The greatest challenge of the book was to find good examples of what I am
teaching, especially for the homework assignments. All homework assignments
are posted on the online class, www.teknia.com/greekfortherestofus. This allows me
to continually update my work. Please keep an eye on the website as I am continually tweaking and upgrading it.
The online course is comprised of three smaller courses that correspond to these three sections of this text. These will help you walk through this textbook. I also am doing a threepart video series that works its way through the textbook. They can be purchased at the
online class.
There are, in fact, many helps on the website. Go to the chapter you are currently studying
and see what is there. You will find resources such as study notes, summaries, all the vocabulary words (and you can hear me say the words), all the homework exercises, fun things to
do, and perhaps most important, a summary of all the grammar (available at the last lecture
of Functional Greek).
Of the many people I would like to thank, most goes to my Greek assistant Matt Smith for
his many hours of help, to my colleagues Lynn Losie, Doug Stuart, and Daniel Wallace for
their help, to my editor Verlyn Verbrugge, and to many students who patiently endured
while I changed my mind on how to teach this material. The two Western Seminary classes
that helped the most were the D.Min class with Lew Dawson, and the M.Div class of 201213
with Paul Alexander, Steve Davis, Mike Dedera, Lucas Howard, Aaron Larson, Nick Marks,
Phil Rankin, Joshua Smith, and Katy Shaw. Thanks also to the many laypeople who read the
text, and to Robin, my wife, who patiently encouraged me to finish the task well.
I have relied quite heavily on the work of my friend Daniel Wallace and his grammar, The
Basics of New Testament Syntax. Many of the grammatical categories and examples I use are
from his work, and this should prove an easy transition for you to move from Greek for the
Rest of Us to his work. I would encourage you to do so. If you are especially adventureous,
you should use his full grammar, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics.
I will primarily be using Accordance to illustrate Bible software, but you can also use
Logos, The Bible Study App (from OliveTree), WORDsearch, BibleGateway.com, and possibly others.
It has been rewarding to teach this book many times in many venues (churches, weekend
retreats, seminaries, etc.). As a result, I radically altered the order of the material in the second edition. This allows you to set three different goals; and no matter how far you work
into the book, what you learn will help you go deeper in your Bible study.
I am also thankful that Lee Fields has written the Hebrew counterpart, Hebrew for the Rest
of Us. My old Appendix on Hebrew can still be downloaded from the online class, but I
encourage you to study his book.
I trust that you will find this a valuable resource as you work to understand the Word of
God better.
Bill Mounce
Washougal, WA
Preface
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Abbreviations
Bible Versions
ESV
KJV
NASB
NEB
NET
NIV
NIV (1984)
NIrV
NKJV
NLT
NRSV
RSV
TEV
TNIV
Book Abbreviations
BBG
BNTS
BDAG
GGBB
IRU
MRINT
Other Abbreviations
e.g.
f
for example
one following page
i.e.
v
ff
vv
verses
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xi
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flesh
illness
human
effort
ordinary way
sa vrx
sinful
nature
that nature
man
outwardly
no one
xii
The italics in the NASBs translation indicate that it has added a word, but the difference is more than that. The question is, who
is the man? In the NASB, Paul is thinking
of a father/guardian who believes his
daughters fianc is acting improperly. Either
way you look at this verse, it can be confusing.
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9780310277101_GreekforUS_int_merged.indd xiii
xiii
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xiv
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So what are we going to do with these differences? First of all, we will work to understand why they are different. Second, we will
learn to pull the translations together. So
often in Bible study when the translations
are different, we seem content to let them
say different things. Rather, what we need to
do is use the different translations to come
together and arrive at a common meaning, a
meaning that perhaps has several nuances
that the different translations are trying to
convey.
5. The final thing that I am going to help you
learn is how to read good commentaries. Lets
say youre going to have a Sunday School
lesson on Romans 1:17 and you need the
help of a commentary. (A commentary is a
book that explains what each verse means.)
One of the best commentaries on Romans is
by C. E. B. Cranfield, so lets say you pick it
up and try to read his discussion of the
verse. Here is a small part of his discussion
(pp. 95-96).
The other main disagreement concerns the
question whether in the phrase
in 1.17; 3.21, 22 (cf. 10.3) is to be
understood as a subjective genitive or as a
genitive of origin, orto put it differently
whether refers to an activity of
God or to a status of man resulting from
Gods action, righteousness as a gift from
God. In support of the view that is a
subjective genitive and refers to
Gods activity, a number of arguments have
been advanced: (i) That in 3.5 ( ) must be a subjective genitive (cf.
also 3.25, 26) .
Limitations
There are limitations to our approach, but
they are the same limitations placed on any
first-year Greek student. You are at the
beginning stages of learning Greek, and my
concern is that you will forget that you know
only a little. Im going to give you the ability
to sound authoritative by citing Greek words
and grammar, and perhaps be completely
wrong. I actually put off writing this book
for several years because of this concern, but
I finally came to the conclusion, as Ive said,
that its not a little Greek that proves dangerous. Its a little bit of pride that proves dangerous.
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xv
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xvi
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never mistranslate anything on purpose, and they know a lot more Greek
than you.
Well, they dont translate 2 Peter 3:5
properly. The Greek says God created
die-uh [his mispronunciation of the
Greek] water. The earth is formed
through water. Die-uh means
through and so in this verse Peter is
saying that God created the world
through water, and everyone is
translating it out of water.
He was absolutely insistent that dia meant
through, and he went through a fifteenminute discussion in physics. (I didnt have
any idea what he was talking about.) When
he finally paused for a breath, I said, First
of all, its pronounced dia. Theres a good
chance that if you cant pronounce it, then
you probably dont know what it means.
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xviii
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Part I
Foundational Greek
This is your first of three passes through the Greek language. This is the easiest of the three
sections of the book, although it may be more challenging if you have never learned a foreign language. In Foundational Greek we will be meeting the basic concepts that make up
the Greek language, so be ready potentially for some new ideas but not a lot of memorization. We will be learning the following:
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Chapter 1
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God used the common language to communicate the gospel. The gospel does not
belong to the erudite; it belongs to all people.
It now becomes our task to learn this marvelous language so we can make the grace of
God known to all people.
By the way. I often hear that we should
learn Latin because it is the basis of English.
Not true. English is a Germanic language
and Latin is a Romance language.
Languages can be grouped into families.
There is a hypothetical base language we call
Proto-Indo-European. It developed into
four language groups.
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Chapter 2
n this chapter we will learn the twenty-four letters of the Greek alphabet and the transliteration of each.
Introduction
2.1
Alphabet Chart
2.2
Below I have listed the letters name, its transliteration, the small and capital Greek
form, and its pronunciation. The website will help you with the pronunciation of the
alphabet and the reading exercises in the following chapters.
Alpha
a
a as in father
Beta
b
b as in Bible
Gamma
g
g as in gone
Delta
d
d as in dog
Epsilon
e
e as in met
Zeta
z
z as in daze
Eta
e as in obey
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Theta
Iota
Kappa
Lambda
Mu
Nu
Xi
Omicron
Pi
Rho
Sigma
Tau
Upsilon
Phi
th
i
k
l
m
n
x
o
p
r
s
t
u/y
ph
Chi
Psi
Omega
ch
ps
th
i
k
l
m
n
x
o
p
r
s
t
u
as in thing
as in intrigue
as in kitchen
as in law
as in mother
as in new
as in axiom
as in not
as in peach
as in rod
as in sit
as in talk
as the German
ph
ch
ps
o
as in phone
as in loch
as in lips
as in tone
Learning the capital letters is not as critical right now, but they are easy and you
might as well learn it all now.
Helps
2.3
2.4
Sigma is written as when it occurs at the end of the word, and as when it occurs
elsewhere: .
2.5
2.6
Do not confuse the (eta) with the English n, (nu) with v, (rho) with p,
(chi) with x, or (omega) with w.
Chapter 2. The Greek Alphabet
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2.7
Notice the many similarities among the Greek and English letters, not only in shape
and sound but also in their respective order in the alphabet. The Greek alphabet can
be broken down into sections. It will parallel the English for a while,1 differ, and then
begin to parallel again. Try to find these natural divisions.
In pronouncing the Greek letters, use the first sound of the name of the letter. Alpha is
an a sound (there is no pha sound); lambda is an l sound (there is no ambda
sound).
2.9
There is some disagreement among scholars on the pronunciation of a few letters, but
I have chosen the most common. This is a different pronunciation scheme than is used
by modern Greek, which is a much more beautiful pronunciation than the traditional
suggests.
2.10
usually has a hard g sound, as in get. However, when it is immediately followed by , , , or , it is pronounced as n. is pronounced angelos (from
which we get our word angel). The pronounced like n is called a gamma
nasal and is transliterated as n (angelos).
2.11
The can be either short or long, like the two is in the English intrigue. When you
are memorizing vocabulary and not sure how to pronounce an , just listen to how
your teacher pronounces the words (or to me on the website).
Miscellaneous
2.12
Of course, Greek isnt actually following English since Greek was created before English; it just
looks that way to us.
Greek for the Rest of Us
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2.13
Capitals. Originally the Greek Testament was written in all capital letters without
punctuation or spaces between the words. For example, John 1:1 began,
The cursive script was created before the time of Christ but became popular in the
ninth century. In cursive the letters are connected, like our present-day handwriting.
Spaces were also added between words. In Greek texts today, John 1:1 begins,
In our Greek texts today, capitals are used only for proper names, the first word in a
quotation, and the first word in the paragraph.
Exercises
2.14
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Releases 10/1/13