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How to use this book
This book has a uniquely diverse audience among introductory Greek grammars. The hope is that it is flexible enough for use in the seminary classroom in an advanced Greek or exegesis class as well as by a homeschool family teaching high school-aged children. Both of these groups, and many others, use Biblingo to learn Greek, so this textbook has something for all of them. Given the goal of applying theoretical linguistics to the study of NT Greek, scholars will also find new analyses of the grammar and explanations that they will not encounter elsewhere. Of course, the various groups will use the material in very different ways, but there is, in principle, something useful for everyone. That being said, the main content is written at an undergraduate or graduate level, so the primary audience might be said to be college students, even if other material has been included that is more broadly applicable.
A major goal of this book is to make the grammar of NT Greek more accessible to all. To that end, the book has been published open access under the license CC BY-NC-ND (4.0), so that it can be used as widely as possible without cost. While much of the material found in it would correspond to traditional introductory grammars in terms of what is covered (even if the explanations and terminology might be different), there is a substantial amount of material that would normally be found in intermediate textbooks, particularly the linguistic sections. There are three primary reasons for this. First, I wanted to provide an open access resource that is comprehensive enough so that the average Greek learner, whether a student, pastor, or interested lay-person, would not need to go and buy another book. The idea is that the average person learning Greek should not need any more grammar than what is found in this book, though of course there may still be value in consulting other grammars for various reasons, particularly for those who will go on to become scholars. Those not interested in the scholarly conversations, however, should have all that they need here.
Second and similarly, this resource can be used for introductory, intermediate, and exegetical courses in a university/seminary setting. Greek courses normally have sequential content where the student learns more forms, vocabulary, and grammar as he or she progresses through the lessons. There is enough of that material here and in the Biblingo app for about four semesters of language learning (see below for suggestions on how to use the material). Intermediate textbooks used in exegetical courses, on the other hand, usually organize their content by topic and explain grammatical constructions or features. This corresponds to the linguistic and exegetical sections. The explanations within the sequential content are also often quite detailed and could be used in exegetical courses as well, especially as the student progresses through the book. This mixing of “introductory” and “exegetical” material reflects a fundamental difference between how Reading Greek Deeply is organized and other materials. Because Biblingo is focused on language use and both language use and exegesis are fundamentally about meaning, exegetical “tools” and principles are built gradually through the textbook and the app in tandem. It is not as if you should start focusing on meaning once you have learned all the forms – you should learn the forms of the language through focusing on the meaning. Acquiring a word for language use is to learn how it is used in a variety of contexts, i.e. to learn a word is to learn how it would fit into exegesis. I discuss below how to use this textbook in introductory and exegetical classes.
The third and final reason for including the linguistic sections is that they will serve as introductions to topics that will be covered in much more depth in a comprehensive 4-volume grammar of both Greek and Hebrew, which will cover everything from roots (the smallest units of words) to discourse. In the present work, engagement with other Greek grammarians has been kept to a minimum, as have references to many of the scholarly debates in linguistics. These two fields have been brought in when deemed necessary for the student (either because they will encounter such ideas in Greek grammatical studies or the linguistic explanations are helpful), but they have mostly been delegated to footnotes. I have sought to provide clear explanations of the grammatical phenomena for the students without bogging them down or confusing them with all the different opinions in the fields. Those discussions will come in the 4-volume work, and scholars who are frustrated with either my lack of engagement with all the literature or my lack of depth are kindly asked to wait for the other volumes. Related to this, some of the linguistic sections found here are very similar to what is found in the companion volume Reading Hebrew Deeply, because the theoretical categories developed in linguistics are meant to apply to any language.
In the Classroom for Greek 1, 2, 3, and/or 4
Given the varying amount of time high schools, universities, and seminaries commit to teaching Greek (and the varying aptitudes of students), it would be impossible to know how much material in this book or in Biblingo should be covered
1 This license requires attribution and allows sharing, but disallows commercial use and derivative texts being made from it.
in a traditional semester or school year. My suggestion is that covering a certain amount of material in the classroom should not be the primary goal of a language course – it should be teaching at the students’ pace and keeping them motivated to become lifelong learners of the language. To acquire a language is to begin to use and understand the language as a native speaker would, and since none of us are native speakers of Koine Greek, our competency in the language will only ever be partial – but we can still improve. If, then, a Greek 101 course gets through only 13 chapters of this book but the students feel as if they have made real progress and become excited about learning Greek, the course would have been successful – even if they have not been “exposed” to all the paradigms in charts. Such students are far more likely to continue learning on their own, which they can do with Biblingo’s lessons and this (free) textbook. Given that only 12% of professors believe their students continue to use Greek in ministry after graduating (Miller 2019:112), something needs to change with how introductory Greek is taught. Besides all the advantages offered by an interactive app like Biblingo for sustaining motivation, slowing the pace will also help the students feel like they are winning. This is one of the primary tasks of the teacher: conduct the course at a pace where the students are consistently challenged but are able to overcome those challenges.
In addition, slowing the pace will greatly contribute to fluency, an all-too-neglected aspect of language learning. In Paul Nation’s four strands of language learning (2007), he suggests that a quarter of the time be spent on building fluency (for details on how “fluency” is being used here, see the section SLA A:). Besides being fun and engaging, fluency also builds confidence for the students because it is necessarily done with material that they know well.
This brings us to what should be done in the classroom. Instructors can use the material to accomplish different outcomes, so this assumes that the instructor wants the students to learn both the grammar of New Testament Greek and to acquire proficiency in the language. If you are an instructor, I highly encourage you to read SLA A and SLA B to help you structure your course, so that you prioritize the desired outcomes. Assuming that both grammatical knowledge and acquisition should be balanced, the ideal rhythm for using the materials Biblingo provides is as follows:
| In-class material | Homework | Assessment | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Introductory/exegesis course | Biblingo Live slides paired to | Biblingo lessons,_Reading Greek_ | Quizzes, tests, exegetical papers |
| lessons | Deeplyreadings |
All materials found outside of the app, including in-class slides, quizzes, and tests, are provided to instructors for free, instructions for which can be obtained through our website at http://biblingo.org/teachers. There are three primary benefits to in-class instruction: motivation, clarification, and fluency-building. Motivation is straightforward – students enjoy learning with others, and it is (or should be) fun. Clarification involves the teacher answering any questions that the students have about the material, such as how forms are used or a sentence should be understood syntactically. Finally, the greatest benefit, and what should occupy most of the time in class with the slides, is fluency-building. Teachers should encourage the students to use the language as much as possible in the classroom. This means their primary role is to guide the learning of the students; it is not to spend the whole time talking and “teaching” them. Languages are acquired through language use, so the primary responsibility of the teacher is to set up the classroom for quality language-use.
Covering all the morphology as quickly as possible is not the goal and is not recommended for long-term retention. However, if there is a certain amount of morphology that must be covered per the “standards” in the school, we recommend spending the last 1–3 weeks going over forms for parsing, depending on how far the class has gotten. This will not facilitate internalizing the forms, but students should be able to pass a test that would require them to be exposed to these forms. All the forms can be found in the topic summaries and paradigms in appendix 1.
For pacing, we recommend progressing at 1 level/chapter per week (one chapter in Reading Greek Deeply corresponds to one level in the Biblingo app). We have found that 1 week of review every 4–5 weeks greatly facilitates internalization of the forms, though this could be skipped if time constraints did not allow for it. A 16-week semester for Greek 1 might look like the following:
| Week 1 | Level 1a + alphabet | Week 9 | Level 7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week 2 | Level 1b + alphabet | Week 10 | Level 8 |
| Week 3 | Level 2 | Week 11 | Review |
| Week 4 | Level 3 + SLA A | Week 12 | Level 9 + Sem A |
| Week 5 | Level 4 | Week 13 | Level 10 |
| Week 6 | Review | Week 14 | Level 11 (optional: forms week) |
| Week 7 | Level 5 | Week 15 | Level 12 (optional: forms week) + Exeg A |
| Week 8 | Level 6 + Phon A | Week 16 | Level 13 (optional: forms week) |
If the teacher still wanted to get through level 13 but only had 13 or 14 weeks, the alphabet weeks could be collapsed into one and the review weeks can be taken out, though some degree of fluency will probably be sacrificed with this faster pace.
Greek 2, 3, and 4 would be equivalent to the schedule for Greek 1, but the courses would cover through levels 26, 39, and 52 respectively. Although it may seem like not enough morphology is covered through Greek 2, students should have mastered all the basic morphology by this time. At this point, adding in some irregular forms should not be difficult, especially to parse. They also would have read through numerous Greek texts, including simplified biblical texts, and they should have a working vocabulary of around 700 words. Most importantly, they will have developed the skill of reading, and especially if the pacing is right, they should have confidence to continue as lifelong learners.
As mentioned above, exegesis and morphology are best learned together. Thus, each semester includes an exegetical section with a final recommended exercise. The professor may assign this material for a grade, or they can use one of the exams we have created (or both). There are five exegetical sections, so students will normally encounter one per semester as they read through the book. The exegesis paper can be done the last 3 weeks of the course after the relevant material has been read. Although I think this is the ideal scenario, I know that some institutions will require professors to have distinct introductory and exegetical courses. In this case, the introductory classes can use the exam and skip the exegetical sections/assignments, and the exegetical sections/assignments would be the grade for the exegetical course(s). Exegesis courses, then, should be conducted at the same pace as the introductory courses with the assessments centering around the exegesis paper rather than the final exam.
For Scholarly Use
Those who already know the morphology of Greek, such as scholars, may still find Reading Greek Deeply to be useful in several ways. First, the linguistic sections will cover familiar topics in unfamiliar ways (to those not trained in linguistics) and will present categories for analysis that most NT Greek grammarians do not discuss. Second, individual uses of forms are given throughout the text and numbered. These are presented in Appendix 1 with examples and section numbers, so that a form’s range of meaning can be seen at a glance and easy reference can be made to each use’s discussion. Third, as a general rule, the latter half of the book focuses more on meanings and summaries of meanings. For example, the purpose particles are all compared in 50.4.3.1, showing how they overlap and differ in usage. This kind of material is best found either by searching the Greek word index or the topic index. Fourth and finally, the exegetical sections often make novel claims about how to understand a particular Greek construction based on the application of linguistic principles to an exegetical problem. Scholars may want to engage with these sections to see how I treat certain issues.
For Individual Use
It must be stressed that this textbook is for those interested in the grammar of NT Greek and its application to exegetical issues. If your goal is simply to read the NT in Greek for pleasure, I recommend using this book primarily as a reference guide, particularly the topic summaries found at the end of the book, and devoting most of your time to the exercises in the app. The best way to get better at reading Greek is to use Greek as a language, and that is not what this book is for. If, however, you find yourself interested in both reading and exegetical issues, I recommend working through the material sequentially at a pace that you can maintain. The linguistic sections grow in complexity, so it is best not to skip them. However, the phonology and SLA sections can be skipped without significant consequences. After reading through the material sequentially with the lessons, the appendices, especially the summaries, can be consulted for review and to aid the student in applying the grammar to particular passages.
For Homeschool Families
The use of this book by homeschool families will vary depending on the age of the student. I recommend using the app exclusively if the child is in elementary school. Middle-schoolers might benefit from the one-page summaries, and high school students could read through most of the main chapters. More advanced high school students interested in the grammar of NT Greek could also read the linguistics sections. Avoiding discouragement is probably the most important aspect of language-learning at this stage, and there is no reason to have kids discouraged over not understanding English descriptions of Greek grammar. If something is not understood, parents should push their kids back to the app where they can use the language and can internalize the forms and concepts. Being able to read Greek well will pay far greater dividends for kids than being able to explain the grammar. A full schedule for homeschoolers as well as homeschooling resources can be found at biblingo.com/homeschool.
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