Beginner's Greek Tutorial?
Hello,
I would like to add a Greek tutorial resource to my logos, but have no idea which one for a beginner like me. There are too many beginning Greek tutorials. Can anyone comment on Learning the Basics of New Testament Greek w/ Workbook? How about Learn to Read New Testament Greek? My budget is very limited - no more than $40. I'm only interested in basic biblical Greek language
thanks,
David
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Check out http://teknia.com
You can get away with not spending a penny and get a very very basic understanding of biblical greek. There's also forums with plenty of support.
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Mike,
Thanks for the link. I'll take a look at the free online course to perhaps jump start my study. I think I have a Greek grammar book somewhere, but I am interested in a tutorial in digital format to use in Logos.
David
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I'm not familiar with either of them, but you can find the list of all the "Learning Grammars" Logos offers in their Product Guide for Greek Bible Text and Tools. Looking up the two you mentioned on Amazon.com, I see that Learn to Read New Testament Greek gets great ratings. I can confirm for you that Logos has the new 3rd edition, since I do own it in my library, just haven't spent any time with it so I can't give you a personal recommendation. I couldn't find Learning the Basics of New Testament Greek listed on Amazon -- only the workbook that goes with it, and that only got 3 stars.
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Hello Rosie,
Thank you for the link - that is very helpful. I was originally going to purchase the Learning the Basics...Greek, but then I noticed all the other references available for Logos and was curious whether anyone can recommend one based on personal experience. I guess most people in these forums learned Greek in college or seminary and wouldn't need the grammar resources. I never took Greek and Hebrew, but I would like to learn the basics. Maybe I should start out with a good Greek lexicon, such as the BDAG, but It's out of my budget at this time.
David
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David L Bailey said:
I guess most people in these forums learned Greek in college or seminary and wouldn't need the grammar resources. I never took Greek and Hebrew, but I would like to learn the basics. Maybe I should start out with a good Greek lexicon, such as the BDAG, but It's out of my budget at this time.
Yes, I'm sure a lot of them did learn Greek in a class, but they probably had a Greek grammar as their primary textbook, and many of the ones that Logos sells are ones that are used in college or seminary level Greek classes. I imagine it would be hard to teach yourself Greek from one of those without a teacher, unless you had a lot of self-discipline. There are also some free college level Greek classes available online. Check out Elements of Greek I and Elements of Greek II from Dallas Seminary, based on William Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek, on iTunes U, and Learn New Testament (Koine) Greek (video podcast).
And yes, a good Greek lexicon is a very helpful thing to have. BDAG is the premiere Greek lexicon that most seminary students use, but there are a few others that are less expensive, such as Liddell & Scott's An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon. (The unabridged Liddell & Scott Greek-English Lexicon is much pricier.)
If you do want to purchase a beginning grammar, I'm sure any one of them would be fine. Learning the Basics...Greek looks like it would be a good choice because it comes with a workbook. I have this in my Logos library, though I haven't spent any time using it yet. (I've also got some of the others. I couldn't make up my mind so I bought more than one.) The workbook has fill-in-the-blank questions. They're not editable on screen in Logos, but you could copy/paste each chapter into Word as you work through it and you'd be able to fill in your answers there. That way, too, unlike with a print book, you're not marking up the original text so you could work through it again later to test yourself.
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Here is a resource at Logos
Vine's You Can Learn New Testament Greek!
I have not looked at it or viewed it, so i cannot say how good or bad it is. But its only $10
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steve clark said:
Here is a resource at Logos
Vine's You Can Learn New Testament Greek!
I have not looked at it or viewed it, so i cannot say how good or bad it is. But its only $10
I have this. Just took a quick look. I wouldn't recommend it. It seems very compressed. Not much explanatory text. Lots of tables and lists of stuff to memorize. This is an example from the end of Lesson 2. It mostly looks like this throughout!
The subtitle of this book is "Course of Self-Help for the Layman." Gives new meaning to the term "self-help book." [:)]
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Rosie is correct that Vine's makes certain assumptions about the user - the ability to retain morphological rules (declension / conjugation) independent of reading in context. That was not uncommon in the era for which he wrote the book. However, he does go on to more explanatory text:
and when he does start asking one to translate, he provides sufficient notes to make it a possibility.
It wouldn't be my first choice but it will do in a pinch.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Rosie,
I didn't even think about checking iTunes resources for free lessons. Your link to DTS lessons on iTunes would suffice for now. Again, thanks for pointing me to these free resources. Concerning lexicons, I would love to get the BDAG/HALOT combo, but it's out of my price range at this time. Maybe later.
When I was a kid, I was very interested in classical literature and history, and wanted to learn Greek and Latin. When my father purchased all the greatest books of the Western world, I thought there were no better books than these. Years later, after I met Jesus, I realized I had the best books ever written - found in the Bible! And with Logos software, I find studying the Bible (and not just reading it) very exciting; hence, my renewed interest in learning Greek.
OT: Is photography one of your hobbies? What camera do you use?
David
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Thanks Rosie for checking into that resource for usefulness.
i hesitated to mention a tool that i bought some years back (Greek Tutor). It is a CD which did teach me to learn the Greek alphabet as well as the phonetic sounds for the letters and vowel pairs. i can sound out Greek words pretty well and am surprised at how many English words are derived from Greek words. The CD is still available in some Christian book stores and is less than $50. Its amazing that words like Photography (Photos + grapha; a writing of light) and Phonograph (Phone + grapha; a writing of sound) and many other words in English have their roots from Greek words.
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FYI,
It seems DTS does have the Greek I and Greek II. However, the class on Greek II was only 4 episodes and the last thing they do for the Greek two is mention the textbooks that are recommended for the course. The first course only moves up to chapter 9 of Mounce's book. His book actually has 36 chapters in it.
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I have used Black's Learn to Read New Testament Greek, although I used it for review. It was well-written without a lot of baggage. The nice thing is it includes an answer key to the exercises so you know if you're getting it.
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there is a good video series for itunes called "VPOD greek" also.
the web is full of good stuff but the hard part is just doing it....taking the time and sticking with it.
Robert Pavich
For help go to the Wiki: http://wiki.logos.com/Table_of_Contents__
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David Bailey said:
When I was a kid, I was very interested in classical literature and history, and wanted to learn Greek and Latin. When my father purchased all the greatest books of the Western world, I thought there were no better books than these. Years later, after I met Jesus, I realized I had the best books ever written - found in the Bible! And with Logos software, I find studying the Bible (and not just reading it) very exciting; hence, my renewed interest in learning Greek.
The Great Books are still great, even though surpassed by the Bible. The wonderful thing is that reading them as a Christian, you can see so much more in them than without that background. So many of those great authors were utterly steeped in Scripture, and we have a leg up on others who don't know the Word of God when we read the great classics. My mother came to Christ from an English literature background, and at first that was a barrier to her believing the claims of Christianity. But when she realized that writers she admired like T.S. Eliot and Blaise Pascal, and other great artists (Bach, Michelangelo) were believers, her last defenses melted away and she accepted Christ.
David Bailey said:OT: Is photography one of your hobbies? What camera do you use?
Yes! In fact I was going to ask you the same thing because of your email address. I was going to make a comment in this reply about not having to ask what kind of film you use, but just as I responded to this post of yours you must have done what I was also going to recommend and changed your forum display name.
I use a Canon 5D mostly, though I carry a Canon G9 around in my purse everywhere I go so I don't get caught camera-less if the need arises. It takes pretty good photos too. You can see some of my photos on my Flickr page. Another Logos user, John Fidel, is also a photographer and has some of his work up on Flickr. And I participate in the Christian Photographer Fellowship group up there. Do you have any of your photography on the web?
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Rosie Perera said:
Yes! In fact I was going to ask you the same thing because of your email address. I was going to make a comment in this reply about not having to ask what kind of film you use, but just as I responded to this post of yours you must have done what I was also going to recommend and changed your forum display name.
I use a Canon 5D mostly, though I carry a Canon G9 around in my purse everywhere I go so I don't get caught camera-less if the need arises. It takes pretty good photos too. You can see some of my photos on my Flickr page. Another Logos user, John Fidel, is also a photographer and has some of his work up on Flickr. And I participate in the Christian Photographer Fellowship group up there. Do you have any of your photography on the web?
That's great! Hey, you are the first person who correctly associated my yahoo! email address with photography. I'm not active in picture taking these days, but I would like to get back into it. My first camera (that I had purchased) was a Nikon Coolpix. I still have it, but after 10 years of use, it is breaking down on me. I also have my F5 film camera that I used with Provia 100F and Velvia 50 film. I no longer have access to a local developer of slide film. I know it sounds crazy, but I still have brand new film in my freezer that I've kept for the past 9 years! I was told by a photographer that he used film kept in his freezer since the 1970's!
David
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Rosie Perera said:
The Great Books are still great, even though surpassed by the Bible. The wonderful thing is that reading them as a Christian, you can see so much more in them than without that background. So many of those great authors were utterly steeped in Scripture, and we have a leg up on others who don't know the Word of God when we read the great classics. My mother came to Christ from an English literature background, and at first that was a barrier to her believing the claims of Christianity. But when she realized that writers she admired like T.S. Eliot and Blaise Pascal, and other great artists (Bach, Michelangelo) were believers, her last defenses melted away and she accepted Christ.
Awesome testimony! Yes, I agree the Great Books are still very interesting. I wish my education was based on those books - I've always wanted a liberal education from the arts, mathematics, and sciences. Unfortunately, I had chosen engineering (but that's another story). I still think the best book on human behavior, management, business, and, of course, theology, is the Bible. I do believe that, to a certain degree, a Christian perspective inspires men and women to generate great ideas and observations. Proper perspective and objective science results when men and women of science look at the physical world through the lens of a Divine Creator. Perhaps God inspired the people you had mentioned to create the works of art. I believe Christian principles reflected in many of our nation's founders (not all, but several) provided the guidance that created our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, and our initial government.
David
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I'm thinking of getting Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek from Amazon. Anyone has experience with this learning book? Unfortunately, this book is not available for Logos.
thanks,
David
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David Bailey said:
I'm thinking of getting Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek from Amazon. Anyone has experience with this learning book? Unfortunately, this book is not available for Logos.
I don't have experience with the book, but I've watched the two of his videos that go along with it (Welcome and Chapter 3: Alphabet and Pronunciation, available here), and he seems like a good teacher.
You can find some other people's feedback on the Mounce book by doing this Google search:
"Basics of Biblical Greek" site:community.logos.com
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That's the one we used in my first-year Greek class. It's excellent. It came with a cd that includes lectures by Mounce as well as a couple of flashcard programs. His website also has a lot of free tools and helps.
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David Bailey said:
Anyone has experience with this learning book?
I have this book and I recommend it. It is readable for me. He goes into the English Grammar before getting into the Greek. He has just had the full line of lecture video's come out that are on sale currently. I don't think you can go wrong with this resource.
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Thanks for the search tip, Rosie. I'll try to remember to use Google for the forum. [:)]
David
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Hi Pam,
I appreciate your feedback. I also noted the resources on Mounce's website. I wish it was available in Logos format.
David
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