A Primer of Biblical Greek (Eerdmans Language Resources (ELR))

Biblical (or Koine) Greek is, as its name implies, the language in which the New Testament was originally written nearly two thousand years ago. Thus, many Protestant Christians from all walks-of-life, not just pastors and seminary students, have attempted to learn this rather complex but highly expressive language in order to better understand God's Word today. One popular tool to accomplish this end is N. Clayton Croy's A Primer of Biblical Greek.It should be emphasized, however, that Croy's book is a primer of, or "concise introduction" to, Koine Greek. It is clearly intended to serve as a textbook for an intensive two-semester college or seminary class in Biblical Greek. In light of this fact, Croy's Primer is much more quick paced and far less explanatory than similar introductory texts on the subject. It also relies heavily on traditional pedagogical techniques, such as extensive noun and verb paradigms as well as translation and composition exercises, which can appear somewhat "dry" to many modern students. Therefore, I would suggest A Primer of Biblical Greek only to those students who already have some familiarity with Koine Greek or who are adept at learning foreign languages. Otherwise, I would defer to William D. Mounce's popular Basics of Biblical Greek (Grammar and Workbook). The latter "eases" the beginning student into the elements of Greek grammar, syntax, and vocabulary development with modern pedagogical techniques and an engaging colloquial style.One unique and important feature of Croy's Primer, however, is that it includes vocabulary and selections from the Septuagint Bible. The latter is the Greek translation of the Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible) completed during the 3rd-1st centuries B.C. for the growing number of Greek-speaking Jews living throughout the Diaspora. The Septuagint is crucial, in fact, to our proper translation and understanding of the New Testament text itself. In his recent book When God Spoke Greek, biblical scholar Timothy Michael Law has highlighted the importance of the Septuagint in the "making of the Christian Bible." First, Christ and the Apostles quoted "scripture" from the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, not from the Masoretic Hebrew text employed in most biblical translations today. In fact, Law argues that the Septuagint Bible is a translation of an alternative manuscript tradition from that of the Masoretic version altogether! For this reason, many "scriptural" passages cited in the New Testament contain significant differences from the Old Testament books with which most modern Christians are familiar. Secondly, it was this Greek theological language established by the Jews themselves centuries earlier that the apostles (and their followers) employed in composing the New Testament. Clearly, these sacred authors did not write in a theological or religious vacuum. Therefore, to obtain a proper exegesis of the New Testament text, we must be familiar with Koine Greek usage as contained within the Septuagint.With the above caveats in mind, I highly recommend N. Clayton Croy's A Primer of Biblical Greek to all serious and motivated students who desire a rapid working knowledge of the language in which the New Testament was originally composed. The deeper theological understanding gained by such an endeavor is certainly well worth the effort! Additionally, Amazon offers a "Biblical Greek Vocabulary Lists and Kindle Flash Cards to Correspond with N. Clayton Croy's 'A Primer Of Biblical Greek'" for Kindle users.

I picked up this book so that I could give myself a head start in learning biblical era Greek, which I hope to take at university next semester. It's been a fun adventure so far.I opted to pick up the Primer based on Amazon reviews, and further opted to get the Kindle edition as it is nice to be able to take multiple study texts with me wherever I go. I have not been through the entire book yet but I thought I would share a few observations.In general, I like the book. Because I'm self-learning, I find that using other resources with the book is a must. Fortunately, there are many great on-line resources for helping one to learn Koine Greek. Without them, I would probably get less out of the Primer, again due to my attempting this as someone new to the subject and without an instructor.Pluses: The writing style is engaging and relatively easy to follow. The exercises are likewise engaging. I look forward to doing them and so far they have been appropriately challenging and rewarding.Minuses: The lack of an answer key is unfortunate, as it leaves the solo-learner having to guess whether he/she is doing the exercises correctly. Of course, this is a non-issue if you are not a solo-learner.Kindle Version Problems: I've run into two problems that I would guess are exclusive to the Kindle version of the Primer. The first is that sometimes a Greek letter will show incorrectly. Sometimes it will show only half the letter, or, even more oddly, split the letter in half with what appears to be a full space between. This led to a lot of confusion for me until I realized what was happening, as they at first appeared to be new letters I did not know. The other, perhaps more significant problem with the Kindle version is that the Greek alphabet table is, to be succinct, really messed up. Alpha is missing, and the columns do not line up leading to letters being associated with the wrong name, transliteration and/or pronunciation. It is so bad that if you were to rely totally on the chart in the Kindle version you would be unable to proceed. Fortunately, I had another alphabet chart with me and was able to recognize this error immediately.If I were to make my purchasing decision over again, I would still buy this book, but I would get the hard copy. The Kindle version suffers from quite a few rendering errors. It does not make the Kindle version unusable, but it does create some unnecessary challenges for the reader.

Great textbook. I have the advantage of being taught Greek by Clayton @ Wycliffe Hall Oxford. To have the guy who wrote the text book teach you is amazing. I'm coming to the end of the textbook so thought I would write a review.Before I started the Greek classes I used Basics of Biblical Greek by Mounce. The thought of learning Biblical Greek as part of my degree meant I wanted to have a head start, and as I didn't know what text book I was going to using in class or who my teacher was I intuitively went for Mounce. Croy's book has a few advantages. He has worked really hard to give you concise and compact definitions in simple to understand sentences (unlike my writting). This makes learning different verb forms ect much easier. There is also loads of material available online on the publisher's, Erdamans, website under Croy's section. This you have to pay extra for with Mounce. Basics of Biblical Greek by Mounce is a bigger textbook but in reality gives you nothing extra other than little quirks here and there. All the exercises at the end of the chapter are written by Croy which means the questions really cement what you have just been learning in the chapter. Other textbooks use biblical passages that often have to be altered to fit the vocabulary you have learnt. I originally thought this was an advantage as the more Bible the better. The problem with this method is so often you vaguely know the bible passage which massively aids your translation. Practicing on purpose built sentences teaches you to really hone down on what Greek word forms are in-front resulting in a good translation discipline. The answers are all available on the website mentioned above. Also online are longer sections of text for translation to help learn to approach a large section of text. In the book are also NT and LXX additional exercises for each chapter. Any words not yet committed to memory are given in a separate list rather than altering the text to suit.I would recommend buying the latest edition (2012) not because content has changed, but because after feedback they changed the way the book is constructed to make it more durable.

Just go with Mounce's book. This book is terrible.

Exactly what I needed

This is a great text and there is lots of online support.

I am still reading the book but I find having to type 18 words is really irritating and annoying and a waste of my time.