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Learn To Read

the Greek New Testament Learn to Read the Greek
              New Testament - cover

by B Ward Powers

no English to Greek - only actual Bible verses as examples/exercises

 

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THIS IS A SELF-TEACHING GUIDE AND CLASSROOM TEXTBOOK which takes complete beginners in Greek, and leads them right through to where they start reading the New Testament (NT) for themselves in the original 'koine' Greek - and understanding it.

Now in its 5th edition, completely revised and updated, this book has long been a trailblazer in applying linguistic science to the understanding and teaching of New Testament Greek.

It is more than an introduction to New Testament Greek. It contains more than the elements, more than the basics of New Testament Greek.

The book explains each unit of grammar in logical sequence, paying particular attention to how the language works, and aiming at student understanding:

  • it illustrates each point of grammar with examples from the Greek New Testament (GNT),

  • it reinforces learning by asking the student (in the Student Workbook) dozens of questions about the grammar of each Lesson,

  • it provides translation exercises: overall, some hundreds of verses from the Greek New Testament itself.

These verses illustrate point by point the grammar which is being taught, and contain the vocabulary to be learnt (including all 300 of the most common Greek words in the Greek New Testament).

This book uses no made-up sentences of pseudo-Greek for illustration or translation (only NT examples in the original Greek).

Learn To Read the Greek New Testament also contains a book-within-a-book (Appendix B) to provide assistance for those engaged in the teaching of New Testament Greek. Furthermore, this 336-page Grammar Book comes shrink-wrapped with a Student Workbook containing 90 fill-in-the-answer questions for each Lesson – a valuable aid to learning, focusing on the main grammatical points of that Lesson. For teachers and students working on their own, an optional Teacher’s Edition of the Students’ Workbook is available with all the answers filled in.

The author - Dr B Ward Powers - received his B.A. in Greek from the University of Sydney, his M.A. in Linguistic Science from the University of Reading, U.K., and his B.D. (with First Class Honours) and Ph.D. (for New Testament research) from the University of London. For twelve years he served on the faculty of the Sydney Missionary and Bible College, Croydon, Sydney, N.S.W., Australia, for most of this time in charge of the Department of New Testament Language and Literature. Since 1996 he has been Director of Tyndale College, the Australasian Open College of Theology.

SOME EXAMPLES of just a few of the features of this book:

• Each Greek verb is capable of having up to 507 different grammatical forms. (This information is set out in Appendix C.) How would a native Greek speaker have known the meaning of any one of these forms when hearing that form for the first time? Answer: through recognizing the “meaning bit” of the word (which gives its dictionary meaning), and the “grammatical bits” that have been added on (and which identify that word’s function in any particular grammatical use). The student is taught how to recognize verb forms and meaning in the same way.

• The Third Declension of Greek nouns is a notoriously difficult section of grammar to understand. Greek has twenty regular patterns for nouns of the Third Declension, and there are many common “irregulars”. This book sets out (Appendix D) all twenty regular patterns, shows how they are derived by six simple linguistic rules from four basic patterns - and then discusses one by one all of the Third Declension irregulars that occur in the Greek New Testament. This quite takes all the mystery out of the Third Declension.

• When you apply linguistic analysis to the forms of the aorist active tense of Greek verbs, it turns out that there are three patterns of conjugating this tense in Greek - that is, there is a first aorist, a second aorist, and a third aorist.

• Greek word order is often very different from English word order, and has different significance. The student is shown (Appendix A) how to recognize the pattern of Greek word order in a sentence, and how to translate this into English word order.

A detailed table of contents is shown below.

HOW TO PURCHASE THIS BOOK

Cost

Note: A flat rate Packing and Handling fee of $10 per order is charged, irrespective of the number of books ordered. This includes surface mail postage from Sydney, Australia (which usually takes about two months to Europe or North America). If you wish the book(s) to be sent by International Airmail.(one to two weeks delivery) please also add the +Air fee shown below.

 

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GBP

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Textbook + Student Workbook

$60

$60

$21

₤35

₤12

Teacher’s Edition of the Students’ Workbook

$10

$10

Free*

₤8

Free*

 

*The Teacher’s Edition Workbook is postage free if ordered with the Textbook; if ordered separately, add USD $6 or GBP ₤4 for Airmail.


Ordering Options

  Orders can be placed through any bookshop or through IMPACT via Papyal (or credit card) at powers@computer.org

Other Books by B. Ward Powers

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CONTENTS

THIS BOOK CONTAINS:

The Beginner's Course (with additional helps in Appendix A for students working on their own, or requiring the lessons to be broken into smaller steps)

The Intermediate Course, Parts 1 and 2 (with the Reference Section giving a systematic presentation in Appendices C and D of all the paradigms of Conjugation and Declension, and Explanations in Appendix E of how the Greek language functions)

Teacher's Manual (Appendix B) on how to teach New Testament Greek according to modern linguistic principles

Also: Details of irregular words in the New Testament; statistics on word numbers in each paradigm category, and word frequencies in the New Testament; Greek word lists and indices to references in this book to each Greek word, and an Index to Topics.

PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION

PREFACE: Why Bother With New Testament Greek?

INTRODUCTION: How This Course of Study Works

STAGE ONE: BEGINNER'S GREEK COURSE

LESSON ONE: THE GREEK LANGUAGE

1.1 Some Background Information About Greek

1.2 Accents and Breathings

1.3 Pronunciation Guide

1.4 The Alphabet: Greek/English Equivalents, with pronunciation keywords

1.5 Vowels

1.6 Consonants

1.7 Writing

1.8 Punctuation

1.9 Greek Words

LESSON TWO: THE ARTICLE; THE SECOND DECLENSION;

THE PRESENT ACTIVE FLEXION

2.1 The Greek Sentence

2.2 Inflected Forms For Noun, Pronoun, and Adjective

2.3 The Article

2.4 Paradigms of the Article and Second Declension Nouns

2.5 Inflection of Adjectives and Pronouns

2.6 Prepositions

2.7 The Verb

2.8 Paradigms of the Present Indicative Active

2.9 Word Order

LESSON THREE: FIRST DECLENSION, AND SECOND AORIST ACTIVE

3.1 Complete Paradigms For The First Declension

3.2 Feminine Nouns of the Second Declension

3.3 Pronouns

3.4 Clues From The Agreement of the Article and Adjectives

3.5 The Present Imperative, Second Person Plural

3.6 Time, Aspect, and Conjugation

3.7 Compound Verbs

3.8 Paradigms For the Imperfect of ^Ge)im/i^R and the Second Aorist Active

3.9 The Verb Morph Slots

LESSON FOUR: THE RELATIVE; THE ACTIVE VOlCE

4.1 The Relative Pronoun

4.2 The Rest of the Active Verb

4.3 Aspect

4.4 Mode

4.5 Linguistic Modification Rules

4.6 Double Morphs

4.7 Guidelines on How To Decipher A Verb

4.8 Using the Guidelines to Understand Verbs in the Greek N.T. Selections

4.9 Notes For The Selections

LESSON FIVE: THE THIRD DECLENSION

5.1 How To Find Your Way Through The Third Declension

5.2 Third Declension Vowel Stems

5.3 Third Declension Masculine and Feminine Consonant Stems

5.4 Slightly Irregular Third Declension Masculine and Feminine Nouns; Neuter Nouns

5.5 Third Declension Neuter Consonant Stems

5.6 Learning the Third Declension?

5.7 The Declension of Adjectives: First and Second Declension Pattern

5.8 The Declension of Adjectives: First and Third Declension Pattern

5.9 Notes Re The Greek New Testament Selections

LESSON SIX: THE MIDDLE AND PASSIVE VOICE

6.1 The Passive and Middle Voices of the Verb

6.2 The Paradigm of the Middle Voice

6.3 Points To Note

6.4 The Future Indicative and The Other Modes of ^Ge)im/i^R

6.5 The Paradigm of the Passive Voice

6.6 Self-Testing Review

6.7 Concerning The Second Aorist and The Imperfect

6.8 Contract Verbs (Paradigms C1.2, C1.3 and C1.4)

6.9 The Reflexive Pronoun

LESSON SEVEN: ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS; THE SECOND AND THIRD CONJUGATIONS

7.1 Corresponding Adjectives/Pronouns

7.2 Corresponding Adverbs

7.3 Formation of Adverbs: The Regular Pattern

7.4 Comparison of Adjectives and Adverbs

7.5 Attributive and Predicative Use of Adjectives

7.6 Suppletives, And Other Verbs of the Second Aorist

7.7 The Third Aorist, and The Third Conjugation

7.8 Direct Flexions

LESSON EIGHT: PARTICIPLES AND PREPOSITIONS

8.1 The Paradigm of the Participle

8.2 The Periphrastic Participle

8.3 The Adjectival Uses of the Participle

8.4 The Adverbial Use of the Participle

8.5 The Genitive Absolute

8.6 The Ins and Outs of Prepositions

8.7 The Cases, Meanings, and Frequencies of the Prepositions

8.8 Interrelationships and Usages of the Prepositions

8.9 The Reciprocal Pronoun

LESSON NINE: USING NOUNS AND THE ARTICLE

9.1 Investigating: The Case of the Flexible Noun

9.2 Self-Testing Review

9.3 The Meaning and Use of the Cases: The Nominative Case

9.4 The Meaning and Use of the Cases: The Vocative Case

9.5 Oblique Cases: The Accusative Case (Without Preposition)

9.6 Oblique Cases: The Genitive Case (Without Preposition)

9.7 Oblique Cases: The Dative Case (Without Preposition)

9.8 The Use of the Article

LESSON TEN: VERB CONJUGATION

10.1 Greek Verb Conjugations

10.2 The Formation of the Tense Stems

10.3 The Principal Parts of the Verb

10.4 The Paradigms of the First Conjugation

10.5 The Optative Mode

10.6 Periphrastic Tenses

10.7 The Infinitive and the Impersonal Verb

10.8 Conditional Sentences

10.9 Direct Flexions and Other Verb Terminology

THE WAY AHEAD

STAGE TWO: INTERMEDIATE GREEK COURSE

PART ONE: LESSONS ELEVEN TO TWENTY

PART TWO: LESSONS TWENTY-ONE TO THIRTY

UNITS OF THE TEXT OF MARK (FORTY UNITS)

THE APPENDICES

A: A STUDENT'S GUIDE TO THE USE OF THIS BOOK

B: BASIC PRINCIPLES FOR TEACHERS USING THIS BOOK

Bl A Personal Word From Author to Teacher

B2 Course Teaching Patterns

B3 General Approach To Course Teaching

B4 Course Teaching Aims

B5 Course Teaching Methods

B6 Course Presentation

B7 Course Examinations

C: CONJUGATION

C0 The Greek Verb

C1 The First Conjugation

C2 The Second Conjugation

C3 The Third Conjugation

C4 Verbs With Direct Flexions

C5 Verbs Which Take Two Aspect Morphs

C6 Conspectus of the Three Conjugations

C7 Deponent Verbs

C8 Irregular Verbs

C9 Verb Groups For New Testament Verbs

D: DECLENSION

D0 The Greek Declension System

D1 The First Declension

D2 The Second Declension

D3 The Third Declension

D4 Adjectives

D5 Participles

D6 Pronouns

E: EXPLANATIONS IN PHONEMICS AND MORPHOLOGY

El The Component Elements of Language

E2 Phonemic Modification

E2.1 Elision

E2.2 Contraction

E2.3 Vowel Lengthening

E2.4 Compensatory Lengthening

E2.5 Syncopation

E2.6 Amalgamation

E2.7 Assimilation

E2.8 De-aspiration

E2.9 Crasis

E3 Morphology

E3.1 Morphs

E3.2 Allomorphs and Morphemes

E3.3 Root, Stem and Ending

E4 The Morphology of the Greek Verb

E4.0 Morph Slots of the Verb

E4.1 Slot 1: The Preposition

E4.2 Slot 2: Past Time

E4.3 Slot 3: Reduplication

E4.4 Slot 4: The Lexal

E4.5 Slot 5: Passive Voice

E4.6 Slot 6: Future Time

E4.7 Slot 7: Aspect

E4.8 Slot 8: The Specifier

E4.9 Slot 9: The Ending

E5 Morphological Analysis of the Greek Verb Form

E6 Accents

F: FOOTNOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

G: GREEK VOCABULARY AND INDEX

I: INDEX TO TOPICS

 

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Learn to read Greek from the New Testament itself! Understanding the Bible's teaching on many current issues hangs on understanding the choices translators make in dealing with the ambiguities that are inherent in translating between languages and cultures. See also Ward Powers' explanations from the Greek regarding the role of women in the church and the Bible's teaching on marriage and divorce

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