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Learn To Read
the Greek New Testament 
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
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
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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
To order this book, see above!
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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