Greek for Life by Benjamin L. Merkle

Author:Benjamin L. Merkle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Greek;REL006410;REL006220;Greek language (Biblical)—Grammar;Bible (New Testament)—Language (style)
ISBN: 9781493410248
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2017-05-19T00:00:00+00:00

The opening verses of the Gospel of Luke from A Reader’s Greek New Testament, edited by Richard J. Goodrich and Albert L. Lukaszewski, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015). Copyright © 2015 by Richard J. Goodrich and Albert L. Lukaszewski. Used by permission of Zondervan. www.zondervan.com.

Reading with a Reader’s Greek New Testament

Recognizing that inexperienced readers of the Greek New Testament are often frustrated by unfamiliar vocabulary words, several publishers are now offering a “reader’s edition” of the Greek New Testament, with uncommon vocabulary words listed verse by verse at the bottom of each page. Probably the best reader is The Greek New Testament: A Reader’s Edition (UBS5 text).3 The Greek text is the United Bible Societies’ critical text of the Greek New Testament. The volume includes glosses (brief definitions) at the bottom of each page for words that occur thirty times or less. Parsing information with difficult grammatical forms is also sometimes provided. Very abbreviated information about the most significant textual variants is also given.

Another popular reader is Zondervan’s Reader’s Greek New Testament.4 The Greek text is the one that underlies the New International Version (2011). In practice, this means that the Greek text is the same as the UBS or Nestle-Aland text except in rare cases, which are footnoted. At the bottom of each page, brief glosses are provided for all words that occur thirty times or less. No parsing help is provided. The Reader’s Greek New Testament also includes a mini-lexicon with definitions for all words that occur more than thirty times.5

We highly recommend that beginning students (really any student) use one of the above readers. These readers give just enough help for students without providing so much information that it stifles growth. Instead, such readers often motivate students to actually use and read their Greek New Testaments.

Reading with a Reader’s Lexicon

If students don’t mind having a second print volume open alongside their Greek New Testament, a reader’s lexicon can provide the necessary vocabulary help. Unlike a typical lexicon, which lists words in alphabetical order based on their lexical form, a reader’s lexicon lists words verse by verse in canonical order. For example, as a person is reading through a particular book of the Bible, the words will be given in the order in which they occur in the text.

The best Greek New Testament reader’s lexicon available is A New Reader’s Lexicon of the Greek New Testament, by Michael H. Burer and Jeffrey E. Miller.6 Definitions (drawn from BDAG and other sources) are given for all words that occur fewer than fifty times. The authors of this volume also provide additional statistics on the usage of each word listed. Up to three numbers are provided. The first number indicates how many times a word is used in the book you are reading. The second number (if applicable) indicates the number of times the word appears in all the canonical works of that author. The third number indicates how many times the number occurs in the entire New Testament.

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