Sample of Lesson Guide for
Introduction to Koiné Greek
Pages 5 through 7 & Table of Contents

Return to Book Page

Introduction

These course materials were designed to be used as a course for high school home school students. It can, however, also be used as a self-study course by anyone. (If you are using it for self-study you will need to be your own teacher so you should start with the teacher's manual.)

This course has everything in it you will need to translate the 1st Epistle of John. When you finish this course you will have translated an entire book of the Bible. The skills learned will be useful in your study of the entire Bible for the rest of your life. I say entire Bible because although only the New Testament was originally written in Greek, the Old Testament was translated into almost this same dialect of Greek some two or three hundred years before Christ.

Meet the Author

The approach used to learning Greek used in this course is not the traditional approach. The reason for that is because of my background. The traditional approach did not work for me. I tried three different times to learn New Testament Greek only to quit in discouragement in a few weeks or months. It was not only Greek that was difficult for me. In high school I took two years of Latin and one of German. Although I passed these courses it was with grades far lower than my other courses. I took a German course in college with which I became discouraged and quit. At a later time I also tried to learn Spanish on my own with similar discouragement. I concluded long ago that I am not "gifted" in languages and yet my fascination with them kept bringing me back to them over and over again.

Then, when I was Director of Product Development for Universal Educator Inc., the company began developing, of all things, computer based training for Spanish, German and French. My job was about the computer programming and training design part of it but this put me in contact with experts in teaching languages. From them I finally learned why I was having such a difficult time. Everybody has a difficult time. There are people who are "gifted" at learning languages but it normally does not show up until their third language. They have just as tough a time as anyone else on their second language. It simply takes hundreds of hours to learn the grammar and syntax of your second language. There is no way around it. That helped me feel better about myself but did nothing to get me past this obstinate obstacle.

Then my life took a sudden turn. In March of 2003 God called me into full time ministry. I closed my Training & Computer Consulting business and returned to school to earn a Masters in Religion from Liberty University. When I am preaching God's word I feel a significant responsibility to get it correct. Part of that, it seemed to me, was being able to understand the Bible in its original languages. So once again I attacked Greek. My new determination together with an understanding that I was going to be confused for a long time finally got me through.

A Non-traditional Approach

Now I regularly teach New Testament Greek to others as part of my ministry. Using my years of experience developing training for business I have developed this non-traditional approach to learning Greek. It does not avoid the obstacle of spending a long time feeling like your are in a fog. In fact, I'm not completely out of that phase myself. What it does avoid is spending a lot of time memorizing a bunch of things before you get to the fun of translating and translating with confidence.

The traditional way of teaching and learning New Testament Greek (or any other language) is not the way you and I learned English. We learned it by interacting with the language. What I try to do in this book is show you just barely enough to get started in translation and then allow you to pick up the rest as you go. This seems risky at first. What if you translate it wrong or learn something wrong? Does not matter. Both will happen occasionally regardless of what method you use to learn. If you continue to interact with the language your knowledge will increase and your misconceptions will be corrected.

As a student of New Testament Greek you have two unique advantages over most people trying to learn a language. First, you only want to learn it one direction. That is to say, you only want to learn to translate Greek into English and have no interest in translating English into Greek. That means you only have to learn half as much.

Second, you are standing on the shoulders of giants. There are dozens of excellent English translations of the New Testament already. If you refer to them often you will not go far wrong and you will always have the help of experts at your fingertips.

Then Why Study Greek?

So then the question becomes, "Why bother learning Greek if all we are going to do is compare versions?" That is the whole point isn't it? There is more than one English version and all the scholars do not agree. The problem is that, good, God fearing, people lovingly and respectfully translate the original Greek scriptures and come to very different conclusions about how best to show it in English. Without a working knowledge of Greek we have no basis for comparing and selecting which is best from all these versions.

Greek can be more precise than English. Ephesians 1:1 says "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus." In English it is not entirely clear whether the intended audience is just people at Ephesus or "to the faithful in Christ Jesus" everywhere. The Greek grammar has no such ambiguity. He is writing to the saints in Ephesus and the faithful in Ephesus. Access to this precise understanding is only available to those who take the time to study the Greek language.

There is another reason as well. The New Testament in its original language is beautiful in ways that are lost during translation. The only way to experience this beauty is to learn to translate it yourself. A big part of my motivation in writing this course is to make that beauty available to you. When you see a beautiful sunset it is just so much better if you can point it out to someone else and they can look at it and go "ooh" and "aah" with you. Together you glorify God for the beauty of his creation. I want you to see that beauty in God's Holy Scriptures, as I have, and glorify God because of it.

What to Expect in This Course

In this course, I am going to introduce you to a few basic concepts and then we are going to start translating the scriptures together. Pay close attention to the notes about what is and is not important to remember. You must know the alphabet and some rudimentary grammar facts or the translation part will be a complete mystery to you. Using this method requires that you develop some tolerance for ambiguity, uncertainty, and error both in yourself and as you perceive it in others. With experience you will develop your own ideas of how to choose from the competing alternatives available from expert scholars. Although this training method gets you to the Bible text faster there is still some basic things that simply must be committed to memory before you begin. Be patient and diligent and soon you will get through them.

With most things we learn, we learn them in little parts that we fully understand before we go on to the next thing. For instance, in math we learn to add and subtract before we learn to multiply and divide. In history we can learn about and, fully understand, what happened at a certain place and time without having any idea about other places and times. With language it is different. In language everything is related to everything else. It seems like we are learning things in parts. We learn about nouns and then about verbs. We learn what a particular word means. However, we really do not completely understand it until we see how a particular noun and verb interact. And then we discover that what we thought we knew before was just a partial understanding. Then we see them in another sentence and begin to comprehend a little more. And so it goes.

The consequence of this is that it is difficult to get a feeling of accomplishment as we go. It seems we are always in a state of confusion and it is easy to begin to believe you are not really learning anything and give up. I do know how that feels but, I assure you, if you persist you can learn Greek. I am completely sympathetic to your struggle having tried it and given up several times myself. Do not give up.

Instead of being like a novel that you begin at one and end and go to the other; learning a language is more like looking through a telescope. Gradually everything will come into focus and one day you will be surprised that you actually understand a great deal. You will never learn it all. You still use a dictionary for English from time to time and it will be the same with Greek. However, if you are going to learn a language you must first learn how to use the "telescope." For language, the telescope is the alphabet. Everything else depends on that. Learn it well.

If you are serious about learning New Testament Greek you will need to obtain some other books besides this one at some point. I recommend you wait until you have finished this course before you buy any others. What you learn here both about New Testament Greek and yourself will help you evaluate what other books you may want.

There are three kinds of lessons in this book. The first few are about the alphabet. There will be a quiz at the end of each one which asks questions not only about the contents of that lesson but everything in the previous lessons. The next group of lessons are about grammar. The quiz at the end of each one will cover the grammar information in that lesson only. The final group of lessons, and the majority of the course, is translation. They consist of translation without a quiz at the end, since translation is the quiz. Vocabulary is introduced and practiced throughout the first forty-five lessons. Every fifth lesson is shorter with an associated test.

First things first and, first in this case is to learn the alphabet.

Aa Bb Gg Dd Ee Zz Hh Qq Ii Kk Ll Mm Nn Xx Oo Pp Rr SsV Tt Uu Ff Cc Yy Ww

Lesson Guide - Table Of Contents

Lesson #

Topic

Lesson Guide

Page

 

Introduction

1

5

1

Greek Alphabet - A, B, G

1

8

2

Greek Alphabet - D, E, Z, H, Q, I

1

10

3

Greek Alphabet - K, L, M N, X, O

1

14

4

Greek Alphabet - P, R, S, T, U, F

1

19

5

Greek Alphabet - C, Y, W

1

22

6

Diphthongs

1

26

7

A Very Short Grammar Review

1

30

8

English Pronouns

1

34

9

Greek Pronouns, First Person Singular

1

38

10

Alphabet Review & Pronouns

1

41

11

Greek Pronouns, First Person Plural & Second Person

1

41

12

Third Person Personal Pronouns

1

45

13

The Greek Article - , , το

1

48

14

The Greek Article Review, Gender & Number

1

50

15

How it Helps to Know Greek

1

54

16

Nouns - Case Usage vs. Case Form

2

5

17

Noun & Adjective Declensions, Noun Phrases

2

8

18

Adjective, Article, Pronoun & Noun Review

2

12

19

Using Resources - Lexicon & Parsing Guide

2

14

20

Vocabulary Review

2

18

21

Using Resources - Lexicon & Parsing Guide (Continued)

2

20

22

Prepositions, Prepositional Phrases

2

22

23

Translating Prepositions

2

26

24

Those Pesky Little Words

2

34

25

Vocabulary Review

2

37

26

Overview of Greek Verbs

2

38

27

Transitive, Intransitive & Linking Verbs

2

40

28

Voice of the Verb

2

43

29

Mood of the Verb

2

45

30

Infinitives & Participles

2

47

31

Tense of the Verb

2

48

32

Number and Person of the Verb

2

50

33

Translating the Verb

2

52

34

Translating the Verb (Continued)

2

53

35

Verb Review

2

54

36

Translating the Verb (Continued)

3

7

37

Translating the Verb (Continued)

3

8

38

Translating the Verb (Continued)

3

8

39

Translation - Components of a Sentence

3

9

40

Review of article and case

3

13

41

Translation - Syntax Sorting Chart Practice

3

14

42

Translation of I John 1:1 - Parsing

3

16

43

Translation of I John 1:1 - Word Meanings

3

18

44

Translation of I John 1:1 - Clause Divisions

3

20

45

Translation of I John 1:1 - Rendering into English

3

21

46

Translation of I John 1:1 - Checking the Experts

3

24

47

Translation of I John 1:2 - Parsing, Steps 1 - 2

3

27

48

Translation of I John 1:2 - Rendering, Steps 3 - 4

3

27

49

Translation - Textual Issues

3

28

50

Translation of I John 1:3 - Parsing

3

29

51

Translation of I John 1:3 - Rendering

3

29

52

Translation of I John 1:4 - Parsing

3

29

53

Translation of I John 1:4 - Rendering

3

30

54

Translation of I John 1:5 - Parsing

3

30

55

Translation of I John 1:5 - Rendering

3

30

56

Translation of I John 1:6

3

30

57

Translation of I John 1:7 - Parsing

3

31

58

Translation of I John 1:7 - Rendering

3

31

59

Translation of I John 1:8

3

31

60

Translation of I John 1:9

3

32

61

Translation of I John 1:10

3

32

62

Translation of I John 2:1

3

33

63

Translation of I John 2:2

3

33

64

Translation of I John 2:3

3

33

65

Translation of I John 2:4 - Parsing

3

34

66

Translation of I John 2:4 - Rendering

3

34

67

Translation of I John 2:5

3

34

68

Translation of I John 2:6

3

35

69

Translation of I John 2:7 - Parsing

3

35

70

Translation of I John 2:7 - Rendering

3

35

71

Translation of I John 2:8

3

35

72

Translation of I John 2:9

3

36

73

Translation of I John 2:10

3

36

74

Translation of I John 2:11 - Parsing

3

36

75

Translation of I John 2:11 - Rendering

3

36

76

Translation of I John 2:12

3

37

77

Translation of I John 2:13

3

37

78

Translation of I John 2:14 - Parsing

3

37

79

Translation of I John 2:14 - Rendering

3

37

80

Translation of I John 2:15

3

38

81

Translation of I John 2:16 - Parsing

3

38

82

Translation of I John 2:16 - Rendering

3

38

83

Translation of I John 2:17

3

38

84

Translation of I John 2:18 - Parsing

3

38

85

Translation of I John 2:18 - Rendering

3

39

86

Translation of I John 2:19 - Parsing

3

39

87

Translation of I John 2:19 - Rendering

3

40

88

Translation of I John 2:20

3

40

89

Translation of I John 2:21

3

40

90

Translation of I John 2:22

3

40

91

Translation of I John 2:23

3

41

92

Translation of I John 2:24 - Parsing

3

41

93

Translation of I John 2:24 - Rendering

3

41

94

Translation of I John 2:25

3

41

95

Translation of I John 2:26

3

41

96

Translation of I John 2:27 - Parsing

3

42

97

Translation of I John 2:27 - Rendering

3

42

98

Translation of I John 2:28

3

42

99

Translation of I John 2:29

3

42

100

Translation of I John 3:1 - Parsing

3

42

101

Translation of I John 3:1 - Rendering

3

43

102

Translation of I John 3:2

3

43

103

Translation of I John 3:3

3

43

104

Translation of I John 3:4

3

43

105

Translation of I John 3:5

3

43

106

Translation of I John 3:6

3

43

107

Translation of I John 3:7

3

43

108

Translation of I John 3:8

3

43

109

Translation of I John 3:9

3

44

110

Translation of I John 3:10 - Parsing

3

44

111

Translation of I John 3:10 - Rendering

3

44

112

Translation of I John 3:11

3

44

113

Translation of I John 3:12 - Parsing

3

44

114

Translation of I John 3:12 - Rendering

3

44

115

Translation of I John 3:13

3

44

116

Translation of I John 3:14 - Parsing

3

45

117

Translation of I John 3:14 - Rendering

3

45

118

Translation of I John 3:15

3

45

119

Translation of I John 3:16

3

45

120

Translation of I John 3:17 - Parsing

3

45

121

Translation of I John 3:17 - Rendering

3

45

122

Translation of I John 3:18

3

45

123

Translation of I John 3:19

3

45

124

Translation of I John 3:20

3

45

125

Translation of I John 3:21

3

46

126

Translation of I John 3:22

3

46

127

Translation of I John 3:23

3

46

128

Translation of I John 3:24

3

46

129

Translation of I John 4:1

3

46

130

Translation of I John 4:2

3

46

131

Translation of I John 4:3 - Parsing

3

46

132

Translation of I John 4:3 - Rendering

3

46

133

Translation of I John 4:4

3

46

134

Translation of I John 4:5

3

47

135

Translation of I John 4:6 - Parsing

3

47

136

Translation of I John 4:6 - Rendering

3

47

137

Translation of I John 4:7

3

47

138

Translation of I John 4:8

3

47

139

Translation of I John 4:9

3

47

140

Translation of I John 4:10

3

47

141

Translation of I John 4:11

3

47

142

Translation of I John 4:12

3

47

143

Translation of I John 4:13

3

47

144

Translation of I John 4:14

3

47

145

Translation of I John 4:15

3

47

146

Translation of I John 4:16 - Parsing

3

48

147

Translation of I John 4:16 - Rendering

3

48

148

Translation of I John 4:17

3

48

149

Translation of I John 4:18

3

48

150

Translation of I John 4:19

3

48

151

Translation of I John 4:20 - Parsing

3

48

152

Translation of I John 4:20 - Rendering

3

48

153

Translation of I John 4:21

3

48

154

Translation of I John 5:1

3

49

155

Translation of I John 5:2

3

49

156

Translation of I John 5:3

3

49

157

Translation of I John 5:4

3

49

158

Translation of I John 5:5

3

49

159

Translation of I John 5:6 - Parsing

3

49

160

Translation of I John 5:6 - Rendering

3

49

161

Translation of I John 5:7-8 - Parsing

3

49

162

Translation of I John 5:7-8 - Rendering

3

49

163

Translation of I John 5:9

3

50

164

Translation of I John 5:10 - Parsing

3

50

165

Translation of I John 5:10 - Rendering

3

50

166

Translation of I John 5:11

3

50

167

Translation of I John 5:12

3

50

168

Translation of I John 5:13 - Parsing

3

50

169

Translation of I John 5:13 - Rendering

3

51

170

Translation of I John 5:14

3

51

171

Translation of I John 5:15

3

51

172

Translation of I John 5:16

3

51

173

Translation of I John 5:17

3

51

174

Translation of I John 5:18 - Parsing

3

51

175

Translation of I John 5:18 - Rendering

3

51

176

Translation of I John 5:19

3

52

177

Translation of I John 5:20 - Parsing

3

52

178

Translation of I John 5:20 - Rendering

3

52

179

Translation of I John 5:21

3

52

180

Conclusion

3

52

 

Bibliography

3

53

 

Copyright © 2007 by Thor F. Carden. All rights reserved.

 

Return to Book Page