Welcome to the One Year Greek New Testament!
I hope this resource is of help to students of New Testament Greek. It is obviously a work-in-progress, and I hope to stay ahead of the calendar year. Pray for me! :-)
I'm a big fan of the One Year Bible, and my family uses the ESV version for our daily devotions. It follows a pattern of 1) an Old Testament reading, 2) a New Testament reading, 3) a Psalm reading, and 4) a Proverbs reading.
The plan begins on January 1, and runs through the Bible in canonical order. My family reads the readings aloud as part of morning prayer. We have adopted different methodologies over the years. Currently, I read the Old Testament reading. My wife reads the New Testament reading while I follow along in Greek. She then reads the Psalm reading while I follow along in Latin. My son then reads the Proverbs selection (he is almost nine years old as of this writing).
I find that reading along in Greek is very helpful, but I think the exercise could be made even better if there were better word-for-word correlation. The ESV (which is the preferred translation of my church body, the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod) is "essentially literal" and is part of the King James Version family.
My idea was to have an audio reading of an interlinear so that I could follow along in the Greek. So that's what I'm doing in this blog. I found the old Scrivener's interlinear which is free from copyright protection (a nice version is available for kindle). It is geared more toward the Textus Receptus (and here is a link for an affordable TR NT along with the OT in Hebrew) than the modern USB or Nestle-Aland editions. I decided to include the Greek text for convenience, and so I am including the SBL translation from Bible Gateway. And here is the legal mumbo-jumbo: Scripture quotations marked SBLGNT are from the SBL Greek New Testament. Copyright © 2010 Society of Biblical Literature and Logos Bible Software. But of course, you may want to use your own Greek text to read along.
So, there may be occasional word order (textual) variations, but they will be minor and few.
I'm recording the audio using my iPhone and uploading to YouTube for convenience and to avoid paying for Dropbox or other hosting services. I hope this is okay. We'll find out.
I like this approach to continued Greek reading for a number of reasons. First, when most of us learned Biblical Greek, it was likely using a very technical approach: memorizing paradigms and lists of vocabulary - with the intent of translating the text into English. There is nothing wrong with learning this way. But it does provide some limitations. I think that reading the text in its native context is helpful. We pastors tend to focus on certain texts that we happen to be preaching, to the neglect of other texts. The One Year Bible provides a convenient schedule to divide the entire New Testament up into daily readings, and the interlinear audio reinforces the meanings of the words. Second, the word order, syntax, and "patter" of Greek is different than English. Having the audio track along with the Greek words reinforces this syntax, and develops a certain comfortable fluency. Third, engaging sight and hearing at the same time makes learning more efficient. Fourth, covering the entire New Testament using the interlinear readings also exposes the different literary styles of the various biblical authors.
Hopefully, engaging the text from Matthew to Revelation every year in its native Koine Greek will help dust off the language and have it cease being simply a relic or source of technical word-study, but will become again a "living language" bearing the Word that makes alive and which testifies of the Word Made Flesh!
My goal is to move along at a reasonable clip. This exercise should take no more than five or ten minutes a day. I don't want to go so fast as to cause the reader to miss the nuances of the language (Greek is inflected, and little details, such as endings, are important to the meaning of the words), nor too slow so as to make the lessons drag. We'll see if I'm able to find a good comfortable pace.
So I hope you are able to benefit from this blog and this approach to the text.
If you've ever met someone who fluently and effortlessly reads the Greek text on the fly, rest assured that I am not that guy! I am not a scholar of the language, nor am I an expert. Other than my M.Div. degree from my wonderful alma mater Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana, I have no advanced degrees at all. I consider myself primarily a student of Holy Scripture and of New Testament Greek, and am by no means an instructor.
Also, I am not a professional reader. I do try to convey the sense of the reading by inflecting my voice - especially given the non-English word order - but I am under no delusions that I'm skilled at this endeavor! You'll also hear some of my feline help weighing in with suggestions from time to time. In other words, this is a thoroughgoing homespun and amateur effort. You are getting what you paid for, at any rate. :-)
So, with these caveats in mind, please feel welcome to make use of this blog as you see fit. Blessings on your year with the Greek New Testament! And if you have any suggestions, please feel free to shoot me an e-mail here.
I hope this resource is of help to students of New Testament Greek. It is obviously a work-in-progress, and I hope to stay ahead of the calendar year. Pray for me! :-)
I'm a big fan of the One Year Bible, and my family uses the ESV version for our daily devotions. It follows a pattern of 1) an Old Testament reading, 2) a New Testament reading, 3) a Psalm reading, and 4) a Proverbs reading.
The plan begins on January 1, and runs through the Bible in canonical order. My family reads the readings aloud as part of morning prayer. We have adopted different methodologies over the years. Currently, I read the Old Testament reading. My wife reads the New Testament reading while I follow along in Greek. She then reads the Psalm reading while I follow along in Latin. My son then reads the Proverbs selection (he is almost nine years old as of this writing).
I find that reading along in Greek is very helpful, but I think the exercise could be made even better if there were better word-for-word correlation. The ESV (which is the preferred translation of my church body, the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod) is "essentially literal" and is part of the King James Version family.
My idea was to have an audio reading of an interlinear so that I could follow along in the Greek. So that's what I'm doing in this blog. I found the old Scrivener's interlinear which is free from copyright protection (a nice version is available for kindle). It is geared more toward the Textus Receptus (and here is a link for an affordable TR NT along with the OT in Hebrew) than the modern USB or Nestle-Aland editions. I decided to include the Greek text for convenience, and so I am including the SBL translation from Bible Gateway. And here is the legal mumbo-jumbo: Scripture quotations marked SBLGNT are from the SBL Greek New Testament. Copyright © 2010 Society of Biblical Literature and Logos Bible Software. But of course, you may want to use your own Greek text to read along.
So, there may be occasional word order (textual) variations, but they will be minor and few.
I'm recording the audio using my iPhone and uploading to YouTube for convenience and to avoid paying for Dropbox or other hosting services. I hope this is okay. We'll find out.
I like this approach to continued Greek reading for a number of reasons. First, when most of us learned Biblical Greek, it was likely using a very technical approach: memorizing paradigms and lists of vocabulary - with the intent of translating the text into English. There is nothing wrong with learning this way. But it does provide some limitations. I think that reading the text in its native context is helpful. We pastors tend to focus on certain texts that we happen to be preaching, to the neglect of other texts. The One Year Bible provides a convenient schedule to divide the entire New Testament up into daily readings, and the interlinear audio reinforces the meanings of the words. Second, the word order, syntax, and "patter" of Greek is different than English. Having the audio track along with the Greek words reinforces this syntax, and develops a certain comfortable fluency. Third, engaging sight and hearing at the same time makes learning more efficient. Fourth, covering the entire New Testament using the interlinear readings also exposes the different literary styles of the various biblical authors.
Hopefully, engaging the text from Matthew to Revelation every year in its native Koine Greek will help dust off the language and have it cease being simply a relic or source of technical word-study, but will become again a "living language" bearing the Word that makes alive and which testifies of the Word Made Flesh!
My goal is to move along at a reasonable clip. This exercise should take no more than five or ten minutes a day. I don't want to go so fast as to cause the reader to miss the nuances of the language (Greek is inflected, and little details, such as endings, are important to the meaning of the words), nor too slow so as to make the lessons drag. We'll see if I'm able to find a good comfortable pace.
So I hope you are able to benefit from this blog and this approach to the text.
If you've ever met someone who fluently and effortlessly reads the Greek text on the fly, rest assured that I am not that guy! I am not a scholar of the language, nor am I an expert. Other than my M.Div. degree from my wonderful alma mater Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana, I have no advanced degrees at all. I consider myself primarily a student of Holy Scripture and of New Testament Greek, and am by no means an instructor.
Also, I am not a professional reader. I do try to convey the sense of the reading by inflecting my voice - especially given the non-English word order - but I am under no delusions that I'm skilled at this endeavor! You'll also hear some of my feline help weighing in with suggestions from time to time. In other words, this is a thoroughgoing homespun and amateur effort. You are getting what you paid for, at any rate. :-)
So, with these caveats in mind, please feel welcome to make use of this blog as you see fit. Blessings on your year with the Greek New Testament! And if you have any suggestions, please feel free to shoot me an e-mail here.
Just ordered a copy of the SBL. Hoping I can keep up.
ReplyDeleteDear Rich, the SBL is nice because it is free, and its version at Bible Gateway has all the accent marks. I considered using the Scrivner's version - which is also free at Bible Gateway - but it lacks the accent marks. If you can get a Textus Receptus version (such as is sold by the Trinitarian Bible Society), it will be word-for-word. But even with the SBL, it will be word for word nearly all of the time.
ReplyDeleteI hope you find this blog helpful! Peace in Christ!