Dave Black: Ten Best Books for Studying New Testament Greek
David Alan Black has posted a new essay, Ten Best Books for Studying New Testament Greek. The majority are books I have read and/or are on my shelves, but there are a couple that are just on my “need to read this list” and a couple more I’m going to add.
I note that when I teach Greek classes locally, usually to a couple of people at a time, I use the #1 and #2 books on his list. I know that as one of his publishers I should perhaps use one of his books as my text, but I will plead historical reasons–I picked the textbooks before I was his publisher!
If I might underline a couple of books on his list: #5. Peter Cotterell and Max Turner, Linguistics and Biblical Interpretation, and Dave’s related book, Linguistics for Students of New Testament Greek: A Survey of Basic Concepts and Applications
I always spend time talking about linguistics with my Greek or Hebrew students. It makes a great deal of difference to how valuable one’s technical language knowledge will be. When I studied Greek, I found that even syntax was neglected to some extent.
Finally, #10. Rodney Decker, Koine Greek Reader: Selections from the New Testament, Septuagint, and Early Christian Writers. In particular note the “Septuagint” and “Early Christian Writers.” In my opinion, if your reading is limited to the New Testament, you cannot claim to really understand New Testament Greek. I include the LXX in my regular reading, and I’m including more and more literature from the early church. It will be well worth your while to do so.
As far as literature from the early church, what sources are handy besides the Apostolic Fathers?
Well, I may not be the best person to ask, as my study of the church fathers is in its early stages at this point. I didn’t really encounter any early church literature while I was in school back in the 70s, and I only encountered the LXX because I worked on OT textual criticism. Seriously, in approximately the equivalent of five years of Greek, I never was assigned a reading outside the NT.
That said, what I have found most useful is my BDAG, which covers early Christian literature, my physical copy of Liddell and Scott (the small!), and also on Perseus, to which I also go for classical texts. For grammar, I still use Blass-deBrunner, even though I tend to frequently consult Wallace for NT, but he doesn’t cover early Christian literature. (I also find some of his distinctions between genitives a bit overdone, but that’s another topic.) For texts, the nearest university library has the Loeb Classical Library volumes which I borrow. Online, I use the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (Link goes to Apostolic fathers, but look around), and another source for eastern fathers (a current interest) here. It’s all in Greek, but it shouldn’t be that hard to work out!
That’s most of what I have used so far. I have done some reading in translation, but I never feel like I’ve really read something that was written in Greek until I have read it in Greek.
Oh, I should mention Hermeneia volumes. I worked my way through the Didache using the Hermeneia commentary, and hope at some point soon to get to the Shepherd of Hermas. They also have some good material.
One other way to get your feet wet is working with the apocrypha. I’ve found that challenging enough to push my Greek, but not so challenging as to slow me to a word-by-word approach.
OK, that’s a bit rambling, but perhaps it will help …
Thank you, very helpful. I can relate with what you said about never being assigned any reading outside of the NT, and about not having read it until you’ve read it in the original Greek yourself!
Here is a link to Dr. Black’s essay translated into Spanish in case any of your viewers has need of it.
http://jpnee.blogspot.com/2010/11/david-black-y-sus-recursos-favoritos.html
Thanks for the Spanish link!
Greek, I am just getting used to some of the english in the bible. Like many, for years just reading the english version was like greek to me. I think I’ll wait until I understand all the english before I dive into the greek. I rely on the bible to define God’s meaning of the words anyway through other verses, not the natural meaning of the words.
So you believe that the words of the Bible are not used in their “natural meaning?”