Clear, do you have a recommendation for beginner books for someone like myself who is interested in learning Biblical Greek and Hebrew? When you look at reviews there's always someone saying various books have elementary errors, and having no knowledge of their reliability or of the subject matter I've got no clue how to proceed. I just want something basic and accurate, to see if this is anything I really want to pursue. In other words, I don't want to shell out for the kind of text books used in seminary. Not yet, anyway.
Oddly enough, learning biblical Greek is something that offers a tradeoff between time and money. I use Bill Mounce's study materials. With them you can study 1st-year seminary-level Greek, taking a year or two or three as needed, and that is how I started out, using Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek (BBG) text.. It involves a lot of memorization, which is not my forte. Alternately, you can study using Mounce's Bible study Greek approach, presented in his book Greek for the Rest of Us. I am primarily following that approach right now, because of limited study and practice time.
Either way, you just need the materials. You don't necessarily have to sign up for a class or go anywhere. Optional instructional videos are available for both approaches, for a fee. I used the video lectures during the first two years of working with BBG, and they were quite helpful, but I am still having trouble with the memorization. Something to do with having a 72-year-old brain, I think.
Bible Study Greek is a software-assisted approach, and the one I recommend for Bible students, if the cost isn't a problem. This is from the preface of Greek for the Rest of Us:
Greek for the Rest of Us is divided into two sections.
■ Foundational Greek teaches you enough Greek so you can use Bible study software, understand a Strong’s Bible and a reverse interlinear, and do Greek word studies.
■ Church Greek teaches you more Greek so you can understand Greek-English interlinears, use better reference works, especially commentaries, and learn my exegetical method, “phrasing.”
Either way you start by learning the Greek alphabet and getting it plugged into your brain. There is no way around it, but it isn't that hard and doesn't take all that long. For Bible study Greek you also need Bible study software -- I use Accordance, available for PC, Mac, iOS, and Android -- and a Greek New Testament or, I think, an interlinear. I have the NA28-T GNT, which is not cheap, but I think there are other options that you can start out with.
The iOS and Android apps are limited, and I use the iOS app for reference but not usually for studying Greek. It is better on an iPad, but mine died after three years and I never replaced it. The full-featured version of Accordance requires a Mac or PC. I use it primarily on a PC. The MacOS version seems to be more solid -- fewer crashes.
My NA28-T GNT is morphologically tagged, which enables Accordance to do the parsing without requiring all that memorization. I likewise have a tagged Septuagint for the Greek Old Testament. It could be called cheating, but I think of it like "training wheels". If I don't recognize the inflection for a word, I just hover the mouse pointer over it and the parse appears in the Instant Details window. Over time my brain is picking up the parsing and beginning to do it automatically, as it once did with English long ago. It just takes longer now to learn.
Parsing isn't enough by itself -- you have to learn the grammar. The basic Greek grammar isn't all that hard to learn, and the book -- Greek For the Rest of Us -- teaches it, along with the other available materials. If you know English grammar well, that is a big help. I'm having to remember quite a bit of it from 7th and 8th grade, but it does come back if it was already in there.
I work with other tools, including the BDAG (Greek) and HALOT (Hebrew) lexicons and more. They can be very useful, but the cost does start to add up and they are not required to learn basic Greek.
Thanks very much! Thorough, as I knew it would be :)
I'll check out Greek For the Rest of Us, and see how that goes. I'm just a dabbler, but will definitely keep your response filed in case I get hooked and find I absolutely must get all the rest.
The Frankfurt School adapted Marx’s theories on revolution to include Freud’s theory of the subconscious. The Cultural Marxists’ main focus was to reshape the subconscious of Western men and women and thus create new type of person: one who would react passively to provocations of all kinds.
I've read of the Frankfurt School, and I've read of Freud's relationship to other "actors" of his time. All part of preparations for the present day, I would say.
Clear, do you have a recommendation for beginner books for someone like myself who is interested in learning Biblical Greek and Hebrew? When you look at reviews there's always someone saying various books have elementary errors, and having no knowledge of their reliability or of the subject matter I've got no clue how to proceed. I just want something basic and accurate, to see if this is anything I really want to pursue. In other words, I don't want to shell out for the kind of text books used in seminary. Not yet, anyway.
Oddly enough, learning biblical Greek is something that offers a tradeoff between time and money. I use Bill Mounce's study materials. With them you can study 1st-year seminary-level Greek, taking a year or two or three as needed, and that is how I started out, using Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek (BBG) text.. It involves a lot of memorization, which is not my forte. Alternately, you can study using Mounce's Bible study Greek approach, presented in his book Greek for the Rest of Us. I am primarily following that approach right now, because of limited study and practice time.
Either way, you just need the materials. You don't necessarily have to sign up for a class or go anywhere. Optional instructional videos are available for both approaches, for a fee. I used the video lectures during the first two years of working with BBG, and they were quite helpful, but I am still having trouble with the memorization. Something to do with having a 72-year-old brain, I think.
Bible Study Greek is a software-assisted approach, and the one I recommend for Bible students, if the cost isn't a problem. This is from the preface of Greek for the Rest of Us:
Greek for the Rest of Us is divided into two sections.
■ Foundational Greek teaches you enough Greek so you can use Bible study software, understand a Strong’s Bible and a reverse interlinear, and do Greek word studies.
■ Church Greek teaches you more Greek so you can understand Greek-English interlinears, use better reference works, especially commentaries, and learn my exegetical method, “phrasing.”
Either way you start by learning the Greek alphabet and getting it plugged into your brain. There is no way around it, but it isn't that hard and doesn't take all that long. For Bible study Greek you also need Bible study software -- I use Accordance, available for PC, Mac, iOS, and Android -- and a Greek New Testament or, I think, an interlinear. I have the NA28-T GNT, which is not cheap, but I think there are other options that you can start out with.
The iOS and Android apps are limited, and I use the iOS app for reference but not usually for studying Greek. It is better on an iPad, but mine died after three years and I never replaced it. The full-featured version of Accordance requires a Mac or PC. I use it primarily on a PC. The MacOS version seems to be more solid -- fewer crashes.
My NA28-T GNT is morphologically tagged, which enables Accordance to do the parsing without requiring all that memorization. I likewise have a tagged Septuagint for the Greek Old Testament. It could be called cheating, but I think of it like "training wheels". If I don't recognize the inflection for a word, I just hover the mouse pointer over it and the parse appears in the Instant Details window. Over time my brain is picking up the parsing and beginning to do it automatically, as it once did with English long ago. It just takes longer now to learn.
Parsing isn't enough by itself -- you have to learn the grammar. The basic Greek grammar isn't all that hard to learn, and the book -- Greek For the Rest of Us -- teaches it, along with the other available materials. If you know English grammar well, that is a big help. I'm having to remember quite a bit of it from 7th and 8th grade, but it does come back if it was already in there.
I work with other tools, including the BDAG (Greek) and HALOT (Hebrew) lexicons and more. They can be very useful, but the cost does start to add up and they are not required to learn basic Greek.
Thanks very much! Thorough, as I knew it would be :)
I'll check out Greek For the Rest of Us, and see how that goes. I'm just a dabbler, but will definitely keep your response filed in case I get hooked and find I absolutely must get all the rest.
The Frankfurt School adapted Marx’s theories on revolution to include Freud’s theory of the subconscious. The Cultural Marxists’ main focus was to reshape the subconscious of Western men and women and thus create new type of person: one who would react passively to provocations of all kinds.
https://nordicresistancemovement.org/what-is-cultural-marxism/
I'm seeing your comment in stereo!
I've read of the Frankfurt School, and I've read of Freud's relationship to other "actors" of his time. All part of preparations for the present day, I would say.