Winter 2016/Pasadena

LG510

Pendleton

LG510: GREEK TOOLS FOR BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION (4 Units: 160 hours). James B. Pendleton.

DESCRIPTION: This course provides an introduction to and practice in the use of exegetical Greek for ministry. It emphasizes an inductive approach to working with the Greek New Testament and important linguistic matters that influence understanding New Testament texts. The course stresses the use of standard tools for Greek study (including software) instead of extensive memorization of forms and vocabulary in order to focus on the practical use of the Greek New Testament.

LEARNING OUTCOMES: Having successfully completed this course, students will have demonstrated the ability (1) to recognize and use the Greek alphabet; (2) to read and pronounce Greek words easily; (3) to work with standard Greek language tools (e.g., lexicons, concordances, analytical concordances, and grammars) in the service of New Testament exegesis; (4) to articulate the significance of Greek conjunctions and clauses for analyzing the structure of a New Testament passage; and (5) to apply basic scholarship on lexical semantics to studying the sense of Greek terms.

COURSE FORMAT: This course meets twice weekly for two-hour sessions for 10 weeks for a total of 40 hours of classroom instruction.

REQUIRED READING (TOOLS):

BibleWorks ($359, available at a group discount at <http://www.bibleworks.com/IPP/> for $259), plus the module “Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (BDAG)” ($150) at < http://store.bibleworks.com/modules.html> (Total cost of BibleWorks with BDAG: $509 or, with the group discount, $409).

Note #1: These tools can be used in biblical studies courses as well as in subsequent ministry. BibleWorks is available for either PC or Mac (for system requirements, see http://www.bibleworks.com/content/sys-req.html).

Note #2: Successful completion of the course requires ongoing access to the following reference works, all of which are available in BibleWorks: an exhaustive Greek concordance, L&N (J.P. Louw and E.A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament [United Bible Societies, 1988]), an up-to-date text of the Greek New Testament (either E. Nestle and K. Aland, Novum Testamentum Graece [28th ed.; Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2012] or K. Aland et al., The Greek New Testament [4th ed.; United Bible Societies, 1993]), Wallace (Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament [Zondervan, 1996]), and an analytical Greek lexicon. Additionally, students will need ongoing access to BDAG (F.W. Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature [3rd ed.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000]), available as an add-on module in BibleWorks.

W.D. Mounce. Greek for the Rest of Us: The Essentials of Biblical Greek. 2nd. ed. Zondervan, 2013. ISBN: 978-0310277101, Pub. Price $29.99.