DESCRIPTION: This course is the first part of a three-quarter series designed to give the student a basic knowledge of the essential grammar of New Testament Greek as well as an introduction to morphology, syntax, and other matters of beginning grammar. Students registering for this course should plan to continue with parts B and C of the same series, held in the Winter and Spring quarters respectively.

COURSE OBJECTIVES/LEARNING OUTCOMES: At the end of this course, a student should be able to do the following: (1) to read aloud in the language; (2) to identify the varied nouns and pronouns of the language; (3) to parse the "regular" verb forms in the language; (4) to recognize the "irregular" verb forms in the language; (5) to understand enough grammar to read a basic narrative text in the language; (6) to identify subjects, adjectives, direct and indirect objects, prepositional phrases, and adverbs, when reading a text; (7) to use a lexicon to amplify his/her understanding of words and to find words he/she does not know; (8) to use a reference grammar to investigate grammatical and syntactical issues that he/she does not understand; (9) to understand the challenges, purposes, and value of learning this language.

RELEVANCE FOR MINISTRY: One of the elements in interpreting the text of the New Testament is understanding the language in which it was written. Students who successfully complete this course should, with the use of various resources, be able to consult the Greek text as part of the exegetical (and ministerial!) task, and should be able to critically evaluate the theological and exegetical positions which purport to be based on some feature of the Greek text.

COURSE FORMAT: The course meets twice each week for two hours per class session.

REQUIRED READING:

Aland, K., et al. The Greek New Testament. 4th rev. ed. United Bible Societies, 1993.
Or Nestle, E., and K. Aland. Novum Testamentum Graece. 27th ed. Deutsche Bibelstiftung, 1993.

Danker, F. W. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. 3d ed. Based on Walter Bauer. . . . University of Chicago Press, 2000 [BDAG].

Mounce, William D. Basics of Biblical Greek: Grammar. Zondervan, 1993.

See the Biblical Division bibliography "Linguistic and Exegetical Books Required in the Master of Divinity Program" available in the SOT Academic Advising office.

Black, D. A. It's Still Greek to Me: An Easy-to-Understand Guide to Intermediate Greek. Baker, 1998.

Newman, Barclay M. A Concise Greek-English Dictionary of the New Testament. United Bible Societies, 1993. (Get this if the GNT above does not include dictionary.)

Van Voorst, R. E. Building Your New Testament Greek Vocabulary. 2nd ed. Scholars Press, 1999.

Wallace, Daniel B. Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament. Zondervan, 1996.