Greek for the Rest of Us
In a few weeks I will be joining a study group with some other friends to begin learning Greek. If you are in the Seattle area and also interested in learning some Greek make sure you read to the end. I have wanted to learn Greek in the past, but I am becoming more and more aware of its necessity if I am going to grow in exegesis.
Exegesis is basically getting the meaning out of a passage. The meaning of a passage can shift greatly just based on the interpretation of one or two words. Often the Greek behind our English translation has clues as to which direction to go in exegesis, but if you don’t know how to work with Greek then you are out of luck.
The book that we have chosen to work through is Greek for the Rest of Us by William D. Mounce. Mounce isn’t a slouch either. To note just a part of his work, he was the Chairman for the translation of the New Testament for the ESV.
The purpose of Greek for the Rest of Us is to equip the reader for “using Greek tools without master biblical Greek.” The book is divided into six sections that are meant to be covered in six weeks.
- Week 1: Getting Acquainted with Greek
The first week looks at the Greek language in general, its alphabet, pronunciation and concludes with a section on the translation of the New Testament from Greek.
- Week 2: The Building Blocks of Language
The second week focuses on English grammar including nouns, verbs, clauses and phrases. It closes with a section on phrasing titled “An introduction to Our Bible Study Method”.
- Week 3: How Do We Modify Ideas
This week covers conjunctions, adjectives, phrases, clauses and fine-tuning phrases.
- Week 4: How Do We Describe Action
Here we get into Greek verbs and their forms, present indicative, future indicative, imperfect, aorist, and the sweet smelling perfect indicative. It closes with a section going over paper and electronic tools for Greek.
- Week 5: What Else Is in a Verb?
Covered in this week is the participle, subjunctive, infinitive, and of course the lovely imperative. The last section for this week is on word studies.
- Week 6: How Do We Describe Things?
The final week brings us to the nomative, vocative, accusative, dative and genitive with two closing sections on how to read commentaries and a brief history of textual criticism.
Now if you, like me, don’t know what most of those terms mean don’t worry – That’s why this book was written!
Finally, it has been said that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. In fact, Mounce says this in his preface as a cause of concern with teaching “a little Greek” to someone. Mounce rebuts that concern though with his view that it is a little arrogance, not knowledge, that is dangerous.
This book will only provide an introduction to Greek, but with it I should be able to make better use of Bible tools that I am already using and begin using tools that I was unable to use without a basic understanding of Greek.
The class will be taught by one of our elders, Scott Golike. There is some teaching from Scott on The Resurgence if you would like to see what he is like (check out the talks on Hermeneutical and Exegetical Integrity!)
There is also some more room for folks in the Seattle area. If you would like more information please contact me at dwayne@4handsclapping.com.
