Best Book for Learning New Testament Greek | Reading Koine Greek by Rodney Decker

Have you ever wanted to learn to read the New Testament in Greek but didn't know where to start? In this episode I share 4 reasons why my favorite is Reading Koine Greek by Rodney Decker along with 2 negatives about the book. The book's streamlined morphology and use of the "4 quad chart" helps unlock Greek morphology. So if you're looking to learn or review Greek, this episode has a book for you!

0:00 Introduction
0:36 Reason #1 - Streamlined Morphology
2:45 Reason #2 - Up To Date
3:43 Reason #3 - Thorough Explanations
6:24 Reason #4 - Other Greek Texts
7:01 Con #1 - Workbook
7:49 Con #2 - Length
8:37 Conclusion

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Episode Transcript

JC Schroeder (00:00):
Hi friends, there are a lot of Greek grammars
available and while all willteach you Greek, and some are
really good and beneficial, thequestion is, which is best?
Now I have taught out of thisbook for several years and I
have four reasons why I thinkthis book is the best one, as

(00:20):
well as there's two cons.
My favorite is Reading KoineGreek by Rodney Decker.
But what makes this book thebest?
Well, let's look at these fourreasons.
I'm JC Schroeder and this isBite Size Seminary.
The first reason is thestreamlined morphology
explanation.

(00:41):
A lot of books teach Greek bygiving you what feels like
17,000 charts of morphology tomemorize, which is just like
overwhelming, like it'simpossible.
So Decker, the author of thisbook.
He seeks to avoid this rotememory work as much as possible.
It's still needed to somedegree, but he tries to limit it

(01:03):
as much as he can.
He provides formulas for themorphology, and this is where I
think it's real gold.
For instance, the verb endingsare streamlined to four charts
called the four-quad chart, andthis four-quad chart, it
unlocked verb morphology for me.
It makes things so much easierto keep everything in your head.

(01:27):
The four-quad chart breaks downbetween primary and secondary
tenses and active and middlevoices.
So instead of learning a newchart for a different tense or
voice, he shows how they sharethe same endings.
This is key.
This helps you to remember theforms easier, but also to parse

(01:52):
better.
In addition, he has formulas touse with the various tense form
markers.
For example, here's the formulafor the first heiress active
indicative.
You have the epsilon augment onthe front of the full stem and
then you have that sigma alphaform marker that we're used to
seeing with the first heiressforms and then we have B

(02:14):
personal endings.
There He's using the four quadchart.
So using the four quad chartwith the formulas is a very
streamlined approach tomorphology and if you want more
details about how these formsare built, he Explains this
morphology, how they're built,in any oddities with a form that

(02:35):
might come up in the footnotes.
I think for me personally, thisaspect of the book is worth its
price.
All by itself It's that good.
The second reason I like thisbook is that the book is up to
date with current Greekadvancements.
The study of Greek has advancedtremendously in the last 20 to
30 years and some grammars areStill lagging behind a bit.

(02:59):
Decker presents up-to-dateinformation about, specifically
the middle voice and verbalaspect.
Yet, and you might think thatthis gets a little bit too
technical, but his discussionremains quite accessible.
So Decker is, i think, findthis interesting.
Decker is a leading scholar onVerbal aspect, especially in the

(03:23):
Gospel of Mark, so hedefinitely knows his stuff when
he when he's describing this andthe Advancements that have
happened over the last coupleyears, but when he writes about
it it never becomes tootechnical for the beginning
student.
Now, verbal aspect is adifficult concept, but this is a
very good entry point into somecutting-edge stuff.

(03:43):
The third reason is the book hasgood and thorough explanations.
This is true in four differentareas.
First, many students do notknow English grammar I know, i
didn't and thus are confusedwith terms and with even syntax
itself.
So Decker does a good job ofclearly explaining a concept in

(04:06):
English, how it works in English, before then moving on to the
Greek equivalent or the topicthat he's covering in Greek.
This aspect is really helpfulbecause it shows a lot of
compassion for a student who'smaybe struggling in learning the
language.
Second, it providesquote-a-quote advanced
information for referenceSections at the end of most

(04:27):
chapters for the interested orfor those that are just going to
return later to this.
This is one of the benefits, ithink, of this book is that it
will grow with you.
It's not just I'm learning itright now and then I need
another book later on.
You may need other books later,but this will grow with you.
You can easily come back tothis book and fill in some gaps

(04:51):
and Already be familiar with thebook.
It really, i think, threadsthat needle well with having
some Intermediate aspects foryou to return to.
Third, for the vocabulary, thereare detailed definitions along
with simplified glosses.
It helps students to begin tounderstand and learn the
semantic range of words.

(05:12):
Words don't have just onemeaning, so, for example, the
word run us.
The typical glosses are sky orheaven.
But Decker further gives thedefinition of Quote that part of
the universe surrounding theearth, including the atmosphere,
sky and or the place whereother cosmic bodies are located,

(05:33):
the heavens, the place whereGod's presence is manifested,
heaven.
He also gives how many timesthe word appears in the New
Testament and the substitution.
He does this for all of thevocabulary terms.
So you're gonna learn somethinglike 425 I think it is off the
top of my head Words from theNew Testament and the

(05:55):
substitution, and so this isreally really helpful, helping
the student to understand thedifferent definitions of words.
Fourth, it also has greatcharts and indices.
Don't sleep on this now,because nothing frustrates a
student or myself more than notbeing able to find something.
And having really good chartsto be able to say this is what a

(06:18):
form looks like.
We're having an index to beable to find where in your
textbook that is is reallyhelpful.
The final reason why this bookis the best is that it is not
limited to the New Testamentonly.
There is a healthy amount ofSeptuagint readings, and even
some from the church fathers.
This helps, i think, preparestudents to read text outside of

(06:41):
the New Testament and thus canhelp improve reading skills as
well as exegesis, because if youare able to read the Septuagint
, then you're going to hearthose residences in the New
Testament as well.
Now, no grammar is perfect, andthere are a couple of cons to
this book.
The first con is the difficultylevel of the workbook exercises

(07:05):
.
Now, i am glad that there is aworkbook integrated throughout
the grammar.
That's super cool.
The problem, though, is thatthe exercises are just too
difficult for beginning students.
I love that you've got theseexercises, that they are real
Greek, that they come from theNew Testament and from the
Septuagint, but it can just befrustrating to use.

(07:27):
The first year I used this as atextbook in my elementary Greek
class.
I thought I would just usethese exercises in the book, but
I realized a few weeks into theclass that this was not going
to work and I just had to makemy own homework assignments.
So it's a bit more extra workfor a teacher, and it's a bit
unfortunate that it's not a bitmore user-friendly or

(07:48):
student-friendly in that regard.
On the other hand, the secondcon is, you know, it's quite
small, and it relates to thelength of the book.
This is a big boy, it's a bigbook.
It comes in at 672 pages.
That's a lot, and I think thisis really a double-edged sword.
Sometimes students just need ashort explanation Here's the

(08:10):
chart and then move on, and thebook tries to do this as much as
it can.
But this book is by no meansbloated.
It's not full of extraexposition or something like
that, and I would personallywould rather have more than less
.
The length, though, is justsomething to note, and, as I
mentioned earlier, one of thepros of this is that you can
come back to this book as well.

(08:31):
The length is something to note.
It's maybe a con, it's maybe abenefit, depending on the
situation.
All that to say, this is myfavorite Greek grammar, and the
pros definitely outweigh thecons.
So if you're looking for agreat book to learn or even
review Greek, this one is foryou.
You should check it out.
If you want to learn more tipsand resources for learning Greek

(08:55):
, check out the video on thescreen.
I hope that helps.
Thank you for watching.