BiblioVault - Books about Greek language, Biblical

F. Wilbur Gingrich

University of Chicago Press

This one-volume digest provides easy access to reliable and brief definitions, interpretations of most variants, and many of the conjugational and declensional forms that frustrate readers of the New Testament. Danker's revision demonstrates his concern for the needs of students as well as those of ministers and scholars.

"[The Shorter Lexicon] is by far superior to other New Testament 'dictionaries' of comparable size."—Robert Hoerber, Classical World

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Building Your New Testament Greek Vocabulary, Third Edition

Robert E. Van Voorst

SBL Press, 2022

Building Your New Testament Greek Vocabulary, now in its third edition, provides students a user-friendly introduction to the vocabulary of New Testament Greek. Van Voorst helps the student to move away from rote memorization toward better long-term vocabulary learning based on how Greek words are built and related to each other. He provides students with easy-to-remember English derivatives, lists the number of occurrences for each word learned, provides lists that are easily learned in a single vocabulary-learning session and, most importantly, organizes the book on the basis of word families and frequency. New to this edition are a comprehensive list of proper nouns and a section to help students understand particular Greek words. Definitions of Greek words have been revised where necessary according to the new, third edition of the Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament edited by Frederick Danker.

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The Concise Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament

Frederick William Danker

University of Chicago Press, 2009

Frederick William Danker, a world-renowned scholar of New Testament Greek, is widely acclaimed for his 2000 revision of Walter Bauer’s A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. With more than a quarter of a million copies in print, it is considered the finest dictionary of its kind.

Danker’s Concise Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament will prove to be similarly invaluable to ministers, seminarians, translators, and students of biblical Greek. Unlike other lexica of the Greek New Testament, which give only brief glosses for headwords, The Concise Greek-English Lexicon offers extended definitions or explanations in idiomatic English for all Greek terms.

Each entry includes basic etymological information, short renderings, information on usage, and plentiful biblical references. Greek terms that could have different English definitions, depending on context, are thoughtfully keyed to the appropriate passages. An overarching aim of The Concise Greek-English Lexicon is to assist the reader in recognizing the broad linguistic and cultural context for New Testament usage of words.

The Concise Greek-English Lexicon retains all the acclaimed features of A Greek-English Lexicon in a succinct and affordable handbook, perfect for specialists and nonspecialists alike.

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Discourse Markers in Early Koine Greek

Cognitive-Functional Analysis and LXX Translation Technique

Christopher J. Fresch

SBL Press, 2023

Using a cognitive-functional linguistic framework and cross-linguistic research on discourse markers, Christopher J. Fresch investigates the use of five discourse markers in the documentary papyri of the third to first centuries BCE and the Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible. Through this analysis, Fresch proposes linguistically grounded descriptions for how each discourse marker uniquely functions to guide readers in how they process and comprehend the text. Based on these descriptions, he examines the instances of these discourse markers in the Greek translation of the Minor Prophets and how the translator used them to render the Hebrew text. Fresch presents a picture of a translator who selected discourse markers based on their own understanding of the structure, flow, and meaning of the underlying Hebrew text. Their use attests to a translator who was contextually aware and who desired to produce a translation in idiomatic Koine.

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A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature

Walter Bauer

University of Chicago Press, 2000

Described as an "invaluable reference work" (Classical Philology) and "a tool indispensable for the study of early Christian literature" (Religious Studies Review) in its previous edition, this new updated American edition of Walter Bauer's Wörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments builds on its predecessor's staggering deposit of extraordinary erudition relating to Greek literature from all periods. Including entries for many more words, the new edition also lists more than 25,000 additional references to classical, intertestamental, Early Christian, and modern literature.

In this edition, Frederick W. Danker's broad knowledge of Greco-Roman literature, as well as papyri and epigraphs, provides a more panoramic view of the world of Jesus and the New Testament. Danker has also introduced a more consistent mode of reference citation, and has provided a composite list of abbreviations to facilitate easy access to this wealth of information.

Perhaps the single most important lexical innovation of Danker's edition is its inclusion of extended definitions for Greek terms. For instance, a key meaning of "episkopos" was defined in the second American edition as overseer; Danker defines it as "one who has the responsibility of safeguarding or seeing to it that something is done in the correct way, guardian." Such extended definitions give a fuller sense of the word in question, which will help avoid both anachronisms and confusion among users of the lexicon who may not be native speakers of English.

Danker's edition of Bauer's Wörterbuch will be an indispensable guide for Biblical and classical scholars, ministers, seminarians, and translators.

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Introduction to Classical and New Testament Greek

A Unified Approach

Michael Boler

Catholic University of America Press, 2020

The defining feature of this textbook is the treatment of classical and New Testament Greek as one language using primary sources. All the example sentences the students will translate are real Greek sentences, half of which are taken from classical literature and philosophy and half of which are directly from the New Testament. The advantage of this approach is that it highlights the linguistic, literary, and historical connections between classical Greece and early Christianity. Rather than having students memorize isolated tables and artificial sentences, Michael Boler spent years combing through thousands of pages of literature, philosophy, and scripture to find short, powerful sentences that not only teach the grammatical concepts in each chapter, but also contain seeds of wisdom that will spark wonder and discussion. Introduction to New Testament and Classical Greek is born out of classroom experience in a Catholic liberal arts university whose students were disappointed to be forced to choose between textbooks that taught classical Greek in isolation and ones that focused exclusively on the New Testament. By the end of this book, students will have read over 200 lines of scripture and an equal amount of ancient literature from Homer to Aristotle. They will also have the grammatical knowledge to continue to read classical and New Testament Greek. Each chapter contains a section at the end that delves deeply into the etymology and background of the words and passages encountered in the respective chapter. Professors will thus be able to use these chapters as a bridge to philosophical, theological, historical, and literary topics that will enrich the class.

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An Introductory New Testament Greek Course, Revised Edition

Francis T. Gignac, SJ

Catholic University of America Press, 2015

Many Christians have the desire to read the New Testament in its original language. Unfortunately, books that introduce the student to New Testament Greek either tend to be long-winded, or overly simplified, or both. In this book, legendary scholar of biblical Greek, the late Frank Gignac provides a straight-forward "just the facts" approach to the subject. In fifteen lessons, he presents the basics of the grammar and the vocabulary essential for reading the Gospels in the original language. All the reader need do is to supply the desire to learn. As Gignac writes, "good luck as you begin to learn another language! It may be sheer drudgery for a while, but the thrill will come when you begin to read the New Testament in the language in which it was written."

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New Testament Greek Workbook

An Inductive Study of the Complete Text of the Gospel of John

James Arthur Walther

University of Chicago Press, 1981

In this new edition, the Greek text of the United Bible Societies is used throughout. The beginning student is involved at once in reading Greek and learns grammar and syntax as he encounters them in the text. Each unit of the workbook contains three parts—vocabulary, study notes, and end-of-unit quizzes. The vocabulary is introduced as it occurs in the text. Study notes are designed to aid the student in translating the text and to supplement the teacher's help. End-of-unit questions help the student consolidate what he has learned.

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NT Greek

A Systems Approach

John Clabeaux

University of Scranton Press, 2009

For many years now John Clabeaux has been perfecting his technique for teaching New Testament Greek—using his classrooms at St. John’s Seminary College, Harvard Divinity School, and the Pontifical College Josephinum as language laboratories. The comprehensive, meticulous, and user-friendly text NT Greek: A Systems Approach is the fruit of these efforts.

NT Greek is designed to be used both as a classroom text and as a reference manual for those students pursuing degrees in theological and biblical studies. The text includes a Greek index, an English index, a Greek-to-English glossary, verb maps, noun and adjective declension charts, and a list of helpful hints and rules. A digitally mastered CD of Greek recitations comes with every book to assist students with their pronunciations.

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The Old Greek of Isaiah

An Analysis of Its Pluses and Minuses

Mirjam van der Vorm-Croughs

SBL Press, 2014

A concise study of a large number of examples of pluses and minus providing insight into translation from Hebrew to Greek

Van der Vorm-Croughs focuses this translation study on the processes leading to pluses and minuses including linguistic and stylistic aspects (i.e., cases in which elements have been added or omitted for the sake of a proper use of the Greek language), literary aspects (additions and omissions meant to embellish the Greek text), translation technical aspects (e.g., the avoidance of redundancy), and contextual and intertextual exegesis and harmonization. This work also covers the relation between the Greek Isaiah and its possible Hebrew Vorlage to try to determine which pluses and minuses may have been the result of the translator’s use of a different Hebrew text.

Features:

Eleven categories for the pluses and minuses of the Greek Isaiah
Examination of translation techniques and translator errors
Use of Joseph Ziegler’s critical edition

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Postclassical Greek and Septuagint Lexicography

William A. Ross

SBL Press, 2022

A long-standing tradition within biblical scholarship sets the Greek text of the Septuagint constantly in relationship with its supposed Hebrew or Aramaic Vorlage, examining the two together in terms of their grammatical alignment as a standard. Yet another tradition frames the discussion in different terms, preferring instead to address the Septuagint first of all in light of its contemporary Greek linguistic environment and only then attempting to describe its language and style as a text. It is this latter approach that William A. Ross employs in this textually based study of the Greek versions of Judges, a so-called double text in the textual history of the Septuagint. The results of his study offer a window into the Old Greek translation and its later revision, two distinct stages of Greek Judges with numerous instances of divergent vocabulary choices that reflect deliberateness in both the original selection and the subsequent change within the textual development of the book. Ross’s study illustrates the practicalities and payoff of a Greek-oriented lexicographical method that situates the language of the Septuagint squarely within its contemporary historical and linguistic context.

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