Greek Grammar Review: Learn to Read New Testament Greek

Dr. David Allan Black's grammar Learn to Read New Testament Greek is one of the most commonly requested grammar reviews on this channel. What we find is that this grammar takes a simplified approach to the language, which for the most part is a good thing to do, but which I wonder if it might cause some learners difficulties. Watch to find out my thoughts on this grammar and whether it's right for you.

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[frimports]

A little known secret there are lectures of Black teaching this grammar on YouTube. I believe it is a on the mission field, he is a phenomenal teacher. Some of these guys are so dry, I just can’t do it. Black’s explanations and teaching make the grammar come alive and have really changed the game for me, I actually understand some concepts.

[dexterplameras]

I've been going through Blacks grammar on my own with the aid of his video courses and these combined make studying Greek much easier. To answer some of Daryl's questions about how students find this.
As far as I can tell...

1) The philosophy of the book is start easy then gradually get to harder concepts. This is why Black starts with the easiest grammar in chapter 3, the verb case "present active indicative -ω verbs". It is also the easiest way to demonstrate inflection instead of going directly into nouns.

2) The next chapter 4, starts of with the 2nd declension, the easiest of the declensions and introduces the nominative, genitive, dative and accusative. He then relates the English Verb-Subject-Object (VSO) to understand the noun cases. Nominative as the subject with accusative as the subject first. For genitive Black uses the English preposition "of" as in "of a man" and dative "to" as in "to a man". These propositions make it easy for English speakers to understand the genitive and dative. Couple this with VSO which is taylor made to understand nominative and accusative cases. There is genius in introducing the verb first then the noun because it make it easier to provide examples of how the nominative, genitive, dative and accusative is used in English and then relate that back to Greek, using translation in the simple exercises. Using examples of concepts students already understand is the fastest way for most students to learn the new terms of concepts they already intrinsically know through use. Students such as me would not have learnt the technical terms, until they studied a second language such as Greek. My advice would be leverage what a student intrinsically knows and relate back to that the new terms they are learning.

3) Each step of the way Black relates back to the English using "gateway English", for example verbs, e.g."I loosed" aorist, "I was loosing" imperfect, "I have loosed", perfect, "I had loosed" imperfect etc. and keeps using exercises with only that small group of verb glosses to reinforce learning of the verb. This makes it easy to understand how the verb tense, mood, voice works because the same gloss is repeated over and over in the exercises and repetition is the key to learning language. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to move on to other glosses for the verb once students understand how it works.

I've skimmed read to the end and there are no hard concepts to understand. What is harder for me is paradigm and vocabulary memorisation, but thats an age thing. If I were in my teens or twenties I could study the concepts a handful of times and remember it, now I'm taking my time reading through each chapter and repeating exercises multiple times for reinforcement.

[Scobyland]

I have Black’s grammar, as well as Summers. For now I intended to refresh on my own, as I cannot afford to pay or take classes. Thank you for the review.

[MB-gdbe]

Have you done one on Hansen and Quinn's Greek text ?

[dexterplameras]

The exercises in professor Black's book from Chapter 18 onwards are all verses from the bible.

[Jonathon]

I used this grammar for beginning Greek years ago. I learned about it through daily dose of Greek’s learn Greek page which included a lecture series by Dr Rob Plummer for each chapter. I feel I learned the introductory material well this way. Thanks for the review!

[abigailb]

I'm a pastoral student in greek right now and we use this book. I'm ready to see this review!

I am currently almost halfway through my year long greek course. As a new learned using this book it has been a ton of work. I think that is to be expected with a language but my teacher was attempting to have us go through a chapter a week and it was too much information to sustain at that pace. We had to slow down around midterms last term and have spent four weeks just reviewing to make sure everyone can keep up. I am not sure if other books would be any better than this one in that regard.
I do agree that it is hard to know what to really memorize when just looking at the book. My teacher had to step in for guidance in that area to make sure we were on track.

[arthurodell]

I would still like to hear your thoughts on James Dobson’s Learn New Testament Greek as it takes a very different approach to all of the grammars. you have reviewed so far.

[scripturial]

I've personally taught through this book for a few years, after teaching using mounce. Im sure I grew in my teaching competence during that time so its hard to compare like for like between the two in terms of student success. But in my anecdotal subjective experience, this book seemed to lead to a better student outcome, having one smaller book with everything in one spot, rather than needing a sepearate workbook simplified everything as well. Although, with regards to the idea that maybe the pace of adding case and tense endings to quickly, It didn`t seem to be a problem, but;, I also at this point was creating small practice worksheet with simplified vocabulary to give students more chance to practice the endings in easy to read text. Personally I prefer this book over Mounce, and if I had the choice I would go with this over Mounce.

[pianoboyisme]

I’ve used both Mounce and Black. I appreciate the brevity of Black’s explanations. I found them to be just enough for me; Mounce is often overwhelming in my opinion. Now that I’m relearning, I’m using Merkle and Plummer. It is by far the best I’ve used.

I know some people who swear by Croy, which I have a copy of. I don’t really find it helpful. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on it though.

[chinoquant]

I did not like this grammar at all. The biggest hindrance for me was that the chapters frequently alternate between nouns and verbs. This makes the learning process very difficult as you are trying to learn two systems and many different paradigms at the same time. Also, I found that there was not enough explanation at all in each chapter. It essentially gives you a paradigm to memorize and moves on. I found the Mounce grammar to be much better for my learning style. Learn noun system first and then learn verbs. For someone who is not good at memorizing, Mounce made it a lot easier to learn because i understood with his clear explanations. Thank you for all these videos!

[BrotherJLG]

An older edition of Black's grammar was the first one that I obtained. I did like how succinct it was and some of the explanations really helped as a new learner. I am one of those who desire more detail though. I currently have and am going through Decker' s grammar, I had already gone through most of Mounce, but I do like comparing with Black's examples or explanations sometimes. His exercises are simple and enjoyable too since they are in the book itself instead of a separate workbook.

[AG]

Great video! I really enjoy your work here and you are doing a great job promoting NT Greek! It sure is difficult to find a "perfect" grammar. For me, it would be best if they presented grammar in small chunks followed by vocabulary and a short dialogue, just like modern language learning. That would slowly build up our reading skills and give us a huge head start to reading the NT. Maybe someday such a book will be produced.

[wst]

Have you reviewed James Voelz Fundamental Greek Grammar 4th Edition and Gerald Stevens' New Testament Greek Primer, Third Edition: From Morphology to Grammar?

[stuartford]

Excellent, thank you. I wonder if you'd consider taking a look at Duff's Elements of New Testament Greek? Here in the UK it seems to be the standard textbook

[TheJesusNerd]

Can you review Athenazae textbooks and Ray Summers grammar?

[zpkruis]

Wondering if you might discuss Greek grammars at a high school level, for example, First Form Greek by Memoria. As a teacher I have been frustrated by the busy work in the workbook and low number of translation exercises. What are some alternatives for highschool? I taught from Black for a year. Excellent grammar, with pros and cons. Cons were mostly due my context, however.

[hisgrace]

Thank you for the review! Been waiting for this for a Long time :) what would you suggest to go along with this grammar? Will you review Dr Black’s intermediate grammar too?

[robwagnon]

Here is a 'kindergarden question, why are most Greek NT written in lower case when most condexes or manuscripts were in what is considered upper case, doesn't this just add to confusion?

[PracticalBibleStudies]

@MNTG- Do you see any value to learning Coptic after Greek? Just due to a lot of old manuscripts and discoveries like the Nag Hammadi Library or Codex Tchakos. Thanks in advance!