Courses

This course is the second half of a two-term introduction to the Greek of the New Testament (NT). It is intended for students who have taken Greek I (Introduction to Biblical Languages) under the new MDC language curriculum (NT 1B03). Continuing the journey of learning Greek from a functional perspective, we will follow a usage-based pedagogical approach to teaching elementary Greek, in which grammar and vocabulary are introduced according to frequency of usage in the NT, with the most frequent items introduced first. This course assumes that the student has an awareness of the material taught in NT 1B03 and has already learned most of the Greek grammatical categories (e.g., you know what an aorist verb is even if you cannot recognize its various forms).

In this course, students will focus on mastering Greek at the word level. Emphasis will be on acquiring a broad Greek vocabulary and knowledge of morphology (words and their forms) for sight reading. We will explore the Greek nominal and verbal systems starting with a review of the most consistent and common forms and paradigms, and then gradually moving on to the less common and less consistent ones. At the end of this course, students should be able to recognize a significant proportion of NT Greek words (and their forms) and hence read a portion of the New Testament in its original language with the help of a lexicon.

Knowing

• Become familiar with the basic morphology and vocabulary of the Greek New Testament
• Understand verses from the Greek New Testament
• Know the basic concepts needed for the study of the Greek New Testament, and the exegetical methods that aid in the interpretation of individual passages

Being 

• Be someone who appreciates the value of understanding the original language and understanding how to use it in ministry
• Be someone who finds pleasure in working with the Greek language in your study of the Bible
• Be someone who has learned how to learn in a group setting, and benefited from working with others in a learning community

Doing 

• Be able to proficiently describe the form of a word and its function in a clause
• Be able to read to the Greek New Testament, recognizing all major vocabulary and syntactical features, with the aid of a lexicon