A Beginner's New Testament Greek Grammar [Paperback]

Sakae Kubo (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 25, 1979 | ISBN-10: 0819107611 | ISBN-13: 978-0819107619

A college level text written to complement the author's widely used Readers Greek/English Lexicon of the New Testament. Readings are graduated and are provided every few chapters to confirm vocabulary and grammar development. Vocabulary is arranged according to frequency, while emphasis is placed on recognition of individual forms rather than on entire paradigms.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, Greek

About the Author

Sakae Kubo is Professor of Theology at Walla Walla College.

Product Details

• Paperback: 100 pages
• Publisher: University Press Of America (May 25, 1979)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0819107611
• ISBN-13: 978-0819107619
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #737,967 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Sakae Kubo received his PhD in New Testament and early Christian literature from the University of Chicago and taught eighteen years at the Theological Seminary at Andrews University. He later served as dean of the School of Theology at Walla Walla College, as president of Newbold College in England, and vice president of academic affairs at Atlantic Union College. Now retired, he lives in Chico, California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kubo's Greek Grammar Clear as Glass, January 6, 2001

By 

Dave and Martha Spotts (Huntington, WV United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Beginner's New Testament Greek Grammar (Paperback)

I have studied Attic and Homeric Greek for years and can testify that most of the teaching texts go in for obtuse explanations, little review, and pretty difficult and pedantic exercises. I expected the same as I was looking at Koine Greek texts. I was delighted to find a different pictiure when I looked at Kubo's text. After the inital price shock for a paperback (which, by the way, should be covered with contact paper quickly) I found clear explanations, illustrations through use of rewritten passages of Scripture, additional practice sentences, orderly paradigms - in short, everything a beginner needs to know in order to gain a solid ability to read the New Testament in Greek. It is also a great preparation for the Reader's Greek-English Lexicon. Give the man five stars!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars needs more meat on the bones, January 1, 2010

By 

Leonardo in the orchard (by Gitchee Gumee) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Beginner's New Testament Greek Grammar (Paperback)

This book was used for elementary Greek at Bethel Seminary in 1990, for the blessed learning of NT Greek. My book has 235 pages in it, so something must have changed, for it to have only 100 pages, according to the entry here. My copy has 123 lessons, 3 appendices. We went through the first 54 lessons.

Kubo recommends taking a portion of the Greek NT(John or I John, the two of which this book aims at preparing one to read) and just reading through it for 5 or so minutes in class, in other words, approaching the text inductively. In the early stage, "the teacher must explain just about everything". So he is for combining an inductive as well as deductive approach. This is good. Give him props.

He has a short intro chapter on some characteristics of Greek, in which he compares English to Greek. Helpful, more is needed. Gerald Stevens(for one) has hit upon a good point when he says that(at least American) students need to understand English grammar better in order to grasp Greek, therefore he has a section on English grammar. My pastor told me that he really learned about English grammar when he took Greek. Kubo remarks on proclitics and enclitics in this early chapter, after talking about accents, one of those things the teacher would need to explain. More comparison between English and Greek would be helpful in this chapter, which is just 3 pages long.

Starting out on my own to learn Greek, I used an old classical Greek primer, which was fortifying in vocabulary, and tried to make my way along myself, as well as I could **This is not pertinent to Kubo in particular, but I want to bring up the broader study of Greek, so that is what I am doing, sorry if it seems out of place. There are many fine classical Greek primers, some that start with Homer(Clyde PharrHomeric Greek: A Book For Beginners, Schoder and HorriganReading Course in Homeric Greek: Book One (revised) (English and Greek Edition) (Bk. 1), and Beetham's Homeric primer. There are the Attic Greek primers, like Zuntz!, or Hansen and QuinnGreek: An Intensive Course, MastronardeIntroduction to Attic Greek **ISBN: 9780520201774**. These top drawer Attic grammars deductively teach Greek grammar thoroughly, and are much used.

The Cambridge Reading Greek projectReading Greek: Text and Vocabulary, or AthenazeAthenaze: An Introduction to Ancient Greek Book 1 2e - UK Edition (Bk.1), from Oxford Univ. Press both take a reading, inductive, approach, getting the student into connected Greek passages right away. Athenaze has a storyline composed for the book, and has much cultural information along the way, for our education. I like the inductive approach. However, when you are unfamiliar with what is going on morphology or syntax wise, then you crave knowing what is happening. So I also like the detailed primers like Mastronarde and Hansen and Quinn.

There are many more than this, Chase and Allen, who do not repeat themselves, and whose work is praised as a model of language teaching.

There are several good grammars that women have done. A. Groton did "From Alpha to Omega", and C.LuschnigAn Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach, P. Saffire/C. Fries, together wrote "Ancient Greek Alive" C. Shelmerdine "Introduction to Greek", G. Seligson"Greek for Reading". Several of these have drawn praise from classical Greek teachers, thorough reviews may be found at Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews, which are quite worth reading. I have just sent off for Luschnig's, and for Shelmerdine's, the latter of which is a substantial remake of Wilding's Greek book. Shelmerdine gives Greek straightforwardly, but with grammar explained, where Wilding relied upon Abbott and Mansfield. The readings in Wilding and Shelmerdine's expanded and augmented reprise of same have been praised. Saffire and Freis' book adapts various stories into Greek, and uses conversation between class members to start the class off with. Obviously this is not easily done doing independent study. However, they do a good job of explaining many things, and the story line of the sage Nasruddin allows them to bring the student along, rather like Athenaze has its central character, a farmer. One more fine contribution by a woman is a revision of W. D. Rouses' book "First Greek Course" by Anne Mahoney. This was meant to be accompanied by "A Greek boy", with its storyline.

One good older book is "Teach yourself ancient Greek', by Kinchin Smith and Melluish. Very enjoyable, it is encouraging, and it has a good amount of Biblical Greek. This book does not claim to ready the student to read classical Greek texts, it is a good start, however, and it should be in print. It makes learning Greek to be a pleasure, and besides that, it has a cartoon demonstrating the Greek prepositions.

In the NT Greek, I preferred referring to Eric Jay's primerNew Testament Greek: An Introductory Grammar, better book, much more complete, and well written explanations. Jay's book was written to prepare the student to read the Gospel of Mark, or to compare the Synoptic gospels, many verses from Matthew and Luke appear. Fine preparation for theological students. This book should still be in print in America. Another good book that is available, from the author, and that is "Learn to read New Testament Greek" by Ward Powers. He gives you a substantial amount of morphology, the way Greek words are put together, and this helps you with the many forms and paradigms that one must deal with. Ian MacNair, "Teach yourself NT Greek" down to Earth, humorous, explains Greek simply but well.

Among the modern primers, David Alan Black Learn to Read New Testament Greek and Gerald StevensNew Testament Greek Primer are good choices. They both are well written and have better exercises. Stevens book is expensive, yet, it contains the workbook, with exercises inside the book. Wise writers, more informative than Kubo(and you get quite a few more pages for your money with Stevens, 580pp, including the English grammar section and the paradigms).

Kubo has a number of odd exercises(not at all to say that they are all poor, just that some seem odd, and not much like the Bible) for translating from Greek to English. Books that use real specimens of Greek are preferred, and even adapted phrases or verses could be better prepared. He sometimes will use an exercise for which the forms have not yet been introduced. Perhaps this was done to whet the students appetite, to not be exposed to the material, or to show one how much you do not know. An example of this is an exercise in chapter 23, where the deponent form and vocab will not be introduced until ch. 29. Now this may have been to whet the students appetite, but I knew one pastor in the class who would say to me "Confusami", or "Bombousin" when such things occurred. Yet, the review chapters lead one toward John's Greek.

On this important matter of exercises, I knew students who felt they did not get a grasp of the subject in this bare bones approach, in that they had too few exercises. This bothered me, this subject of exercises with this book, when I would see several people who did not progress as well as they would like to have. More and better exercise helped students greatly, but it was not strong enough in this book. So in this, I had to mark down the book.

Now having given these criticisms, let me say Kubo's book is designed, as the other reviewer says, to take you first through 50 chapters, and then to review them through the next 70 chapters. We did not get through these, so my critique is based upon the class experience. Thusly, I have not been fair enough with the book, for the remaining nearly 70 chapters, in which Kubo's Reader's Greek English lexicon is used, would provide much more instruction. And something else should be said, that being that Kubo's book's exercises do prepare one to read John. I liked that.

One of the virtues of Machen's book(still in print, but revised which I have not seen), is 'its abundance of exercise', as one reviewer said of it. The exercises are manufactured, not real Greek. Exercise helps students, and Gerald Stevens book is ahead of Kubo's in this. Black also has a sage way about him. There is a companion book for Black's good primer. I think Black and Stevens are better books than Machen(the old one I know), but many still love Machen.

Other books to be considered would be Clayton Croy, A Primer of Biblical Greek [With CDROM], which I have never seen(he uses exercises for the student from the LXX, as well as the NT) or Mounce, which is used all over. Mounce has much more detail, which the other reviewer may be reacting to. I would have enjoyed the detail, especially on the topic of morphology, which Mounce has a strong presentation of, but Mounce has organised the material so that it takes much time to get into real Greek, putting the declensions of nouns and pronouns first.

Black seems to do a better job of explaining grammar, he has contributed something quite good to us with his works, including this one, which is good for the person who is studying alone.

Kubo varies what parts of grammar he covers, to get you ready to read in the NT. I mean, in stead of going... Read more ›

5.0 out of 5 stars Nice, easy approach, January 22, 2011

By 

indoor-skier "indoor-skier" (alaska) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Beginner's New Testament Greek Grammar (Paperback)

Sakae Kubo is a woman. The book has 236 pages, not 100 pages. It has 100 chapters. I like the easy, gradual approach of this book. Lots of review chapters, and the last 50 chapters are reading/application incorporating bits of grammar, while the first 50 are more formal instruction, though with every 5th chapter being a review.