Customer Reviews

Biblical Greek: Illustrated with Examples (Scripta Pontificii Instituti Biblici)

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This very slim book has extremely clear, simple explanations. Better yet, it is keyed to a verse-by-verse grammatical analysis which tells you exactly which article to turn to in the grammar when you are looking at a difficult construction in the Bible. Highly recommended. Maximillian Zerwick originally wrote this in Latin, but Joseph Smith translated it into English for those of us who couldn't imagine learning Latin to read a book on Greek. For more reviews on grammars, lexicons, textbooks, and other Greek resources, see "http://www.mindspring.com/~jwrobie/littleGreek.html".

This book is an excellent discussion of applied grammer. But the reader must already know how to decline nouns and conjugate verbs, and know which cases go with which prepositions. A thoughtful textual study. This book has been chosen by professors at CTS in Ft. Wayne, which is a recommendation all by itself.

I was told about this book in 1988. I'm still using it almost every week. For a pastor who tries to study the Greek NT for sermon exegesis weekly, this book gives me a quick way to understand more about textual issues and nuances of meanings that I would normally miss. One can learn a lot over time by referring to this book for 10 minutes or so for each sermon you develop...cherry picking relevant issues that relate to the text you are studying. Find the lesson to focus on in the Grammatical analysis book...then just read and reread the lesson in this book until you see clearly how it applies to your sermon (if it does). That can be done in ten minutes or less for each grammatical lesson related to a paragraph of Greek NT. Often he has 4 to 7 lessons associated with a paragraph! Each lesson varies in length from a couple lines of text to maybe a half page of stuff. References and exampls in the NT are there so you can see clearly what he is talking about. That's a lot of practical Greek training built into a sermon! If you put that into the regular mix of your sermon exegesis, you will find your confidence in things like simple prepositions and the various meanings they can be used for growing by leaps and bounds.

I think every pastor who works in the Greek NT should refer to this book alongside of Grammatical Analysis by Zerwick. Gordon Fee also recommends this book in his NT Exegesis (3rd Edition) which is used in Bible Colleges and Seminaries around the world. If you haven't used this book, you need to start in my view.

This is an advanced Greek grammar. It is coded to Zerwick's A Grammatical Analysis of the Greek New Testament: Unabridged. The two together make for a nice set.

This is definitely an advanced grammar. Those new to Greek would find it confusing, and even those advanced in Greek might struggle with it as the writing style is difficult. But that is possibly due to it being translated from the Latin.

But it is a thorough grammar, covering all aspect of Greek grammar. And the Greek student can definitely find much of value in this work. However, I personally much prefer Dana and Mantey's Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament, A (With Index). It is much easier to follow and understand. It was to it that I mainly turned as I was working on my (ALT)Analytical-Literal Translation of the New Testament: Third Edition and on the summary of Greek grammar found in my Companion Volume to the Analytical-Literal Translation: Third Edition. I only rarely referred to either of Zerwick's books.

That said, if you want just one grammar, I would suggest Dana and Mantey. But if you're one to gather as many resources as possible, then Zerwick's two volumes would be good to have on hand.

This book is a good companion to Zerwick and Grosvenor's "Analysis philologica Novi Testamenti graeci. A grammatical analysis of the Greek New Testament", which refers constantly to it.

Using aspects of Greek grammar and individual Greek words as a starting-point, the book illustrates these points by detailed reference to the New Testament, explaining how New Testament usage sometimes shows a development of the language since classical times, and at other points shows the influence of Hebrew or Aramaic structures. This can clarify the meaning of the original.

It is unfortunate that this scholarly work, which was originally written in Latin, occasionally departs from objectivity, as, for example, when the author prefers the Latin Vulgate translation over the Greek original(!). (cf. p.11 para 34)

Nevertheless, the book is recommended for those who wish to delve deeper into Koiné Greek. Note that it is most definitely not a book that teaches Greek; it is a reference book for those who have already completed at least a year or two of studies in the language.