Customer Reviews

A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament (With Index)

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Not even the recent sorties by Young and Mounce have managed to unseat this all-time classic. For ease of use and lucid explanations, this grammar is solid gold! Despite claims to the contrary, this grammar is still as fresh as the day it rolled off the press and as relevant as anything being published today. Recent attempts have been made to improve upon it (e.g. Brooks and Winbury) but it remains unmatched for accuracy and readability. Discover it today!

I learned Greek grammar from the golden gems of knowledge by Dana and Mantey. Having already studied Summers and Sawyer, this book by Dana and Mantey proved to be invaluable to describe the nuances of Greek grammar which in turn led to clearer exegesis. Thanks to Dr. Delnay, who was taught by Dr. Mantey, for using this book in second-year Greek class at Clearwater Christian College.

This is the textbook I used in college for second year Greek. It covers all the fundamentals one might need for that next step in their Greek studies. It is not far-reaching in scope, but that is in keeping with its stated goals: "This book is not offered as an exhaustive treatment of the grammatical phenomena of the Greek New Testament" (from the preface). However, the book systematically covers all the features of New Testament Greek that one needs to secure a sound footing in the language.
I would recommend the book for independent study and as a reference tool.

This Greek grammar, which is most accurately described as a condensed form of Robertson's and Moulton's literature, is genius. By genius, of course, I mean there is no other book quite like it. A much more popular volume today is the more recent grammar by Daniel Wallace, but Dana and Mantey provide all the content at less than half the size. Admittedly, Wallace is good to have on the shelf, but this book is what I carry to class and actually use on a regular basis.

At the beginning of each section, this book provides references to the larger works by Robertson and Moulton. Although not necessary, it is very beneficial to read those references as directed, especially those in Robertson. This book is supposed to come with a chart of verb conjugations in the back, but if it is missing (as it was in mine), there is an identical chart in the back of Essentials of New Testament Greek by Ray Summers.

In my opinion, this grammar should be the standard for any student of the New Testament; it really is that good. It is regrettably hard to find; however, and along those lines also expensive. Give this grammar a chance, it will soon become your favorite.

This is the textbook I used in studying intermediate Greek at Denver Seminary. And it is a very helpful volume. The purpose of this book is not to teach how to parse Greek words. That would be an introductory volume to Greek. What this volume does is to detail different usages of the varying Greek grammatical forms.

So, for instance, this volume outlines the various uses of the Greek present tense. The regular uses are the progressive present, the customary present, and the iterative present. The book then presents "special uses" of the present tense, namely, the aoristic present, the futuristic present, the historical present, and the tendential present.

The book explains in detail how each of these uses function. Such information is imperative to understand when translating the New Testament. In fact, I relied heavily on this volume when I was working on my Analytical-Literal Translation of the New Testament: Third Edition (ALT).

I followed many of this book's suggestions in my translation work, so the information in this book helped me to bring out finer details of the Greek text that are often missed in Bible translations. So, for instance, this book states, "A prohibition in the present imperative demands that action then in progress be stopped.... Thus a prohibition expressed with the present tense demands the cessation of some act that is already in progress" (pp. 301).

Utilizing this information, I consistently translated the prohibitive, present imperative using the form "Stop ..." (e.g., Matt 6:16, "And when you* are fasting, stop becoming gloomy like the hypocrites").

However, there is so much information in this book that sometimes it can be difficult to keep it all straight. So when I began working on the ALT, I typed out initially just for myself, a summary of the various grammatical points and suggested renderings given in this book and various other Greek grammars. That summary proved invaluable as I worked on the ALT, so later I expanded it and included it as an extensive "Grammatical Renderings " section in my book Companion Volume to the Analytical-Literal Translation: Third Edition.

So yes, get this volume if you want to understand the various uses of Greek grammatical forms. But to help keep it all straight, check out my "Companion Volume" as well. And to see how Dana and Mantey's suggestions look in an actual translation, see my ALT.

I am brand new to Koine Greek and this is a great start. I've always heard of Professors Dana and Mantey and was pleased to find that Amazon had this book. I purchased mine used since new was way out of my price range. When it arrived, it was filled with pencil marks, highlighter, etc. Some might have a fit about that but for the price? I didn't care. Brand new it's over $120, while my used one was barely $15. For a savings of $105, I can live with it.

If you are new to Koine Greek and can find a good deal on this book, get it. It's deep, that's true, but worth the study.

Dana and Mantey know little about Greek grammar. This is one of the worst grammars available, no matter how easy it is to read it is bad grammar.