Customer Reviews

New Testament Greek Vocabulary

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

First of all, this is NOT an "abridged" edition, with a 24-page booklet. Zondervan confirmed for me that they make only one edition of this CD set, it's not abridged, and it has a 48-page booklet.

This is a useful tool for learning vocabulary. The pronunciation is clear, though the recording volume could be a bit higher/louder, I think. It's the best, if not the only, of its kind of thing out there.

I would have liked to have had him give aorist and/or future forms of verbs where the stem differs from the indicative - e.g.: "ERCOMAI - I come, I go; future: ELEUSOMAI; aorist: HLQON". This is the reason I do not give it four or five stars.

My suggestion for a follow-up CD set would include alphabetically reciting verbs with all their principal parts as found in the New Testament, and if he's really adventuresome, reciting the complete verb conjugation paradigms (regular, liquid, contract, MI verbs, etc.) and noun declension paradigms, and maybe even lists of words related by roots.

Still, despite my personal quibbles with this set, I would recommend that any first-year or second-year NT Greek student get it. Having finished my second year a few years ago, I already had most of these words memorized.

As an intermediate Greek student who struggles with remembering vocabulary, I am very grateful to Jonathan Pennington and Zondervan for producing this tool. There are two CD's in this set, which cover all the words in the New Testament that occur 10 times or more. The accompanying booklet lists those words and their definitions in the order in which they are spoken. The purpose of this tool is to help the Greek student learn the vocabulary of the New Testament.

The benefits of having Greek vocabulary in audio format are generally obvious. First, it is portable and the student is able to take it wherever he goes. In fact the Greek student should never be without his vocabulary and this tool helps greatly to that end. Secondly, it involves more of the senses, which helps in the learning process. For those who learn well through audible learning methods this will be invaluable. Thirdly, the booklet makes this all the more useful for the beginner to read along with the pronunciation. As well it further engages another sense as the vocabulary is listened to.

There are a few disadvantages to this tool, which hopefully would be remedied, in a latter edition. First, the glosses, or definitions, are the bare bones. You only receive about one or two options for a definition. One understands the need to do so with this medium, but it leads to the impression that there is not too much flexibility with the definitions when in actuality there are. It may be helpful to beef up the definitions at least a little bit. Secondly, it would have been more helpful if the definitions followed exactly those given in either Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek or Trenchard's Complete Vocabulary Guide. There is some inconsistency here which if fixed would make this set all the more useful. Lastly, the individual tracks should have been further broken down into approximately 15-20 words instead of 30-40 words. Shorter tracks would allow for quicker repetition and therefore easier memorization.

Overall this is an extremely helpful tool that every beginning and intermediate Greek student should utilize. I only wish I discovered it earlier.

I find the CDs very helpful, especially when driving. The pauses between words are just long enough to give me time to think of the meaning, but no so long that I feel like I am waiting for the next one.

I am hardly the person to criticize his pronunciation, but I have a lot of trouble distinguishing a from o the way he pronounces them. They both sound like "a" in father most of the time. It would be easier to distinguish of "o" was closer to "off" (like aww instead of ahh) Because of this, I have trouble visualizing the spelling while I am driving.

There is a growing consensus for change in the field of biblical Greek vocabulary pronunciation. No one mentions that this product uses the Erasmian pronunciation. That method is not what biblical Greek era speakers spoke (no one knows what that sounds like)...and it sounds really funny to modern Greek speakers (I have seen eminent American scholars speak with this method in the hearing of modern Greeks who cringe when they hear it).

Of course this is not a problem if you only talk to English speaking bible students who talk about Greek with this pronunciation method. BUT-if you want to travel to Greece, or if you know any Greeks who speak modern Greek, you may find it interesting to know that the vocabulary of the Biblical Greek NT has about a 70% overlap with the vocabulary of Modern Greek version of the NT. (Based on my quick highlighting of the differences between the two version in my BW 7.0 recently).

Because there is a difference of opinion out there on which method is best to use, software products like BibleWorks 7.0 offer both the Erasmian AND the Modern Greek pronunciation.

In addition, a Greek scholar, named Spiros Zhodiates, has produced a NT recording using modern Greek pronunciation (done slowly) so that you can listen to a chapter of that with your Greek NT open and learn how modern Greeks read the Biblical Greek. With his product I like to hold my Greek NT in front of me and follow along as he reads it out loud.

I think some Greek teachers are completely unaware of these things and only consider the Erasmian method. But if you are an evangelical who is studying the bible in Greek because you want to spread the gospel to the world...then I appeal to you to consider building some pronunciation skill in Modern Greek while you are studying the Biblical Greek text.
So for the money, I would recommend you buy Spiros Zhodiates Greek NT recording on CD using the Modern Greek rather than this product.

If you never plan to interact with Greek speaking people...THEN Pennington's work is a five star work worthy of spending your time and money on. So because of that I give this a five star.

I hope this has added something to the well written reviews on this product that was not in the mix for you and that this has helped you see more options before you spend your money!

Jonathan T. Pennington reads every word that occurs 10 times or more in the Greek New Testament. The words are arranged in 29 tracks, divided by frequency and presented alphabetically. (e.g. Disc 1, Track 3 contains words that occur 450 times or more in the Greek NT beginning with alla ("but") and ending with hos ("as, like, when, that"). Tracks range in length from 3 minutes 14 seconds to 8 minutes 32 seconds. In his gentle voice, Pennington reads each Greek word, pronouncing it clearly according to Erasmian convention. Then, after a pause for the listener to think of the word's meaning, he gives a gloss--a short English definition of the word. Coupled with a 48 page booklet, this 2-CD set provides a powerful tool for the acquisition of NT Greek Vocabulary.

Verbs are presented in their first principal part only. Nouns are given in the nominative and genitive. Adjectives and pronouns are given in the masculine, feminine and neuter.

Dump these tracks onto your MP3 player and listen to them while you do other things. Pop the disks into your car's CD player and learn while you drive.

A warning: taken in too large doses, these CDs are hypnotic. Listen to them a little at a time or you may find yourself sleep-learning.

If you are studying Greek under a teacher who uses reconstructionist or modern Greek pronunciation standards, these disks are not for you. If you are learning the more common Erasmian pronunciation (ask your instructor) they can be a great help for learning vocabulary.

Pennington pronounces every greek word in the NT that occurs 10 times or more. He also gives definitions of each word. You can follow along in the pamplet and sound out each word while looking at the spelling, as you hear Pennington give the pronounciation.

If you're learning NT greek on your own, this is a MUST! Thanks to Pennington I can now accurately pronounce over 90% of the words as I read the UBS4.

Eric

Zondervan's The New Testament Greek Vocabulary package contains a vocabulary guide booklet and two audio CDs read by Jonathan T. Pennington. Its very simple, but effective, concept is to divide words into frequency groups of relatively the same size (about 40 words in each group). The booklet is a print version of the CD word lists, giving the Greek word and the English equivalent.

The obvious advantage of this tool is that one can work on their vocabulary under non-conventional circumstances. For example, many people have long commutes which make for a great opportunity to absorb new vocabulary words. Some types of work also allow for listening to CDs and not being distracted by them. Students can listen to the CDs while studying at home or in the library with headphones while following along with the booklet to complement what they hear with what they see. In the booklet is a large enough gap between the Greek and the English so that one can easily cover up the answers while trying to test themselves.

Unlike many of the popular language CDs available today, Pennington's work focuses strictly on vocabulary. There is no discussion of syntax, except in circumstances which distinguish a preposition's meaning based on its object's case. There are no situational, pre-constructed sentences to learn, such as, pothen ei su; ("Where are you from?"). A language's vocabulary words are the building blocks, and the mortar is its syntax. The mortar should be found in works like Mounce and Wallace, but one should not forsake the very important task of learning the vocabulary.

I presume that the majority of people using this tool are those first learning New Testament Greek. I found it odd that one of the first statements on the CD is, "This program is designed to help you master the vocabulary of Koiné Greek." Learning all the words contained in this package would not make one a master of the Greek New Testament's vocabulary, let alone "Koiné Greek" as the CD claims. It is important to make accurate claims about the language one is learning and the vocabulary in this program only focuses on the vocabulary of a collection of writings found within the wider body of Koiné Greek.

Also, there are certain problems related to learning a language from a CD. The alpha and the omicron are often indistinguishable. When the author says "ay" is it referring to e? ("if") or ? ("or," "either")? Especially if the student is learning new words, the best thing to do is to listen to the audio while following along with the book--at least for the first time.

All in all, the work is well-created. It is intriguing, however, that Zondervan can take two CDs and a little booklet that take relatively a short amount of preparation work (compared to a book) and charge $22.99 for it. In a perfect world this type of a product would come standard with the introductory grammars, but now I am asking too much. What also would be helpful is if Pennington produced a version for the less-common words of the Greek New Testament. Nonetheless, I would recommend the current version to anyone desiring to solidify their vocabulary of the Greek New Testament.

Jonathan T. Pennington is to be commended for his fine work on these vocabulary CDs. I have used them for the past four years, and they have helped me keep up my vocabulary. Probably the most helpful aspect is they help ensure a correct pronounciation. While listening to the CDs is helpful, to get the most benefit, I would recommend listening and using the included vocabulary booklet. Pennington also correctly recommends using the CDs for a short time each day rather than trying to use them for long periods at a time. As a student of NT Greek for several years, I realize that there are no shortcuts or alternatives to hard work. These CDs won't make you a master of the language, but they will give you a good start!

Flash cards was the only means of mastering Greek vocabulary just a few years ago. With today's CD players, and comupters a Greek student can hear, listen, and see (if you use the helplful booklet that comes with the CD) the vocabulary. The more senses used the quicker the mastery of the meanings. In all my language expereince (I have taken Latin, Greek Hebrew, and Spanish) vocabulary was always the secert to success. The difficulty of grammar lessons is greatly increased or decreased by your with your confidence level with the vocabulary. Being able to hear the Greek pronounced correctly is very benefical. Your confidence level will grow quickly. If you are a new Greek student or one who is seeking to do some review you will find this CD very helpful. Don't pass this by. This CD will play on any regular CD player or computer - including Macs.

If you want to get the most out of the New Testament, it is essential that you read it in the original language: Greek. So, what are you doing reading this review? Go learn Greek!

Okay, I'll assume that you finished the last paragraph, immediately ordered Mounce's "Basics of Biblical Greek," read it, mastered it, and now you have realized that it is very important to not only know the grammar, but to also know the vocab by heart so as to eliminate all that annoying time-consuming effort of looking up all the words you don't know in the Greek-English Lexicon. I'll also assume that you are determined not to give up on this Greek-language thing (which is good!)and have resolved to master the vocab.....yet you are hard pressed to find the time it takes to devote yourself to study. Well, you've come to the right place!

Pennington's "New Testament Greek Vocabulary" on CD is fantastic! I listen to it every day to and from work. Within a week, I have drastically decreased the number of words I have to look up and reading the New Testament in Greek is immensely more enjoyable. Buy this CD! You won't regret it. And remember, "Ignorance of Scripture, is ignorance of Christ."