A Reader

[mwh]

Bradley H. McLean, Hellenistic and Biblical Greek: A Graduated Reader (2014).
I’ve only seen a review of it (http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2015/2015-08-22.html), but it sounds good. The same author’s introduction to NT Greek I thought was awful (though probably no worse than others), but I don't think that shouldn’t put anyone off the Reader. It seems to give a good range of readings (largely but not wholly biblical or bible-related), organized by level of difficulty.

A sizable set of supplementary readings is also provided as a downloadable and free "digital supplement," linked to in the review. It seems to follows the same graduated principle, and looks as if it could well be used standalone, without the book. Alphabetized vocab follows each passage, and some notes.

[jeidsath]

I clipped the review and was planning to look more at this. I appreciate that the vocabulary gives a range of meanings for each word, but keeps them simple. I also appreciate that it encourages students to read outside of the NT.

There's not too much else I like (judging by the digital appendix). If I had to guess, the man doesn't expect anybody to actually read it in Greek without a translation on hand. Many of the notes (beyond marking every incidence of the genitive absolute -- you'd think students would pick up on it eventually) seem content based rather than about the Greek. And the introductions are snarky.

Many of the in-text insertions -- marked by () -- are very bad. This sort of thing: "Καὶ (the townspeople) φέρουσιν αὐτῷ..." is awful. A little further down is even worse: "καὶ ἀναβλέψας (τυφλός) ἔλεγεν· βλέπω τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ὅτι..."

[calvinist]

Many of the in-text insertions -- marked by () -- are very bad. This sort of thing: "Καὶ (the townspeople) φέρουσιν αὐτῷ..." is awful. A little further down is even worse: "καὶ ἀναβλέψας (τυφλός) ἔλεγεν· βλέπω τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ὅτι..."

I agree with you completely here. I just glanced through some of them and for instance the section with Mark 7:31-37 begins with: Καὶ πάλιν ( Ἰησοῦς ) ἐξελθὼν, which is understandable since we're jumping into the middle of the text and there's an assumed context. However, just two verses later there is κατ' ἰδίαν
( Ἰησοῦς ) ἔβαλεν, which is just distracting and feels very "unGreek". It's as if the author thinks learners can't cope with a pro-drop language like Greek and so whenever a subject isn't explicitly stated he makes it explicit. I think that would do more harm than good for someone just starting to read Greek, since getting used to implicit subjects is a necessary skill in reading Greek.

[mwh]

So the moral of the tale: Don’t judge a book by its review. I suppose it was unrealistic to think that the Reader might be radically better than the same man’s Introduction to NT Greek, which I have seen and wanted to burn.

[calvinist]

It seems alright for a reader. Anything that has vocabulary help on the bottom of the page is helpful, but the biggest problem I noticed is that a big portion of the book is made up of pieces from the NT. There are already plenty of resources for reading the NT; the "Reader's" NTs put out by Zondervan and UBS make the sections from the NT unnecessary. More space should've been devoted to non-NT Koine material, that's the biggest gripe I have.

[marxbert]

I came across this on my own, when looking for a Bryn Mawr review of Jerry Sumney's Philippians reader or the Gospel of Thomas reader by CT Hadavas.

I was more enthusiastic. I think this book is probably aimed at my level. The first "online" reading, a couple Didache, were straightforward Greek with more than enough vocab glosses. They did not have the parenthetical remarks that others are complaining about. This actually does look pretty bad in some places, and the parenthetical remarks should have been made into glosses, as they seem to interfere with learning how Greek implies subjects/objects/verbs in a given situation.

There are already resources for biblical Greek, but having the reading culled and graduated in complexity is very beneficial to students (esp. autodidacts). I also have not bought a reader's edition (glossed?) NT, so the NT sections are not a waste of space. And, although not the bulk of the book, the online material has in excess of 40 pages of additional reading from the section on inscriptions.
On the whole, I do think that people who finish an introductory book would be interested in these supplementary readings.