hi all,
I’ve finally decided that latin doesn’t take enough time out of my day, and made the veeerrrryyy beginnings of a plunge into Greek.
The books I bought were: an introduction to greek by Crosby and Schaeffer (the most serious of the three, and the most wet, owing to my rolled-down-during-the-rain-this-morning window) Teach yourself Ancient Greek
and , i’ve forgotten the name, but it is concerning New Testament Greek. oh well, it’s dead to me.
I was wondering if anyone here uses, or has encountered these books. If you have, what was you’re opinion? and could someone please tell me the differences between ‘New Testament’ Greek, and the standard ‘Ancient’ Greek?
I do not know much about any of those titles. By any chance do you have Mounce’s NT Greek? It’s the most popular.
The Classical period of the Greek language is typically defined as Homer (or later) through Aristotle. New Testament Greek is also known as Koine Greek, and it is the dominant Greek dialect which arose during and after the era of Al the Great (that is, after the Classical period). For all the nitty gritty details of all the dialects, I suggest you peruse
This is a sturdy old warhorse, the book from which I learned Attic the first time I studied it seriously, in college. It prepares you to read Xenophon. It introduces grammar in the old-fashioned piecemeal approach I find so annoying and counter-productive, but generations of diligent students have learned Greek from this book.
Teach yourself Ancient Greek
Has a lot of wild (i.e. unadapted and not produced by the book author) Greek early, but the pace and density of new information might overwhelm most people.
and could someone please tell me the differences between ‘New Testament’ Greek, and the standard ‘Ancient’ Greek?
Er. There a bunch of differences, but most of them will make little sense until you’ve studied a little more Greek. If you plan to read widely in Greek literature, don’t start with Koine.
thanks for the advice. TYS Ancient Greek did kind of overwhelm me, which is why it’s taken so long for me to come back to it. It might be a trend with TYS in general… TYS Finnish certainly overwhelmed.
I am confused. Was that three books or two that you purchased? Was the Teach Yourself book Attic Greek or New Testament Greek? Or was there a third book unnamed that was the book of New Testament Greek?
Matters not. I’ve used both and Crosby and Schaeffer.
I did about 12 lessons of C&S before I switched texts. I liked it well enough, but the reading was skimpy.
The Teach Yourself Ancient Greek was impossible to Teach Myself. I was pleased with lesson 1, but lesson 2 seemed to have no connection. All new vocab.
Teach Yourself New Testament Greek is better. Or maybe it was just that I came to it after more experience with Greek.
Jean
, i’ve forgotten the name, but it is concerning New Testament Greek. oh well, it’s dead to me. 
If you plan to read widely in Greek literature, don’t start with Koine.