I finished Croy and for a couple years read 20-30 minutes almost daily from a UBS Reader’s NT or selections from the LXX. I would generally have a public-domain commentary to help with the Greek. I expanded my vocab and my Greek didn’t atrophy, but I never felt real improvement in grammar and never felt that comfortable advancing to more difficult books in the NT (though I know there was certainly some improvement).
After some years hiatus from Greek, I now have some time. It’s been three weeks, I am finishing up Croy (again) and have started the epistles of John in the Readers NT.
I am looking to study 20-30 minutes a day (or 40-60 minutes every other day). Instead of choosing my reading and using a random commentary+grammar, I’m looking for a reader that provides more than just glosses and a vocab list—a book that has a goal in advancing the student’s knowledge of grammar (so “graduated” or meant for use in schools seems desirable). I am not too picky about what is being read (NT vs LXX vs Church Fathers, etc.)—just an appropriate/increasing level of challenge and helping the student become better prepared for independent reading.
Does anyone have recommendations along these lines or experience with any of the following?
Robert Whitacre’s Patristic Greek Reader A patristic Greek reader : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
Rodney Decker’s Koine Greek Reader
McLean’s Hellenistic and Biblical Greek: A Graduated Reader
Richard Wright’s A Reader in Biblical Greek
Thanks for any assistance! I’ve always found this forum a lot of help.
While it is not perfect, I would recommend McLean’s reader out of all of these. It is diverse in its selections (if a bit idiosyncratic), and is basically an attempt at updating the excellent Hellenistic readers that were more popular a century ago (Wikgren, Colwell, etc.), so he includes inscriptions, documentary papyri, and non-Christian texts in addition to biblical, early Christian, and apocryphal texts.
It is graded, and has a decent running vocabulary.
Thanks for your recommendation.
I did read some of the free supplementary sections from McLean years ago, and it is pretty much what I want (but also the most expensive). In Whitacre’s Patristic Reader, some notes are keyed to Smyth’s grammar, which is really the type of hand-holding I still appreciate at this stage. I did look at the Wikgren (it was mentioned in one of the readers), but for now I need more guidance than just vocabulary in the back. Still, like McLean, it has more interesting, if idiosyncratic, readings (Poimandres).
update: I photocopied the first few chapters of Decker’s and McLean’s books and went through each (3 of Decker, 2 of McLean). I plan to finish Part I of the Decker, which has a lot more hand-holding than the McLean—to the extent that it will routinely ask the reader to parse a verb or identify the case of a noun. It’s way more than most people will need. But, speaking for myself and with the absence of an instructor, I will benefit more from starting with the Decker.
Other notes are more useful and explanations less terse than McLean. Defining and describing the use of pendent nominatives. A note on the elided subject and the manuscript tradition in John 7:40 had me get out Nestle-Aland instead of my Readers Edition. In the case of a couple awkward (to me) clauses and idiomatic expressions, the lengthier notes were welcome.
In the first four chapters of Decker, the notes are so thorough that immediately reading through them before making an honest attempt to translate the passage seems like a huge mistake. It is preventable. But it is not a problem that could happen with McLean.
After Part I (9 chapters of NT readings), Decker no longer guides vocabulary acquisition associated with specific readings (an appendix has some suggested vocab lists, but just high-frequency words from the NT and LXX). After finishing this section, I may continue with some LXX readings from Decker, or may start at the beginning with McLean with a bit more confidence.