Thoughts on 2nd year Koine readers?

Greek Koine and Biblical and Medieval Greek
1

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.

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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.

3

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).