by Robert W. McDonald

Created on: February 09, 2010

In a previous essay I commented that, in my opinion, learning the Greek language would be more useful to the serious student of Judaeo-Christian scriptures than learning Hebrew because:

(1) The Hebrew Scriptures (the “Tanakh,” or “Old Testament”) had been translated into Greek during the second century BCE, and

(2) The authors of the books that comprise the Christian New Testament wrote in Greek because Greek was the most widely-understood language of their times.

Today I would like to recommend to students of the New Testament my favorite on line resources for gaining a working knowledge of the Greek dialect (“Koine” Greek) used by the authors of the books that comprise the New Testament.

Fundamental Greek Grammar

Rev. Dr. James Voelz

Concordia Seminary (Lutheran, Missouri Synod)

To be honest, I wish this course had been available when I took a year of New Testament Greek because it would have prevented me from pulling out the few remaining hairs on my head that hadn't fallen out on their own.

“Fundamental Greek Grammar” is part of a mandatory “language qualification” program at the Lutheran-sponsored Concordia Seminary and is taken by all students prior to the “official” enrollment. As such, its purpose is to provide the student with a working knowledge of New Testament Greek in order that they can read and understand Biblical texts written in their original Greek.

This course is presented via Apple Computers’ iTunes University and requires that you have iTunes software installed on your computer. You can download the iTunes for Windows from this web link. Once installed, just follow the following steps to access the course.

(1) From the iTunes start page, click on the “ITunes U” tab in the menu bar at the top of the page.

(2) On the iTunes University home page, click on the “Universities and Colleges” link (usually in the upper right portion of the page).

(3) Scroll down and click the “Concordia Seminary’ link.

(4) Click on the “Exegetical Resources” icon.

(5) Click the “Fundamental Greek Grammar” icon to access the video lectures.

Teach Yourself New Testament Greek

You can, of course, buy the textbook used by Dr. Voelz in the above-mentioned course. For those not wanting to purchase what can be a rather expensive book, I recommend downloading “Teach Yourself New Testament Greek” by D. H. Hudson from the Internet Archive Web site.

Despite its relatively small size, this book is an excellent adjunct to Dr. Voelz’s lectures because it roughly parallels the video lectures and gives many Greek texts that reinforce the topics of each lecture. I strongly suggest downloading this book in the PDF format to avoid problems with how some web browsers present (or don't present) HTML that contains symbols that are not included in the English alphabet. Depending on which version of Adobe’s PDF reader that you have, it may prompt you to download a special “character set” in order to properly display the Greek text. Go ahead and download the extra files, they're small in size and harmless.

In conclusion, I wish you hours of fruitful study of New Testament Greek! And, should you enjoy this course as much as I have, please drop Dr. Voelz an E-mail thanking him for making this course freely available on iTunes University.

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