Biblical Greek
Learn Biblical Greek.
Basic Greek takes you from the first letter of the alphabet to reading sentences from the Greek New Testament in 105 short lessons. It is written for pastors, seminarians, and anyone who wants to read the New Testament in Greek. Unit 1 is free, and its last lesson is John 1:1.
What is Biblical Greek?
Biblical Greek is Koine ("common") Greek, the form of the language used across the eastern Mediterranean from roughly 330 BC to AD 330. Every book of the New Testament was written in it, and the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, belongs to the same stage of the language. To learn Koine is to read Paul, Luke, and John in the words they wrote, ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, rather than through a translation.
How this course works
Each lesson takes up one topic in four to eight minutes. It is a short run of screens: an idea is explained, shown in a verse from the New Testament, and then checked with a question that is marked right away. Most of the examples are verses from the Greek New Testament, and the vocabulary you learn is reviewed with flashcards so it stays with you.
Basic Biblical Greek: the units
Unit 1
The Alphabet & Pronunciation
Free
Learn to read Greek aloud, from alpha to the accents. By the tenth lesson you are reading John 1:1.
Unit 2
Nouns & the Article
Why Greek nouns change their endings, and how the article and the first two declensions work. The unit closes with John 14:6.
Unit 3
Verbs I: The Present
The Greek verb, starting with the present tense. Contract verbs and εἰμί come here as well.
Unit 4
Prepositions, Adjectives & Pronouns
Prepositions and the cases they take, adjectives, and the personal, demonstrative, and relative pronouns.
Unit 5
Verbs II: Past & Future
How Greek marks the past with an augment. Covers the imperfect, future, and aorist, and ends with principal parts.
Unit 6
The Third Declension
Third-declension nouns, among them πᾶς, πόλις, and πίστις. The reading is Ephesians 4:4–6.
Unit 7
Middle and Passive Voice
What voice is, the middle and passive endings, and verbs that are middle in form but active in meaning. Reading: John 14.
Unit 8
Aorist Passive and the Perfect
The aorist and future passive, then the perfect and pluperfect. By the end you have all six principal parts.
Unit 9
Participles
Participles in the present, aorist, and perfect, what they do in a sentence, and the genitive absolute.
Unit 10
Infinitives, Subjunctive, Imperative, and μι Verbs
Infinitives, the subjunctive, the imperative, and the optative, then the μι verbs. The course ends with Mark 10:43–45.
Common questions
How long does it take to learn Biblical Greek?
Basic Greek has 105 lessons of four to eight minutes each, about eleven hours in all. Unit 1, the alphabet, has eleven lessons and ends with John 1:1. How long the whole course takes depends on your pace, and the flashcard reviews keep the vocabulary from slipping in the meantime.
Do I need to know English grammar first?
No. Each grammatical term is explained in plain English when it first comes up.
Is it free?
Unit 1, the alphabet and pronunciation, is free and needs no account. The rest of the course is open to a small private beta for now.
Which pronunciation do you teach?
Lessons follow the pronunciation given in H. P. V. Nunn’s Elements of New Testament Greek. It is a convention for learning, not a claim about how the apostles sounded.
What comes after the basic course?
The intermediate course teaches sentence flowing; the uses of the cases, voice, mood, and aspect; and guided readings in 1 John, John, and Mark. The advanced course turns to whole passages: logical relationships and bracketing, discourse grammar, worked passages from Paul and John, readings in the Septuagint and the Apostolic Fathers, and a primer in textual criticism.