How can I learn Greek?

All4Christ

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It might be modern Greek or holy Greek. In my college they only teach heathen Greek.
I’m guessing you mean classical or Attic Greek? If you know Attic / Classical Greek, you should be able to follow Koine Greek. If I had a choice between modern and Attic / classical, I’d definitely go with the Attic. While people were pagans then, the language itself isn’t heathen. Many who used Koine Greek were heathens / pagans as well, just as modern Greek is used by people of all religions.
 
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AMM

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one of the Lutheran seminaries in the US has a greek intensive course for Koine. I think the lectures are recorded and posted online somewhere, I remember going through some of them a few years back. The lectures were free but I also bought the textbook (I think ~$50?) and a Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament (maybe ~$70?)

If you'd be interested in that I can try to find where the lectures were posted, but I'm sure there's tons of other online materials for learning Greek

I've also had some luck with an interlinear bible, where it has the greek and english right next to each other to compare
 
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gzt

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It might be modern Greek or holy Greek. In my college they only teach heathen Greek.
while Greek certainly changed in, say, the first 1000 years after Christ, learning the heathen Greek is the way to go, since there really isn't a holy Greek and a heathen Greek. If you want to read the Bible, the heathen Greek is a little more complicated than the New Testament which is why some people take a shortcut and just learn Koine, but if you want to read anything after the Bible, trust me, you want the heathen Greek. For what it's worth, it's very clear that Christian writers were very familiar with Plato, Aristotle, Homer, etc.
 
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Silmarien

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It might be modern Greek or holy Greek. In my college they only teach heathen Greek.

I've been studying Attic Greek with the Cambridge Reading Greek books, and have found it to be a really great starting point for Koine Greek as well, since a lot of the biblical vocabulary shows up in it at some point or another. I would definitely recommend Attic rather than Koine as a starting point, though, since you'll end up with a much broader understanding of how the language works, and can then apply that back to the Bible and Church Fathers. (Also familiarity with Plato is kind of important.)

If you're specifically interested in Koine Greek, however, I've heard good things about Reading Koine Greek, though I don't have it myself and am not sure what its theological orientation would be.
 
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GreekOrthodox

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I used Mounce "Basics of Biblical Greek" to help with the Greek textbook at Holy Cross. It starts with learning common words so that by the time you are halfway through the book, you can read about 75-80% of the Bible. I would agree that learning Attic Greek is an excellent starting point because you can read so much more.
 
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Dave-W

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It might be modern Greek or holy Greek. In my college they only teach heathen Greek.
Not sure what “heathen” Greek is. Any seminary would be a good place to go for biblical (Koine) Greek.

As you are posting in the EO folder, probably any Greek Orthodox Church could give you good guidance. they may even offer lessons themselves.
 
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GreekOrthodox

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Heathen Greek is an interesting name for what I assume is ancient Greek, or do you mean Erasmean pronunciation?

Mr. Panos teaches about Greek Easter, when Jesus died for Greek people's sins, and how to pronounce "Alithos Anesti", "spanakopeta" and "dolmathes".

 
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Not David

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check the classes of any local religious affiliated colleges or universities as a place to start.

but if your school teaches Greek already, I'd go there.
I would but there isn't any here in Ecuador so I am trying to learn online.
 
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RobNJ

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Come on guys! Don't crucify me for calling the Pre-Christian Greek "Heathen Greek" :(

It's like distinguishing between Heathen Latin and Holy Latin.


Never heard of that spurious distinction, either... Is this something from your fundagelical roots?
 
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All4Christ

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Come on guys! Don't crucify me for calling the Pre-Christian Greek "Heathen Greek" :(

It's like distinguishing between Heathen Latin and Holy Latin.
I never heard of the concept (holy vs heathen Latin). Your original post said how do you learn Biblical or modern Greek, and that your school only taught heathen Greek. It sounded like you had the opportunity to learn Classical Greek but didn’t want to because it was heathen.

Considering that Greek classes in any form are not available to go right now, I would look online. Check out Bill Mounce’s online course. It goes along with the books

Online Classes | billmounce.com
 
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