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The Greek language has developed through five stages:
1. Formative Period (pre–900 B.C.): This period extended from “Linear B” (ca. 1200 B.C.) down through the time of Homer (ca. 900 B.C.).
2. Classical Period (900–300 B.C.): The Classical Period was from the time of Homer down to Alexander the Great (330 B.C.). There were numerous dialects during this period (e.g. Doric, Aeolic, and Ionic). Attic, a branch of Ionic, became the predominant dialect at Athens and was used by most of the famous classical Greek authors such as Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon, Thucydides, and others.
3. The Koine Period (330 B.C.–A.D. 330): As Alexander unified Greece and needed a single Greek language for his army before he could begin to spread Hellenistic culture through the ancient world, many of the subtleties of classical Greek were lost. Greek was simplified and changed as it interfaced with, and was influenced by, other cultures. This common language came to be known as Koine (common) Greek. It was in this language that the Septuagint (LXX, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament), the New Testament, and the works of the early church fathers were written. The nature of Koine eluded modern scholars because of its simplicity when compared to Classical Greek. This led some scholars in the nineteenth century to explain it as a “Holy Ghost” language, created just for the Bible. In the early part of the twentieth century, Deissmann, Moulton and others found that the recently discovered Egyptian papyri, inscriptions, and ostraca were written in the same common everyday language used by the New Testament. God speaks in the language of the people. At points the New Testament will manifest Hebraisms, where the influence of Hebrew and/or Aramaic may be seen.
4. The Byzantine Period (A.D. 330–1453): During the Byzantine Period, Greek was spoken in the eastern half of the Roman empire, which was centered in Constantinople. In 1453 Constantinople fell to the Turks. That concluded this period. Tension between the Greeks and Turks persists until this day.
5. The Modern Period: The Modern Period dates from 1453 to the present. Modern Greek is closer to Koine than it is to Classical Greek. Modern pronunciation and grammatical structures, however, are quite different from the Greek that Jesus spoke. We will focus on Koine Greek. As recently as 1982, major changes have taken modern Greek further from its Koine roots. In the latest edition of Standard Modern Greek, established by the Center for Educational Studies in Greece, the number of accents has been reduced to one, the breathing marks dropped and the dative case, middle voice and optative mood are not present in modern Greek. The recent merging of katharevousa (hybrid of ancient and Modern used for official and academic purposes) has given way to the more populace oriented Demotic (ca. 1976) as Modern Standard Greek which is another step further away from Koine (vid. Holton, Mackridge and Philippaki-Warburton, Greek: A Comprehensive Grammar of the Modern Language (Routledge, 1997) or Greek Today: a Course in the Modern Language and Culture (Dartmouth College Press, 2004) by Peter Bien, Dimitri Gonicas, et al. Those looking for advanced grammars on Koine should pursue books by Stanley Porter, Daniel Wallace and David Black, as well as the articles by James Boyer and books by A. T. Robertson, Moulton and Burton.
1. Formative Period (pre–900 B.C.): This period extended from “Linear B” (ca. 1200 B.C.) down through the time of Homer (ca. 900 B.C.).
2. Classical Period (900–300 B.C.): The Classical Period was from the time of Homer down to Alexander the Great (330 B.C.). There were numerous dialects during this period (e.g. Doric, Aeolic, and Ionic). Attic, a branch of Ionic, became the predominant dialect at Athens and was used by most of the famous classical Greek authors such as Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon, Thucydides, and others.
3. The Koine Period (330 B.C.–A.D. 330): As Alexander unified Greece and needed a single Greek language for his army before he could begin to spread Hellenistic culture through the ancient world, many of the subtleties of classical Greek were lost. Greek was simplified and changed as it interfaced with, and was influenced by, other cultures. This common language came to be known as Koine (common) Greek. It was in this language that the Septuagint (LXX, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament), the New Testament, and the works of the early church fathers were written. The nature of Koine eluded modern scholars because of its simplicity when compared to Classical Greek. This led some scholars in the nineteenth century to explain it as a “Holy Ghost” language, created just for the Bible. In the early part of the twentieth century, Deissmann, Moulton and others found that the recently discovered Egyptian papyri, inscriptions, and ostraca were written in the same common everyday language used by the New Testament. God speaks in the language of the people. At points the New Testament will manifest Hebraisms, where the influence of Hebrew and/or Aramaic may be seen.
4. The Byzantine Period (A.D. 330–1453): During the Byzantine Period, Greek was spoken in the eastern half of the Roman empire, which was centered in Constantinople. In 1453 Constantinople fell to the Turks. That concluded this period. Tension between the Greeks and Turks persists until this day.
5. The Modern Period: The Modern Period dates from 1453 to the present. Modern Greek is closer to Koine than it is to Classical Greek. Modern pronunciation and grammatical structures, however, are quite different from the Greek that Jesus spoke. We will focus on Koine Greek. As recently as 1982, major changes have taken modern Greek further from its Koine roots. In the latest edition of Standard Modern Greek, established by the Center for Educational Studies in Greece, the number of accents has been reduced to one, the breathing marks dropped and the dative case, middle voice and optative mood are not present in modern Greek. The recent merging of katharevousa (hybrid of ancient and Modern used for official and academic purposes) has given way to the more populace oriented Demotic (ca. 1976) as Modern Standard Greek which is another step further away from Koine (vid. Holton, Mackridge and Philippaki-Warburton, Greek: A Comprehensive Grammar of the Modern Language (Routledge, 1997) or Greek Today: a Course in the Modern Language and Culture (Dartmouth College Press, 2004) by Peter Bien, Dimitri Gonicas, et al. Those looking for advanced grammars on Koine should pursue books by Stanley Porter, Daniel Wallace and David Black, as well as the articles by James Boyer and books by A. T. Robertson, Moulton and Burton.