Resources for Learning Koine Greek
Many people desire to read the Bible in its original languages or to learn Latin, the language of theology for much of church history. Thankfully, the advent of the Internet has made learning Latin, Greek, and Hebrew far more attainable than ever before; no seminary classroom required! With the necessary self-discipline and motivation, these languages are now accessible to anyone. This article provides resources for learning Koine Greek.
Why Learn Koine Greek?
Koine Greek goes by many other names. It is sometimes called Common Attic since it borrows heavily from the Attic (Classical) dialect. More accurately, Koine is a form of Greek, not a dialect. It is also known as Hellenistic Greek since it was the dominant language spoken during the Hellenistic Period, which began with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC. The most common title for Koine Greek is Biblical Greek. This is because the first translation ever made of the Hebrew Scriptures was from Hebrew into Koine Greek. This Greek Old Testament is traditionally called the Septuagint (3rd century BC). From the 1st century until the mid-6th century AD, Koine Greek served as the lingua franca (or “common tongue”) of the Roman Empire - even though Latin was the official language of the empire!
Students of the Bible have much to gain from learning Koine Greek. It will allow them to engage and interpret the New Testament on its own terms. This, by extension, has important applications for theology, biblical history, and pastoral work.
Whether you’re interested in history, philosophy, literature, economics, or anything at all situated in the ancient period, you won’t be able to avoid Koine Greek for very long. While Koine is best known for serving as the original language of the New Testament and the Septuagint, it boasts an enormous corpus of ancient writings - including the Stoic philosophy of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, the histories of Plutarch and Polybius, Apollonius Rhodius’ epic Argonautica, as well as obscure archeological pieces like grocery lists, wills, legal documents, and personal letters (some of which have never been published!). There is a ton of accessible and compelling content written in Koine. So even if you are only interested in Homer or in Classical Greek, reading Koine texts will still give you a huge step-up just because of the amount of comprehensible input you will get access to.
Approaches to Learning Koine Greek
There are two ways you can learn biblical Greek, and it all depends on your goal. If you want to be able to sit down and read biblical Greek, then you want Biblical Greek resources.
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In most Greek courses, you could sit through weeks of rote memorization before you ever read a real text. Even then, texts tend to be short, dull, and they take a back seat to paradigms, vocabulary, and grammar. Too many students complete a course with only a set of “conversion formulas” to show for it, and they think they’ve learned Greek! That’s like forcing you to memorize a cookbook before letting you step foot in a kitchen - and once you do step foot in the kitchen, you’ve never even held a knife before! Proficiency in Greek requires reading early, much, and often.
With Active Pedagogy, language students learn by reading, writing, and speaking the target language from the beginning. With Comprehensible Input, language students read texts at their level that they will understand and enjoy. They will read entire stories from beginning to end without the need to run to a dictionary. This creates prolonged exposure to the language and compels the brain to employ the language ahead of understanding - which is how everybody learns their first language as infants!
Resources for Learning
Textbooks and Grammars
Dobson's book: This book makes a great introduction because he does not teach grammar until later in the book, which is typically one of the greatest intimidations to overcome when learning another language. In lesson 2, you read John 1:1, and in lesson 18, he assigns passages to read from the Greek New Testament. This is the book that began my journey into learning Greek, and I still highly recommend it to any self-learners.
Mounce's Greek Grammar: Mounce’s Greek grammar is a best seller for good reason. In his lectures, Mounce says that learning Greek was a difficult and strenuous process for him, so he wrote his own textbook to make it easier for others. I am a bit of a grammar nerd, so I did read the book cover-to-cover.
Greek for the Rest of Us: The textbook, Greek for the Rest of Us, now has a video series and a laminate sheet along with the online class that will help teach you enough Greek so that you can use your Bible study tools better, and all without the pain normally associated with learning a language.
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A Graded Reader of Biblical Greek: Bill is in the process of creating this class for second-year Greek. It will assume you have worked through first-year Greek and have purchased his textbook, A Graded Reader of Biblical Greek. Its completion will coincide with the release of the second edition of the textbook, planned for Fall, 2025.
Jeong’s book: Jeong’s book was written to be paired with Croy’s A Primer of Biblical Greek, but it can certainly be read on its one. While there are a number of Greek readers for intermediate students, this book is one of the few that targets beginners.
Online Courses and Programs
Biblical Language Center (BLC): The seeds of Biblical Language Center (BLC) began more than twenty years ago when Randall Buth, a long-time Bible translator, saw the need for learning the biblical languages communicatively. This led to him moving to Israel in 1996 where he would develop curriculum and materials for learning Biblical Hebrew and eventually Biblical Greek as living languages. They run a series of online classes in Living Koine Greek and also sell a number of language-learning materials.
Polis Institute: The Polis Institute in Jerusalem, founded in 2011, also has one of the best programs in the world for learning Greek communicatively. My only critique of Polis is that they use a more traditional academic pronunciation and not a restored Koine pronunciation.
Ancient Language Institute (ALI): Instead of paradigms and flash cards, we have page turners and Greek conversations. The differences between the various forms of Ancient Greek: Archaic, Classical, and Koine, are overstated. At the introductory level, all students receive a license to our interactive, digital textbook, which helps you learn grammar and vocabulary according to our natural method. At every level, actual class meetings take place live, online. Our Fellows will present lessons, oversee exercises, and lead students in readings and discussions, so you will get a chance to interact with our faculty and your fellow students.Since our goal is to help you read Koine fluently, we’ll get you reading Greek texts as quickly as possible. And even though no one speaks Koine Greek as a native tongue anymore, you will learn to speak Koine as well. One of the best ways to learn how to read is to learn how to speak, and vice versa. You don’t need the gift of tongues to acquire Greek. It requires no special skill or innate talent - just good study habits and time.
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Foundations of Koine Greek course: The resources on this site support the Foundations of Koine Greek course that I developed to teach local homeschool students. Foundations of Koine Greek is an introductory course that focuses on pronouncing and writing the Koine Greek alphabet and Greek words. The course also introduces basic Greek grammar concepts. It prepares the student for a beginning Biblical Greek course. The course uses a Student Manual that includes lesson content and practice exercises for a 14 week self-study course. This site provides audio and video resources that support the course. Students can hear the alphabet and vocabulary words pronounced, and view videos that supplement the lesson content in the Student Manual. There are also other resources for the enjoyment of learning Koine Greek. These audio and video resources are free for anyone to use without purchasing the Student Manual.
Online Tools and Resources
Free YouTube videos: These free YouTube videos are fantastic for teaching biblical Greek as an actual language. Each video’s content is exclusively given in Greek, which makes for excellent comprehensible input.
LivingText.org: This is currently in development by Jonathon Robie and Michael Palmer. It is a free tool that works in a similar way to some of the pedagogy of BLC. Currently only a few lessons are available, but I anticipate more to come in the future.
Koine-Greek.com: This is a very helpful blog and collection of resources on Koine Greek. It is run by a number of Greek scholars. They have a lot of helpful resources on Koine Greek linguistics, both from an academic perspective and from a more accessible perspective. In addition, they also conduct a series of interviews with significant scholars in the field.
Greek Vocabulary Platform: We use a vocabulary learning platform to introduce students to new Greek terms. This software combines images and sounds with the target term, always used in a memorable context. The combination of sounds and images allows students to quickly and enjoyably understand Greek words, in the ways that Koine writers used them.
Greek Grammar Platform: Our Greek grammar platform grants students access to short lectures on Greek grammar that are characterized by clear explanations and helpful images.
Online Class Features: All of our classes are live, online classes. Learning a language with other live people, plus the combination and careful sequencing of materials we employ, allows our classes to be highly productive and fun. In class, students see the vocabulary and grammar they have studied that week in a fresh and creative way, which prepares them to read their assigned texts with ease and success. Further, in every class session, students are also exposed to additional comprehensible input in a way that prepares and allows students to interact with Koine Greek actively. The best way to learn to read Koine is to speak and to write it!
Dictionary and Concordance
This dictionary has been under refinement for over 20 years, but it is getting a major overhaul. Every entry is going to be re-examined. You are encouraged to submit your suggestions for any word. Of special importance is the concordance, which shows every place the Greek word occurs. This gives you biblical context for understanding the word.
Tips for Effective Learning
Consistency is Key: 15 minutes every day is far better than one two-hour block per week. Of course, the more time you can give to studying, the more quickly you will see progress.
Capitalize on Enthusiasm: In learning anything new, periods of intensity wax and wane. Capitalize on seasons of enthusiasm by studying for longer periods of time, but keep doing something even in the dry seasons when motivation dwindles.
Read Extensively: Read everything you can, as often as you can. Although some methodologies are better for language learning than others, there are no shortcuts. Fluency requires time and effort with the language.
Set Goals: Big picture goals are crucial. For Greek and Hebrew, that is fairly simple: I want to be able to read the Bible in the original languages as fluently as possible. But it is also important to have smaller, milestone goals. Those goals can be finishing a certain book, reaching a certain chapter, or fully understanding a particular passage.
Embrace the Process: Mounce talks about working through the mental fog while learning a language, and that is all too true. Don’t expect to understand everything the first time you encounter it; keep going and clarity will eventually come. When I first started, I would often read a new grammar lesson in bed, even though I knew that I probably wouldn’t understand it. That was for two reasons. First, the mental work put me to sleep.
Anyone Can Learn: You do not have to be a pastor or great theologian to learn the classical languages. If you put in the time and the effort, you can learn any one of these languages or even all three.
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