William D. Mounce - Greek for the Rest of Us: The Essentials of Biblical Greek

Second Edition

Greek for the Rest of Us

Also by William Mounce

Basics of Biblical Greek: Grammar

Basics of Biblical Greek: Workbook

A Graded Reader of Biblical Greek

The Analytical Lexicon to the Greek New Testament

Biblical Greek: A Compact Guide

The Morphology of Biblical Greek

The Interlinear for the Rest of Us

The Zondervan Greek and English Interlinear New Testament (NASB/NIV)

Mounces Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words

Pastoral Epistles (Word Biblical Commentary)

The Crossway Comprehensive Concordance of the Holy Bible

Second Edition

Greek for the Rest of Us

The Essentials of Biblical Greek

William D. Mounce

ZONDERVAN

Greek for the Rest of Us

Copyright 2013 by William D. Mounce

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mounce, William D.

Greek for the rest of us: the essentials of biblical Greek / William D. MounceSecond edition.

p. cm.

Includes .

eISBN 978-0-310-51809-9

ISBN 978-0-310-27710-1 (softcover)

BiblicalGrammar. 2. Bible. New TestamentLanguage, style. I. Title.

PA817.M655 2013

487'.4dc23 2013023352

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible. Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

The Scripture quotations marked RSV and NRSV are from the (New) Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1946, 1952, 1971, 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America, and are used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked ESV are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NET taken from the NET Bible copyright 1996-2006 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C., www.bible.org. All rights reserved.

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed services, without the prior written permission of the author.

for Big Terry

who deeply desires to know Gods Word better

but who does not have the time to learn traditional Greek

Codex Sinaiticus is an important majuscule manuscript from the 4th century. The images posted here are from the full-sized black and white facsimile of the manuscript produced in 1911 by Kirsopp Lake and Clarendon Press. The Codex Sinaiticus Project website (http://codexsinaiticus.org) has new images and information about this manuscript.

Image courtesy of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts

Table of Contents

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When people learn that I am a Greek teacher, one of the more common responses is, I have always wanted to learn Greek. (It may not be the most common, but it has happened repeatedly.) I always ask them why they want to learn Greek. To date, only one person has said he really wants to learn the language. What they want is to understand the Bible better, and especially to know what the Greek words behind the English translation mean.

In a perfect world, we would all know Greek and be able to understand the Bible better because we would not rely on translations. But the world is not perfect, and many people are not able to spend the years required to learn Greek properly, even those who have a seminary education.

As I thought about how I might help the situation, I came to the conclusion that if people knew a little about Greek and a lot about how to use the good biblical study tools, they could in fact glean much from the Bible and from other resources that are otherwise beyond their grasp. This includes: