Essentials of New Testament Greek

Rating:
Summary: Greek from a Latin Point of View
Review: There are two social traditions in presenting Greek, the Biblical and the classical. Summers presents the Biblical, a somehwat simplified view, adequate perhaps if you are not really going to read the Bible in Greek. Stepping in where classicists fear to tread, he applies Latin terminology to the Greek language. We learn that Greek has an ablative and an instrumental. He means, of course, that those cases have merged with the genitive and dative in Greek. Caveat imperitus.

Rating:
Summary: Good explanation, poor exercises.
Review: This is a good introduction to studying Koine Greek, though it should probably be supplemented. The workbook is nearly essential (contrary to other reviews, it's quite easy to find), especially since it's true, there are no answers to the included exercises in the textbook itself.

But the explanations are clear and easy to follow. The text is well-written and concise. The font is quite readable and clear, and you shouldn't have any problems reading the Greek text itself.

If you get this book, do yourself a favor and get the workbook too. Together they make a nice pair.

Rating:
Summary: Good Introduction to New Testament Greek
Review: This is a good introduction to the study of New Testament Greek. I am partial to it, because it is the text I used in college, but it does have its flaws.

It has some positives to it: it has a lot of vocabulary in it (80% of all the words used in the NT/all words used more than 50 times). It also has good charts for the different tenses and uses of irregular forms of New Testament words.

The main flaw to the book is that it uses the eight case system, and it doesn't use the five (the eight case system has all but fallen out of favor). The only other problem I have with it is that it doesn't dicuss the optative mood at all (most introductory grammars do not, because it is so rare in the New Testament). As I said, I am partial to this work, because it is the text I learned with. You will get some good things from the work, but it does have its disadvantages. This is a good work, but I would recommend also using Mounce along with Summers for a different perspective all together.