A Reader's Greek New Testament

Rating:
Summary: A long overdue product has arrived
Review: As a student of Greek for 21 years, I want especially to commend Zondervan on making this available. I can't believe how friendly this volume is! The cover is nice and the book as a whole seems much more durable than the Nestle's and UBS editions which are primarily used by today's students of the Greek New Testament. Although I miss the textual apparatus, I understand that both that and the vocabulary helps cannot fit on the same page with text. Although textual apparatus is needed for exegesis, for purposes of reading the text, I prefer what Zondervan has chosen. This is a real winner and long overdue! Every Greek professor and student will want a copy.

Rating:
Summary: A Useful Reading Tool
Review: As I read the reviews, it is evident that a correction is needed. The underlying text in this book _is_ trustworthy.

It varies from the Standard Text (UBS/NA) in 231 places, and has a footnote for each one of those as to the Standard Text's reading.

This implies that you can sit down with this resource, and know exactly where it differs from the Standard Text, without needing the Standard Text with you.

While I grant it was an odd selection to pick the text based on the preferred readings that went into the NIV, this is by no means a reverse-translated text.

Regardless, it has assisted my reading of the GNT greatly, and after going through a trial period of reading it side by side with my NA-27, I think I can move to just the RGNT.

Cheers,

Rating:
Summary: Is this really needed
Review: Ever since I began studying Koine Greek, I have wished for a Greek New Testament that reads and feels like a real Bible instead of a cold textbook. My wish has been answered! The soft leather cover, sturdy binding, and gold-edged pages of this edition make it a pleasure to hold.

The absence of text-critical notes makes room for lexical entries at the bottom of each page. While this makes the Reader's Greek New Testament inappropriate for professional translators, it is a huge boon for people who simply want to read the inspired words of God in Koine Greek. I am a first-year student of Greek, and this book allows me to set aside my interlinear and immerse myself in the full Greek text instead. Also, due to the lexical entries, I rarely need to consult a separate lexicon, or even leave the current page I am looking at.

The only complaint I have concerns the Greek font used. Although this font is a familiar and common one, I do prefer the font used in the United Bible Societies text. In any case, I realize this is a personal preference of mine that many people may not share.

I am grateful to the authors for producing this New Testament. It is one of my favorite Bibles and I hope to spend years studying it.

Rating:
Summary: Great Greek Reader
Review: For those students of first or second year New Testament Greek, this Greek New Testament is perfect! I have been using it in my devotions and have found it refreshing in my studies. It makes translating the text much easier by leaving out the words that appear over 50 times in the Greek.

If you Greek is limited or your are a Greek student wanting a Greek New Testament that is both readable and easy to translate then this is your book. I would still encourage you to refer to the complete Greek New Testament from time to time to keep your translating up to date and in line with proper Greek exegesis.

Rating:
Summary: Great Greek Reader
Review: For those students of first or second year New Testament Greek, this Greek New Testament is perfect! I have been using it in my devotions and have found it refreshing in my studies. It makes translating the text much easier by leaving out the words that appear over 50 times in the Greek.

If you Greek is limited or your are a Greek student wanting a Greek New Testament that is both readable and easy to translate then this is your book. I would still encourage you to refer to the complete Greek New Testament from time to time to keep your translating up to date and in line with proper Greek exegesis.

Rating:
Summary: See also "Refresh Your Greek"
Review: Leather bound, light, and pleasurable to use. Zondervan's Greek NT has definitions for all words occurring 30 times or less. They do not parse words, they only provide definitions.

I wish this book was more like the Greek New Testament by W. Perschbacher, which is horribly mis-titled "Refresh your Greek". The advantage of Perschbacher's book (which contains either the UBS or Nestle-Aland -- I can't recall) is that he provides a vocab list before each book and he parses verbs in the footnotes. Furthermore, he lists words occurring 50 times or less in the footnotes. The disadvantages to Perschbacher's edition are three: 1. He does not reduplicate entries within a book, so that he sends you back to a footnote on a previous page if the word was defined earlier (this only happens within books, not within the whole NT). 2. His volume is more expensive and 3. "Refresh Your Greek" is hardback and much thicker (partly due to the brief grammar in the back of the book -- which is a plus).


Rating:
Summary: Great BEGINNER's tool, NOT an authoritative text
Review: Simply put, if you're learning to read NT Greek, this volume will help. If you finish a book like the Mounce Grammar (full disclosure: I'm only halfway done with that volume right now), at the end of that process, you should be able to sit with this ONE volume and read the New Testament in Greek. You won't need a lexicon open next to you all the time, necessarily, and you'll be able to pick up some vocabulary quickly.

Some have asked why Zondervan didn't use NA27 or UBS4 for this, but it doesn't matter. Use this volume for your early Greek reading and, dare I say it, devotional reading, but by ALL MEANS get a REAL NA27 or UBS4 for serious study. This volume is NOT an authoritative text, it is a learning aid. Treat it like one. I say use it till you don't need it then give it away to help make somebody else smart!

The font isn't so bad once you get used to it. It's real portable and easy to use, and it'll make you look real smart in church. ;-) Just don't get a big head about it. Just because you can read a few dozen words in Greek, you still don't know more than the textual critics, translators, and, if you're lucky, your pastor. Stay humble! And remember, those definitions at the bottom of the page are just glosses, get a BDAG for serious study, and a little Kittel or something, too.

I give it 5 stars because it is exactly what it claims to be, and is very good at it, too.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing Deal
Review: This Greek New Testament is an amazing deal and seems to stand out for those just beginning the study of Biblical Greek. It provides brief definitions for all those words which occur less than 30 times in the text, thus serving as a perfect compliment for Biblical Greek instructions like Mounce's "Basics of Biblical Greek."
Beyond this, it is bound in beautiful Italian leather...so it's a pleasure just to hold.

Rating:
Summary: A Reader's Greek New Testament
Review: This is a marvelous tool. The introduction is worth reading, noting the renaissance of people studying and wanting to read the New Testament in its orriginal language.

This Bible enables readers with limited vocabulary to read much more rapidly. Every word that is not used more than 50 times in the New Testament is listed at the bottom of each page with lexical form and brief definition.

I have taught several college N.T. Greek classes to groups of people who were interested in learning. Quite a few of my students wanted to continue regular reading in the Greek New Testament. But it proved too time consuming for students with only beginning Greek under their belts.

Those familiar with the UBS 4th edition will find the text interesting. It uses the text developed by Edward W. Goodrick and John R. Kohlenberger III in the Portland Index Project. They give the alternate reading in 231 places where the NIV committee favored a different reading noting the alternates used by the standard text. Of course most variants are insignificant and you can purchas a discussion by Aland and Aland and Metzger on each major variant in the Standard Text explaining the rarionale behind their choices. By using alternate variant readings this text brings a slightly different perspective on the orriginal manuscripts.


Rating:
Summary: Mixed Blessing
Review: While the editors have greatly added to the ease of picking up more vocabulary than is learned in Mounce's course, there are two major drawbacks to this Greek New Testatment. First, is the use of a somewhat italic Greek font that results in some characters differing considerably from other Greek fonts. In particular are the characters for rho (which looks like an omicron with some form of subscript) and the kappa which looks like a lower case English "x"). The second, and more critical drawback, is that this is a reverse engineered text based on the selections made by the NIV translation committee (per the editors description in the introduction).

At least the latter of these should be made clear in the book's description and the editors should certainly consider a more standard font in future editions.

It's not that I will pitch this volume out, it is that I wish it could have been better than it is.