The Purpose
- There are many on-line Greek texts of Koine writings such as the New Testament, the Septuagint, Apocrypha, and Early Church Writings, so why another one?
- This site is intended to teach Greek for the beginner by reading the text.
- It assumes some understanding of the Greek alphabet.
- There are many words which are obvious when you pronounce them.
- If you have taken a few lessons in Greek, you know some vocabulary.
- Thus you can begin to read parts of the verse as you go along.
- When you encounter an unfamiliar word, clicking on it will take you to the lexicon to see its meaning and its parsing (i.e., identification).
- If you hover over some of the words, its basic meaning will appear.
- There are many other sites and books displaying these scriptural texts; but when you encounter a new word, you must resort to a book or another website to locate the meaning and even a third book or website to discover the parsing. That process slows down the flow of reading the text. In contrast I hope this website will facilitate a quicker process of reading the text and thus make reading the Greek easier and more enjoyable.
The Text
- Some problems with the text exist
- Accents and breathing marks are either wrong or missing. The lexicon especially is deficient in them. That problem is slowly being corrected.
- A few words of the LXX (Septuagint), Apocrypha, and Early Church Writings are not included in the lexicon. That deficiency is slowly improving.
- Some of the lexicon pages are very slow to load. This problem is also being addressed.
- Not all the words have the "hover" feature. That is also a work in progress.
You can help
- When you discover a word missing in the lexicon, please contact me at bible@motorera.com
- Look up the word in BAGS or another good lexicon and send me the word and its meaning.
- If you are able, also send me the parsed description of that word.
- Please indicate the reference where the word is found
The Grammar
- When you click on any link-word (usually in blue) in the text, you will be taken to a lexicon where you will see the following:
- The Greek word itself
- The grammatical breakdown of that particular word.
- Either:
- the definition followed by the root word.
- or another link to the root word where the meaning is displayed
- Nouns and participles show the case, gender (masculine, feminine, neuter) and number (singular or plural)
- Cases are given as
- Nom = Nominative (usually the subject of the clause or sentence)
- Gen = Genitive/Ablative
- Genitive case is generally the indirect object which describes the character or relation and is usually translated with the English preposition of as in, this is a bar of steel or this is a poem of Longfellow or the pen of the king
- Ablative case generally gives the idea of departure or separation and is usually translated with the prepositions off, from, away from
- Since both the Genitive and Ablative forms are identical, students often learn this case as the of/from case.
- Dat = Locative/Instrumental/Dative
- Locative case is generally the case of position often translated with the prepositions in, on, among, at, by as in the boy is by the pool
- Instrumental case is generally the case of means or association often translated with the prepositions with or by as in travel by car, open with force
- Dative case is generally the case of interest or advantage often translated with the prepositions to or for as in give this to Mary, it is for you
- Since these three cases are identical in form, students sometimes call them the LID or Dat case. While the Gen case is the of/from case some students call this case, "all the rest" meaning all the rest of the prepositions.
- Acc = Acusative. This is the case of limitation or extension and is often the direct object of a verb idea.
- Voc = Vocative. This is the case of address or exclamation.
- Verbs have tense, mode or mood, and voice.
- Tense: In Greek, the tense describes the kind of action as much as the time of action. They include
- Present tense describing on-going action usually in current time
- Imperfect tense describing on-going action usually in past time
- Future tense describing on-going or punctiliary action in future time
- Aorist tense describing punctiliary action at some time
- Perfect tense usually describing punctiliar action with on-going results
- Pluperfect tense is the perfect tense in past time
- Mode or mood can be indicative, subjunctive, optative, or imperative.
- The mode/mood tells whether an action is actually happening or possibly happening.
- Indicative: the action of the verb is actual
- Subjunctive: the action of the verb is objectively possible
- Optative: the action of the verb is subjectively possible
- Imperative: the action is volitionally possible (i.e., a command)
- Voice can be active, middle, or passive
- Active: the subject is producing the action
- Middle: the subject is participating in the action
- Passive: the subject is receiving the action
- Often the middle and passive forms are identical
- Sometimes a verb will have a middle/passive form but be active in meaning. The verb is called deponent.
- Participles are adjectives with a verbal idea and a noun form
- Thus they are built from the verb stem so that they have tense and voice (but not mode/mood)
- The tense reveals the kind of action, not its time. The time of action is dependent upon the time of the main verb.
- They also have noun endings which give them case, number, and gender
Greek Tutorial
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