Steps to Learning the Greek New Testament

As I mentioned in the last part of our series, learning a foreign language is not easy. Learning an ancient foreign language may be even harder. We took the first step by looking at some Bible study tools that will help you see how English translators look at the Greek New Testament. You don’t have to know Greek to use those tools.

For those of you who would like to go a bit further and learn a little New Testament Greek, let’s get started.

Step Two

We begin with the Greek alphabet. It’s similar in many ways to English. Whereas English has 26 letters in its alphabet, Greek has 24 letters. English and Greek letters are similar in that they have both uppercase and lowercase. I recommend you learn the lowercase Greek letters first because that’s what you’ll see in most of the New Testament texts.

Here’s a quick look at the lowercase Greek letters:

  • Alpha – α
  • Beta – β
  • Gamma – γ
  • Delta – δ
  • Epsilon – ε
  • Zeta – ζ
  • Eta – η
  • Theta – θ
  • Iota – ι
  • Kappa – κ
  • Lambda – λ
  • Mu – μ
  • Nu – ν
  • Xi – ξ
  • Omicron – ο
  • Pi – π
  • Rho – ρ
  • Sigma – σ/ς
  • Tau – τ
  • Upsilon – υ
  • Phi – φ
  • Chi – χ
  • Psi – ψ
  • Omega – ω

Pronunciation of the Koine Greek is also helpful to know as you learn the alphabet. Here’s a helpful chart to use. It’s also good to “hear” how the letters sound. Here’s a short song that demonstrates pronunciation of Koine Greek letters.

I came up with a way to remember the letters in order similar to what I did as a child learning my A-B-Cs:

  1. A, B, C, D, E, F, G
  2. H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P
  3. Q, R, S, and T, U, V
  4. W, and X, Y, Z
  1. Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon
  2. Zeta, Eta, Theta
  3. Iota, Kappa, Lambda, Mu, Nu
  4. Xi, Omicron, Pi, Rho
  5. Sigma, Tau, Upsilon
  6. Phi, Chi, Psi, Omega

Feel free to come up with your own way to memorize the Greek letters. That’s just a way that worked for me. Once you memorize the letters in order, and revisit your memory tool, you shouldn’t forget the letters in the right order.

The next thing is to see how letters join together to become words. Take the word “help” for example. The English word is made up of four letter h, e, l, p. English speakers know how each letter sounds in this construct, so they understand when someone says or yells “help.”

The same is true with Greek. Here’s an example from the New Testament:

Then she came and worshiped Him, saying, ‘Lord, help me! Matthew 15:25

The Greek word used for “help” in this verse is βοήθει. While that looks a little strange at first, we can take each Greek letter and match it with an English letter. It would look like this — boēthei. The Greek definition is similar to the English definition — “to come to the aid of, come to rescue of.”

Like English, Greek words often come from “root” words. In the case of βοήθει, the word comes from βοή (boḗ) which means “a cry, a shout.” We can understand from the Greek word used that the woman in Matthew 15 cried out or shouted the words “Lord, help me!” That helps us understand her emotion at the moment she saw Jesus Christ. She knew He could help her and she was desperate to receive His help.

Step Three

Once you learn the Greek alphabet and can read words, you will want to know how to define those words as part of your Bible study. You can either purchase a Greek dictionary or use online versions. I didn’t have the online option when I began learning Greek in 1971, so I started with Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words. I liked that during the first couple of years of studying Greek because I could search for the English word in Vines, then look for the particular Greek word that was used in the verse. I also purchased a very large book titled Strong’s Greek and Hebrew Dictionaries. The format was a bit different than Vine’s, but it accomplished basically the same thing.

You’ll find lots of online versions today that do the same thing. You can find Vine’s and Strong’s dictionaries online, along with others that give you the option of searching for the English word in your Bible. Other English to Greek dictionaries include:

Bridgeway Bible Dictionary

Easton’s Bible Dictionary

Fausset’s Bible Dictionary

Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible

Morrish Bible Dictionary

Smith’s Bible Dictionary

Once you are comfortable reading Greek, you will find Greek-to-English dictionaries helpful. I started using A Concise Greek-English Dictionary of the New Testament by Barclay Newman, Jr. in the 1970s. It’s a small dictionary that is great for travel or using in a small group Bible study. I still reference my hard copy regularly. You can also access it online. I also find my copy of The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament by Spiros Zodhiates helpful for studying and writing. Probably my personal favorite is Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament.

Step Four

Once you’re comfortable reading the Greek words, you will find it helpful to get a Greek text of the New Testament. Since I started Bible study with the King James Version, I used the 1550 Stephanus New Testament text. It’s also known as Textus Receptus (Received Text). As I expanded my study in later years to other Bible versions (e.g. NASB, NIV), I also added other Greek texts for comparison. They included the 1881 Westcott-Hort New Testament and the 1894 Scrivener New Testament. I compared the Majority Text with the Received Text during Bible study (and still do).

I found it helpful to use a Greek-English New Testament rather than a Greek-only text in the early days of my learning Greek. I started with the Nestle-Aland Greek-English New Testament, then moved to The Zondervan Parallel New Testament in Greek and English, and Berry’s Interlinear Greek-English New Testament. The Nestle-Aland and Zondervan Parallel have the King James Version on the left page and the Greek text on the right page. Berry’s has the KJV word under each Greek word, which I found helpful as I was learning Greek.

Here are some examples of parallel versions of the Greek New Testament available online:

Interlinear Bible

Greek Interlinear Bible (NT)

Bible Hub Greek Interlinear

Greek – English Interlinear Bible

Next Time

Once you learn the Greek alphabet and can read words in Koine Greek, you’ll find it helpful to understand basic Greek grammar. It plays a large part in properly interpreting God’s Word. We’ll look into that in the next part of our series, It’s Greek To Me!

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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