Following the conquests of Alexander the Great, Greek became the language of trade and commerce throughout the Mediterranean and the Near and Middle East. While the language of the educated Hellenes was Attic-Ionic, the Greek that now developed through the contact with other cultures looked different in many respects of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. ‘Hellenistic Greek’, also called Koine (‘the common language’), is usually set between 300BCE and 300CE. The New Testament is one of the best known and most influential collections of literary documents from this era and in this language. This module introduces students to the study of Hellenistic Greek grammar to enable them to read and translate simple Greek sentences.

This module, normally requires the completion of RT3107 or its equivalent, and introduces the student to further study of the grammar of New Testament Greek and to a first reading of selected passages from the text in the original language.

- Minimally to read, write and translate simple Greek sentences and to recognise grammatical forms and functions.

- Typically, a student should be able to read, write and describe (parse) simple grammatical forms and be able to translate compound sentences from Greek to English and from English to Greek.

The language classes in this module are interactive and participative. Each student will be given personal attention in a supportive atmosphere. In turn each student should be be willing to join the others in the learning process, whether by working in small groups or by sharing his or her reading and translation in class. Each student’s success will depend on this. Reading and speaking out loud in class will gain each student confidence in speaking the language. The course involves the use of a course-book supplemented by other material given out in class. This will also include occasional homework exercises.

Knowledge and Understanding: Ability to know a language and script quite different from English, to understand a different culture and mindset, in which this language is spoken, to know the contents of the literature, which has been studied in the course of this course

Intellectual Skills: Ability to learn and understand a language quite different from English, adapt to a different mindset, formulate ideas expressed in that mindset, develop independent and flexible thought and problem solving strategies, processing and organising large amounts of new data

Discipline Specific (including practical) Skills: Time and workload management, independent working, self-motivated working, handwriting, public speaking, self-discipline and self-reliance

Transferable Skills: Language learning, cultural learning, office-management, time-management, translation skills, grammatical and linguistic skills, analytical skills

At different stages in the semester the students may be asked to parse and conjugate verbs in full or write declensions of a noun or adjective. Homework exercises are an integral part of their work. They provide practice and will help the students and the teacher to identify areas of misunderstanding, or difficulty. They do not count towards the semester mark. They are there to help the students build confidence and expertise in grammar and translation.

At the end of the module students will be summatively assessed by means of a two hour unseen examination.

Aorist and future tenses; third declension nouns; infinitives; participles; the subjunctive mood; the imperative mood; Gospel of John chapter 4.

A choice set text of about 700 words which will be the basis of a guided coursework exercise and from which the set text for the exam will be taken.

The grammar textbook for Biblical Greek is:

F. Beetham, Introduction to New Testament Greek (Bristol: Bristol University Press, 1993)

Each student  is expected to have a personal copy of this book.

There will be use of and reference to other literature as well. All the required material in addition to what can be found in the textbook will be provided in form of handouts.

For a dictionary the following titles can be recommended (optional):

W C Trenchard, A Concise Dictionary of New Testament Greek (Cambridge University Press, 2003)

J Morwood & J Taylor, The Pocket Oxford Classical Greek  Dictionary (Oxford University Press, 2002)

H G Liddell & R Scott, Abridged Greek Lexicon (Oxford University Press)