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Freebies for Students of New Testament Greek

Here are some free online Greek texts, tools and resources that I have found useful, plus a few that have been recommended to me by friends. (There’s more in the comments section below.)

Want to Learn New Testament Greek?

A list of websites that offer free courses and resources for beginners is here. This Youtube video is a great way to learn the Greek alphabet. Angela Taylor has more videos here. And her website, Alpha with Angela, is here.

The Greek New Testament (GNT)

If you don’t have your own copy of the Greek New Testament you can read the SBL edition online at Bible Gateway. (The SBLGNT and other Greek texts can be read on Bible Gateway in parallel with English and other translations of the New Testament.) Or you may prefer to read the latest Nestle-Aland edition, which is online here. The Tyndale House Greek New Testament can be read online at ESV.org and at Bible Gateway. Online versions are great for copy-and-pasting passages into assignments and papers.

Also, the GNT Reader has useful features and is very simple to navigate. And a Greek New Testament you can search with Greek stems is here.

The Septuagint (LXX)

As well as the New Testament, there are online editions of the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament. This online edition of the Septuagint is based on Alfred Rahlfs’ edition that has been edited again more recently by Robert Hanhart, © 2006 Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.

Bible Web App is a good place to read the Septuagint and the Greek New Testament. (Unfortunately, the Jewish Apocrypha is not included.) Bible Webb App has useful tools that are easy to use. Blue Letter Bible also has a version of the Septuagint with a few tools here.

The Jewish Apocrypha (as well as the LXX, GNT, and Apostolic Fathers) can be read in Greek here. Kata Biblon has the LXX including the Apocrypha here. Swete’s edition of the Septuagint, which includes 3 and 4 Maccabees and Enoch, is here. David Black has even more links of interest for students of the Septuagint here.

Berry’s Interlinear Greek-English New Testament

This resource uses the 1550 Stephanus text of the Greek New Testament which is not my favourite. Or perhaps it’s using the Elzevir brothers’ 1624 edition of Stephanus’s text. (This isn’t clear to me.) Either way, in this Greek text, Apphia is “the beloved,” rather than “the sister.” And Nympha is a man instead of a woman. Plus there are other small issues with the Greek text.

Furthermore, Berry’s was first published in 1897, and our knowledge of ancient Greek has greatly improved since. Also, the interlinear translation doesn’t use gender-inclusive words. For example, in 1 Timothy 2:4-5, the word “men” is used twice to translate the word anthrōpoi, rather than “people.” But it’s free online on Internet Archive and could be useful for students just starting to learn Greek, as long as they don’t pedantically follow the English translation provided.

Lumina by Bible.org

Lumina is a free online Bible study resource that has some great features for students of Greek (and of Hebrew.) Useful information, including parsing, pops up on the screen when you hover over or click on a word in the Greek New Testament. This resource also has NET Bible notes. Try out Lumina here.

STEP Bible by Tyndale House

STEP (Scripture Tools for Every Person) is a project of Tyndale House, Cambridge. Their aim is to build and distribute high-quality free Bible tools for disadvantaged believers who have few resources, but others can use it online. Hover over a word of the Greek text (New Testament or Septuagint) to see the English definition. Click on the word to see the parsing information, etc. Here’s a good place to start.

SIL Glossary of Linguistic Terms

This website offers definitions of linguistic terms. It is not written with biblical Greek in mind, but it is useful if you want to look up the meaning of a linguistic term such as “definition,” “inflection,” “parataxis,” etc.

Basics of Biblical Greek YouTube Playlist

Here is a series of 40 videos that go with Bill Mounce’s book, Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar.

Daily Dose of Greek (Videos)

In each of these short videos, Dr Rob Plummer, a professor of New Testament interpretation, goes through a single verse of the New Testament and explains the grammar. Rob pitches his explanations at students who have done two semesters of New Testament Greek. These videos are great if you want to keep those grammar rules fresh in your mind. A link is sent daily via email to subscribers.

Englishman’s Greek Concordance

This is a resource I use almost every day. I use it when I want to quickly see how a particular Greek word is used elsewhere in the New Testament and by which NT authors. Click on a letter of the Greek alphabet (in the darker blue band) to begin your search. There are mistakes with the use of accents and some definitions are not completely accurate, so user beware.

Liddell, Scott, and Jones (LSJ)

The 1940 edition of this exhaustive lexicon of Ancient Greek is available at the Perseus Digital Library here. The shorter “Middle Liddell” is here.

Louw and Nida’s Lexicon

The entries in this lexicon are arranged by semantic domains. That is, words with similar meanings are grouped together under one heading. This can be useful as it helps us to see similarities and differences in words with related meanings. There are a few other features that make this a valuable resource. Here is a video that shows how to use this resource well. And here is an abbreviated version of the Louw–Nida.

Lampe’s Lexicon of Patristic Greek

The 1961 publication of A Patristic Greek Lexicon, edited by G. W. H. Lampe, is freely available on Internet Archive.

Sophocles’ Greek Lexicon

This lexicon of the Greek of the Roman and Byzantine periods (from 146 BC to AD 1100) was published in 1900 and is available on Internet Archive.

ΛΟΓΕΙΟΝ

The entries of several Greek-English lexicons can be accessed via the ΛΟΓΕΙΟΝ website here. You need to be able to type in the word you’re looking for with Greek letters.

Ancient Greek Grammar for the Study of the New Testament

All 764 pages of Heinrich von Siebenthal’s Greek Grammar can be downloaded for free here. The book was published in 2020 and the fonts are clear and modern. “The Ancient Greek Grammar for the Study of the New Testament” is a tool for theologians and others interested in interpreting the Greek New Testament. … Combining accuracy with accessibility was one of the main objectives in producing the book.” (It looks like this download is no longer free.) 

Smyth’s Greek Grammar for Colleges

The 1920 edition of H.W. Smyth’s A Greek Grammar for Colleges is available on the Perseus Digital Library website here, and on the Christian Classics Ethereal Library website here. (Each website has its own pros and cons.) Note that this grammar is of Ancient Greek and not just of Koine or New Testament Greek.

Moulton’s Grammar of New Testament Greek

Published in 1870, the full title of this grammar is A Treatise on the Grammar of New Testament Greek: Regarded as a Sure Basis for New Testament Exegesis. It was originally written in German by Georg Benedikt Winer and translated into English by W.F. Moulton. Please consult more modern grammars, especially for discussions on the middle voice and the perfect tense. This grammar can be viewed at Internet Archive.

Goodell’s A School Grammar of Attic Greek

The English has been updated in this basic grammar by Thomas Dwight Goodell which was originally published in 1902. The grammar is uploaded on the website of Dickinson College and is easy to use.

SBL’s Apparatus for Greek New Testament

If you click on the “Library” at Biblia.com you can access the apparatus of the Greek NT edited by Michael Holmes for the Society of Biblical Literature.

GreekNewTestament.Net

The aim of this website is “to collate and transcribe all extant manuscripts of the New Testament,” and it includes a textual apparatus. The website is easy to navigate and shows how a particular NT verse is rendered in different ancient manuscripts, especially Greek manuscripts. This project is ongoing and not yet complete.

An Intermediate Greek Reader

Produced by Nijay Gupta and Jonah Sandford, and freely available online here, this intermediate-graded reader presumes the user will have already learned the basics of Greek grammar and syntax and has memorized Greek words that appear frequently in the New Testament. It moves from simpler translation work (Galatians) towards more advanced readings from the book of James, the Septuagint, and from one of the Church Fathers.

New Understandings in Greek

On Dr Seumas MacDonald’s blog, The Patrologist, is a short series about new understandings in ancient Greek. Part one is on aspect and tense in verbs. Parts two and three are on aktionsart (lexical aspect). Part four is on voice.

Con Campbell on Tense and Aspect

This 40-minute video is a lecture Dr Con Campbell gave at the Linguistics and New Testament Greek conference at Southeastern Seminary in April 2019.

Lectures on Textual Criticism

In this resource on the Biblical Training website, Dr Daniel Wallace gives 36 half-hour lectures on textual criticism.

Resources by Danny Zacharias

Danny Zacharias, who describes himself as an “edupreneur,” has the largest list of Greek principal parts freely available on the internet. See here. Danny has also developed some handy apps including ParseGreek and FlashGreek. There are free versions if you want to try them out, but the complete versions are only a few dollars. You can easily change the degree of difficulty on these apps.

David Black’s New Testament Greek Portal

There is a ton of great stuff here! Take a look at Dr Black’s What’s New page too.

Bryan College Library

There are lots of Greek grammars, concordances, lexicons, and texts, for both the New Testament and the Septuagint, here.

Learning Koine as a Living Language

Here is a 45-minute video where Koine is taught as a living language and using physical responses.

Video of Mark’s Gospel in Greek

At KoineGreek.com you can now watch the entire Gospel of Mark film spoken in Koine Greek with Greek captions. See here.

신약 그리스어를 공부하는 한국인 학생들을 위한

There is a Korean version of Daily Dose of Greek:  2분 헬라어.
This Youtube channel may be useful: 프로스토포스 성경 헬라어.
Hellas Alive is a resource for Korean-speaking and English-speaking students of Classical Greek (고전 그리스어).
I have a few resources for Korean speakers here.

And more . . .

B-Greek: The Biblical Greek Forum is here.
Nerdy Biblical Majors Facebook Group is here.
Flashcards of New Testament Greek Words are here.
An index to Migne’s’ Patrologia Graeca in Google Books is here.
Greek Downloads: A goldmine of patristic Greek texts and more is here.
Loebolus: PDFs of the Loeb editions in the public domain are here.
Scaife Viewer has over 1000 Greek works, including early Christian texts. It’s here.
The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts website is here.
Evangelical Textual Criticism website is here.
The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology (2009) is on Internet Archive.
Abbreviations of authors and their works used in the TLG and LSJ, etc, are here.
Abbreviations of the books of the Bible and of early Jewish and Christian literature (SBL 1999) are here.
A pdf of general and technical abbreviations in the SBL Handbook, including those of early Jewish and Christian primary and secondary sources, is here.

Postscript: January 13, 2022
Cambridge Greek Lexicon

I do not recommend the new Cambridge Greek Lexicon for students of the New Testament. This lexicon was written with students of Classical Greek in mind. The lexicographers did not consult the Septuagint, Jewish Greek authors such as Philo and Josephus, or inscriptions or papyri. These post-classical sources shed light on New Testament Greek. Moreover, the Cambridge Greek Lexicon does not cover the New Testament itself apart from the four Gospels and Acts.

What tools or websites do you recommend?


Explore more

Some Pitfalls of Using Greek-English Dictionaries
Freebies for Students of the New Testament
Freebies for Students of the Early Church
I have over two dozen articles that look closely at various Greek words, here.

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26 thoughts on “Freebies for Students of New Testament Greek

  1. Hi Margaret: Very good work. Excellent. Thanks for share.

    Blessings

    Olga Lucia

    1. Thanks, Shirley.

      There’s good stuff on the Motorera and Laparola websites. I’ll take a look at yours too.

      1. Dear Marg
        Thank you for the excellent resources.

        I am trying to learn to read Koine Greek with the mini goal of being able to read and understand one chapter of the New Testament without constantly referencing the phonetic Greek dictionary. Currently I am using the SBLG New Testament offered by Cambridge.

        https://www.stepbible.org/?q=version=SBLG|reference=Rom.6&options=VNGUH

        I am having some difficulties. For example, when I go to the Cambridge SBLG I am looking at a common Greek New Testament word ἐροῦμεν but when I click it for the phonetic Greek translation that I am more familiar with it says λέγω (legō). What’s going on here? I can see that ἐροῦμεν is completely different than λέγω. Moreover, there are some types of other irregular symbols that I find challenging including two or three different spellings for the phonetic Greek word “megas”.

        There is not much difference between the SBLG and the other Greek New Testaments is there? Certainly not enough to affect doctrine, I hope.
        Sincerely
        Dana

        1. Hi Dana, What is a phonetic Greek translation?

          As for λέγω and ἐροῦμεν: there are several suppletive Greek verbs where different tenses are formed from completely different stems. The future form of λέγω (“I am speaking”) is ἐρῶ (“I will speak”); the aorist is usually εἶπον.

          As another example, the future and aorist forms of ἐσθίω (“I am eating”) are φάγομαι and ἔφαγον.

          The difference in stems is due to the Greek language evolving and some words/ forms becoming obsolete while other words/ forms persist.

          The similarities and differences in stems can be seen in charts of principal parts. (Learning the principal parts of verbs is an essential part of learning Greek.)

          Perhaps these links to info on principal parts are of use to you.
          https://www.dannyzacharias.net/greek-stuff

          This chart of principal parts of common New Testament verbs is clear and easy to use.
          http://www.drshirley.org/greek/textbook02/appendix-C01.pdf

          https://greek2u.wordpress.com/2012/09/25/principal-parts-of-frequently-encountered-irregular-new-testament-greek-verbs/

          An easy article about suppletive verbs is here.
          https://ntresources.com/blog/?p=1457

          1. That may not be what it’s technically called but I call the translation from the original symbol structure into a series of phonetic sounds for example diakonos or sou phonetic Greek words because they aim at presenting the original word the way that it sounds.

          2. Well thank you for explaining that to me.
            I will look at that Principal Parts chart. So, it’s that difference of tense that makes it look like a completely different word. I’m not willing to give up on this quite yet but this is very difficult for me because all the different words and sounds might be spelled completely differently for example ἐροῦμεν do not even visually contain the symbols λέγω.
            Clearly the le sound must be there, but it doesn’t look like λέ but instead ῦμ. I was learning these sounds with the Learn Greek Free lessons but then when I looked at the SGLG again I noticed situations like this were cropping up quite a bit and I want to find out what’s going on.

          3. The stem of the future of λέγω is ἐρ-. The λέγ- stem (and sound) is not in the future tense (or aorist or perfect tenses) in NT Greek.

            The stems λέγ- and ἐρ- are derived from what were originally two unrelated different “say/ speak” words. Over time the two words came to be regarded as essentially the same word, with ἐρ- being the form typically used in the future tense. (That’s a very basic explanation.)

            -οῦμεν, or almost identical endings such as -ομεν, is the first-person plural (“we”) ending of numerous verbs. The ending does not primarily denote tense; it denotes:
            person (first, second, or third person)
            number (singular or plural), and
            voice (active, middle, passive, or middle-passive).

            λέγω usually means “I say” or “I am saying”; ἐροῦμεν means “we will say.”

            The first-person singular present active indicative form of each verb is what’s called the lexical form, or dictionary form. λέγω is the lexical form of ἐροῦμεν and of all other inflexions of the λέγω verb.
            (By way of example, in English, the verb “run” is the lexical form of run, runs, running, was running, will run, ran, had run. But Greek has many more inflexions.)

            If you want to learn to read Greek, I strongly recommend learning the Greek alphabet so you can read the Greek words with Greek letters rather than Latin letters. Not all the information given in Greek letters and Greek symbols, such as the important iota subscript, are conveyed in Latin letters. I think it’s impossible to learn Greek using Latin letters.

            Saying Greek words aloud is a vital part of learning them. “Diakonos” gives no indication of where to place the emphasis. Dιάκονος does.

            Here is a free Greek textbook: http://www.drshirley.org/greek/textbook02/contents.html
            The present active indicative forms of λέγω are shown in lesson 3. It shows λέγοµεν, with the typical -ομεν (“we”) ending, as the first-person plural present active indicative form of λέγω.

            Here’s another free textbook: https://place.asburyseminary.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=academicbooks
            This one is not the easiest. (It uses Erasmian pronunciation whereas most scholars today use Modern Greek pronunciation. But that’s fine for now.) The verbs of this textbook start on p.15 (p.32 of the actual pdf).

            I believe the key to my success with Greek was that went very, very slowly. I started at the beginning and only moved on when I was very comfortable with each lesson. I also bought several second-hand Greek textbooks to help me get a handle on concepts. Each teacher/ author explains things slightly differently which I found helpful.

            There are many videos on YouTube and on other sites that can help you learn the alphabet and then noun and verb paradigms.

          4. Hi Marg
            I’m still trying to learn Greek. I was wondering do you know anywhere online where I can read/reference the deuterocanonical books like 1st and 2nd Maccabees in the original Greek?
            Thank you so much for your help
            Dana

          5. To clarify my previous comment about phonetic Greek words. Well, I didn’t know that they were Latin until you told me I just assumed that they put a phonetic spelling of the Greek word next to the dictionary entry Greek because that just seemed logical to me.

          6. Hi Marg
            There are some great resources here. I’m starting to think that the Flash Greek app would work better for me than some of the things that I have tried before.
            One of the Greek resources by Bill Mounce says
            “ἐμοὶ μαθηταί ἐστε, ἐὰν ἀγάπην ἔχητε ἐν ἀλλήλοις.
            to me disciples you are if love you have to one another
            You are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).
            Emphatic forms also tend to be used after prepositions without
            any emphasis in meaning.
            ἔργον γὰρ καλὸν ἠργάσατο εἰς ἐμέ.
            Thing for good she has done to me
            For she has done a beautiful thing to me (Matt 26:10).”

            Does this mean that when the emphatic forms of me appear the author is trying to put the same emphatic stress on the statement as when the author uses eimi?
            Are there more words or word variations that indicate this same emphatic tone? I’m aware of the emphatic negation with οὐ µή.
            How many of these types of words for this verbal emphatic technique are there in the New Testament?
            Thank you

          7. Hi Dana, There are several ways a Greek author can emphasise a word or concept. In both the examples you’ve given, the position of the “me” pronoun (at the very beginning and at the very end of the sentence) also indicates emphasis.

            As you’ve said, to include eimi in a sentence when it is not necessary for understanding may be an indication of emphasis.

            However, it helps to understand an author’s overall use of these features to determine how strong the emphasis is. For example, In John’s Gospel, the demonstrative pronoun (outos) is often used without a demonstrative (emphatic) sense.

            Also, some words have a stronger sense than others. So, as in all languages, word choice indicates emphasis.

            Have a blessed and special Pascha.

        2. The Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) GNT, the Nestle-Aland (NA28 or UBS5) GNT, and the Tyndale House (TH) GNT are all fine. Though I prefer the SBL and NA28 texts.

          Also, I wouldn’t start with reading Romans, or any of Paul’s letters, in Greek. I’d start with John’s Gospel. The Greek of Romans is more difficult than the Greek in John’s Gospel and letters.

  2. Here is a link to many ancient Jewish and Christian documents, some in Greek, via Google translate as many of the headings and names of works are written in Russian.

    https://translate.google.com.au/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fkhazarzar.skeptik.net%2Fbooks%2Findex.htm&edit-text=

    A.T. Robertson’s 1923 book, The Minister and his Greek New Testament, is available free to read on Internet Archive here: https://archive.org/details/ministerhisgreek00robe/page/n11/mode/2up

  3. There are a lot of great resources here. Right now, I’m specifically looking for a software resource that promises a step-by-step online approach to learning New Testament Greek. I saw one that looked like it might be promising last year, but I’m having trouble finding it again now. I remember that their website looked very professional and had two different options that viewers could pick from. 1) Learn to “read New Testament Greek” and 2) learn to “study New Testament Greek”. Presumably there is a greater intellectual and time commitment involved in the “read New Testament Greek” option. If anyone knows about this or a similar website where I can get some software that might help me with a more audiovisual approach to New Testament Greek I think that might be helpful to someone with my learning style.

    1. Sorry, Dana. I don’t know about apps for teaching Greek.

      1. I’m starting to think that the Flash Greek app would work better for me than some of the things that I have tried before. And yes I now see what you mean about the word in the SBLG dictionary next to the Greek word. It’s written in Latin characters (alphabet) as opposed to Greek characters within a Greek alphabet.
        I wish you and your family a happy and holy Good Friday and celebration of Easter.

  4. I have periodically looked into learning Greek (slowly). I have started to assemble a few resources. Could you tell me if they are okay starting points.
    “Teach yourself New Testament Greek” Ian MacNair

    Greek to GSE (I’ve read learning classic Greek will enhance my understanding of Paul’s writings)

    And then a homeschool program called ‘Hey Andrew! Teach me some Greek”. (I’m a homeschooling mom, and li thought this might be a gentle intro)

    1. Hi Catherine, learning classical Greek is a good place to start, or is a good addition to understanding the Greek New Testament.

      I don’t know the resources you’ve mentioned. I googled Ian MacNair’s book and saw that it was published in 1995. This might be a problem if it speaks about the middle voice or the perfect tense in ways that have more recently been questioned and/or discredited.

      However, since the book encourages reading, more so than grammar, it might be fine for starters. I recommend reading! Grammar is hugely important, but I’ve seen Greek students get so bogged down in the grammar that they lose sight of what the author of text is actually saying.

      The “Andrew” book was published in 1994, so the same caution applies.

      But if you already have these books, use them. 🙂 And as your knowledge (or budget) increases get some more recent Greek grammars. When I started, I bought several Greek grammars off eBay as they became available for not much money. They all have a slightly different approach.

  5. Have you ever used https://www.blueletterbible.org ? I’ve only ever used BLB as my concordance and for looking up definitions. I’m wondering if this is good enough of a concordance or if the ones you recommend are better.

    And thank you for all of these amazing resources! I bookmarked the GNT Reader and LSJ Lexicon and I am so excited to use them in my studies!

    1. Hi Rachel, I regularly use BLB for its concordance of the Septuagint. For example: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g746/lxx/lxx/0-1/ (Scroll down for the concordance.)

      As a concordance of the Old and New Testaments, BLB is fine. However, it only provides Thayers, Strongs, and Vines for definitions of Greek words. Thayers is pretty good. Strongs and Vines are not.

      And it’s important to distinguish between definitions and glosses in Strongs and other lexicons. I had a long conversation the other day with someone who thought nashim (“women, wives”) could mean “harem” because of glosses in some Hebrew lexicons. However, it is the phrase bet ha’nashim (“house of the women”) that is translated as “harem” in a few verses in some English translations (e.g., Esther 2:3, 9, 11, 13, 14).

      More on using Strongs here: https://margmowczko.com/using-a-greek-english-dictionary-and-moving-bones/

      1. Thank you for the reply! This is very helpful. I have never heard of glosses before (just looked it up). That makes sense. Thank you! God bless

  6. […] Freebies for Students of New Testament Greek […]

  7. I just started “An Introduction to Biblical Greek Grammar” by Dana M. Harris, along with her accompanying workbook. I’m loving it so far, looking forward to the journey ahead. I read and watched some reviews on her book, it seems to be well received. I’ve watched a couple videos of her talking, and she seems very knowledgeable, very likeable, and even seems to be in our egal camp, so it felt right to order her book. Hope so!

    1. All the best with it, Jill!

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