Ancient Greek

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ooguyx

Puritan Board Freshman
Hello,

I have an opprotunity to take Ancient Greek next semester at my college. What is the difference between Ancient and Koine greek? Wiill learning ancient greek be of service to reading the new testament or will the amount of study to bridge the two make the effort not worth it?

Thanks,
 
Rob, classical Greek is very helpful to being able to read New Testament. In fact, I would say that if you can read Plato, Aristotle, and Thucydides, the New Testament will be easy. There are a few differences, but in general classical is just harder and higher style. Koine is regular spoken Greek of the time. Read classical Greek so that NT will be easy.
 
I would advise that you take advantage of that opportunity. The difference between classical Greek and koine is more of style than substance. There are a few notable differences, but overall it would be like learning English from the King James Bible and then picking up a Clancy novel. There will be some new vocabulary (particularly with theological language that retains ancient words but infuses them with deeper meaning).
I majored in classical Greek (and Latin) and had no significant problem with koine.
 
Ancient Greek on the whole is more complex than koine.
Ancient was what I studied, and turning from Homer and Euripides to the New Testament seemed almost like going from Shakespearian to modern English.
You could say it would mean expending more effort than absolutely needful, but the payoff would be a more comprehensive grasp of the language.

---------- Post added at 09:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:16 PM ----------

...I'm happy to see that I'm not contradicting the people who beat me to it!
 
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