Biblical Greek (New Testament)

The students can obtain from the Moodle server a bibliography, a text on Greek accenting and other working tools.

Basic knowledge of ancient Greek (at least LTHEO1150 or LFLTR1770), but preferably a more advanced knowledge (LGLOR1271 or LGLOR1371). Those students whose level is insufficient will be oriented towards LTHEO1240.

Study of the Greek of the New Testament.

Alternating with LGLOR2782, (the Septuagint translators) the course provides an introduction to specific questions of morphology, syntax, and vocabulary which arise from the body of New testament texts. Particular attention is given to the specific influences of this type of language, whether of Semitisms or Latinisms, or literary genres, or indications of translation or phenomena of bilingualism. Biblical students should familiarise themselves with the tools of classical philology, the students of philology with the tools of bible studies.

At the the end of this course, the student will be capable of reading with profit the New Testament in its Greek text, with the aid of the appropriate grammar and dictionaries. He will be able to find in it the specialities of the bible Koine, and to get the best out of printed and computer based work tools (dictionaries both general and specific, concordances grammars and encyclopedias).

The contribution of this Teaching Unit to the development and command of the skills and learning outcomes of the programme(s) can be accessed at the end of this sheet, in the section entitled “Programmes/courses offering this Teaching Unit”.

Continuous assessment (30%), with an oral exam covering the texts seen during the course (40%), and reading of one or several texts from the New Testament (30%).

The active participation of the students is a prerequisite, and the texts to be studied will be indicated at the start of the course. They should prepare their own translation of these texts.

The course consists of a thorough and commented reading (from a linguistic and grammatical point of view) of the texts of the New Testament ( and, incidentally of the apocryphal texts and those of the early church Fathers) which are representative of different literary genres. The course also includes a systematic revision of Greek grammar. There will be an introduction the principals of accenting, for those students who have not yet acquired it.

Students are requested to arm themselves with:

- a Greek grammar for example that of Ch. Van de Vorst),
- a Greek dictionary (for example that of A. Bailly),
- an edition of the Greek New testament (E. Nestle - K. Aland, Novum Testamentum Graece, 27e éd., Stuttgart, Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1993).

Other tools to which the students will be introduced :
- W. Bauer, Griechisch-deutsches Wörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments und der frühchristlichen Literatur. 6. völlig neu bearbeitete Auflage von Viktor Ruchmann, Kurt Aland und Barbara Aland, Berlin, W. de Gruyter, 1988.
- W.F. Moulton, A.S. Geden, A Concordance of the Greek Testament, 6th Edition fully revised by I. Howard Marshall, Londres - New York, Clark, 2002.
- Friedrich Blass & Albert Debrunner, Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch. Bearbeitet von Friedrich Rehkopf, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 16e éd., 1984.

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