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[Hot Lava Mama]

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Edited August 11, 2017 by Hot Lava Mama

There are several dialects of ancient Greek, the main ones are Attic, Homeric and Koine.  They aren't enormously different from one another, especially when starting out and learning the basics.  It looks like FFG teaches mostly Koine, and calls it "Ancient Greek".

[Brad S]

I'm not familiar with the two courses, but ancient Greek is a general term I'd apply from the time of Homer through the end of the time of everyday usage of Koine Greek.  If you're learning the classical Greek of Athens in the time of Plato or Aristotle, going to Koine Greek is very straightforward as Koine as it followed from that period only a few years later with the conquests of Alexander the Great.  It's perhaps somewhat simpler going from the classical Greek of Athens to Koine than vice versa, but, as the previous post said, it doesn't really matter much at the beginning.  I'd go for what's easier to use.

 

IMO starting from Homeric Greek before Koine Greek (Koine was widely used from approx 330 BC to AD 300 and beyond) would be a lot of extra work if your primary goal is to read the New Testament in Greek.  By the way, if you're going to read the New Testament in Greek, an excellent book, in English, about the text of the New Testament is The Text of the New Testament by Metzger and Ehrman. If you get an earlier edition, you'll still get the main ideas.  Best wishes in your study.

[Hot Lava Mama]

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Edited August 11, 2017 by Hot Lava Mama

[Kathleen.]

Have you looked at Elementary Greek?

[Hot Lava Mama]

 

Edited August 11, 2017 by Hot Lava Mama

[qaggaz]

You may also want to look at Greek 101 from the Great Courses (http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/greek-101-learning-an-ancient-language.html). It primarily teaches Homeric Greek, but also includes  Koine examples and practice from the NT in every lesson. As others have said, it is probably a little easier to go from an earlier dialect (like Homeric) to later (Attic or Koine) than the other way around, mainly because as time went by, words became more contracted (consider if you were learning English, it would probably be easier to first learn "cannot" and "did not" before their contracted forms "can't" and "didn't." It is easier to see how "cannot" becomes "can't" but perhaps a bit more difficult to see how to expand "can't" into "cannot" if you learned "can't" as a vocabulary word first and the encountered "cannot" later).

 

So as to which dialect to learn first, I would suggest either Homeric or Attic, then Koine just looks like a simplification. Greek 101 has you reading the Iliad starting in lesson 13 or so. You can continue translating Book 1 of the Iliad after you complete lecture 36 by finishing the remaining lessons in Pharr's Homeric Greek textbook (which is the basis of the TGC lectures, and freely available, at least in its 1920 edition. If you prefer, a more modern fourth edition is also available at https://www.amazon.com/Homeric-Greek-Beginners-Clyde-Pharr/dp/0806141646/ )

 

My ds12, started Greek 101 this fall. We are at lesson 10, looking forward to getting to the "real" Greek in a few weeks.

Edited November 17, 2016 by qaggaz

[Brad S]

...  If you're learning the classical Greek of Athens in the time of Plato or Aristotle, going to Koine Greek is very straightforward as Koine as it followed from that period only a few years later with the conquests of Alexander the Great.  It's perhaps somewhat simpler going from the classical Greek of Athens to Koine than vice versa, but, as the previous post said, it doesn't really matter much at the beginning.  ...

 

IMO starting from Homeric Greek before Koine Greek (Koine was widely used from approx 330 BC to AD 300 and beyond) would be a lot of extra work if your primary goal is to read the New Testament in Greek.  ...

 

 

You may also want to look at Greek 101 from the Great Courses (http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/greek-101-learning-an-ancient-language.html). It primarily teaches Homeric Greek, but also includes  Koine examples and practice from the NT in every lesson. As others have said, it is probably a little easier to go from an earlier dialect (like Homeric) to later (Attic or Koine) than the other way around, mainly because as time went by, words became more contracted (consider if you were learning English, it would probably be easier to first learn "cannot" and "did not" before their contracted forms "can't" and "didn't." It is easier to see how "cannot" becomes "can't" but perhaps a bit more difficult to see how to expand "can't" into "cannot" if you learned "can't" as a vocabulary word first and the encountered "cannot" later).

 

So as to which dialect to learn first, I would suggest either Homeric or Attic, then Koine just looks like a simplification. Greek 101 has you reading the Iliad starting in lesson 13 or so. You can continue translating Book 1 of the Iliad after you complete lecture 36 by finishing the remaining lessons in Pharr's Homeric Greek textbook (which is the basis of the TGC lectures, and freely available, at least in its 1920 edition. If you prefer, a more modern fourth edition is also available at https://www.amazon.com/Homeric-Greek-Beginners-Clyde-Pharr/dp/0806141646/ )

 

My ds12, started Greek 101 this fall. We are at lesson 10, looking forward to getting to the "real" Greek in a few weeks.

 

I would definitely NOT learn Homeric Greek first if your main goal is to read the New Testament in Greek.  It's simply too much work for the payoff.  Homer is so far off in time, the vocabulary is more different from the NT than later Attic Greek -- the overlap in style, topic and vocabulary is going to make learning Greek a very long process. Learning either later Attic or Koine would be fine. 

[qaggaz]

I would definitely NOT learn Homeric Greek first if your main goal is to read the New Testament in Greek.  It's simply too much work for the payoff.  Homer is so far off in time, the vocabulary is more different from the NT than later Attic Greek -- the overlap in style, topic and vocabulary is going to make learning Greek a very long process. Learning either later Attic or Koine would be fine. 

 

 

I agree, if the only goal is the read the New Testament, then the sub-set of Koine used in the NT would suffice.

 

But the question was "Koine versus Ancient Greek?" I would assume that the OP was interested in more than just being able to read the New Testament in Greek. If that is the case then Pharr makes a great case for learning Homer first before Attic. As far as time, Homeric (really Epic dialect) was still current and in use as a literary dialect as late as the 4th or 5th century AD (cf. Nonnus' epic poem, the Dionysiaca).

 

For a more detailed account of dialects as well as a discussion on which to learn first, I found the exposition at http://www.aoidoi.org/articles/dialects.html spot on:

 

If your goals for learning Greek include reading Homer or any Greek poetry, or if you want to study an earlier Greek before moving on to the Koine, then starting your study with Epic Greek is best. I would also recommend starting with Epic if you plan to read mostly Attic authors. First, due to the nature of the Old Ionic base, many curiosities of conjugation and declension that seem quite irregular in later Greek (Attic and Koine both) are simple and regular in Epic. Second, most Attic authors quote Homer and the poets regularly, so you might as well get in some Homer in the original first.

 

 

From my experience, after first learning Attic in college, it was not very difficult to read the Gospels. On the other hand, I think that it would have been very difficult to read Xenophon or Plato (in Attic) if I had started with Koine. And Greek drama (in Doric), Herodotus (who wrote in Ionic), as well as Homer, Hesiod, etc. would have been completely out of reach.

 

My (very similar) argument for starting with a pre-Koine dialect is that the language of the NT did not form in a vacuum. Literate Koine speakers still heard the Homeric Epics recited, could and did read the Iliad and Odyssey in their original form, could read Attic history and philosophical texts, and so on, even if the dialect in which they were written was not the dialect they used in day-to-day life. That is, Homer and his Greek was to them as Shakespeare and his English is to us. So, if your goal is to be able to read the NT and understand the words as they were understood when they were first recorded, then it would seem to me to be important to understand as much of the language and culture of the Greek world as possible. Otherwise, I am not sure that there is that much to be gained by reading the NT in Greek, if the only Greek you know is limited to a lexicon that someone else has pre-selected for you.

[Alessandra]

I'm not an expert, but can share my experience. In college, my first Greek course was regular Classical (I.e. Attic) Greek. During the first week, we learned the alphabet and began reading Mark (the most simply written NT book) as group. Second semester was Plato. Succeeding years were Classical drama and poetry. Even after all this, a class on Homer was difficult, almost like a new language. (Linear B was another story altogether.)

 

Years later, as an adult, having forgotten much of what I learned in college, I took some classes in New Testament Greek. Easy peasy, as far as the gospels were concerned. Paul/Romans much more challenging, not so much his Greek, as his way of phrasing things (similar to the difference in difficulty of English RSV gospels and Paul).

 

No advice as to Classical vs Koine, but I would not suggest Homer as a pathway to later Greek.

 

ETA

I have a Septuagint with Greek on one page and English on the facing page. Very straightforward, easy Greek.

Edited November 18, 2016 by Alessandra

[qaggaz]

I'm not an expert, but can share my experience. In college, my first Greek course was regular Classical (I.e. Attic) Greek. During the first week, we learned the alphabet and began reading Mark (the most simply written NT book) as group. Second semester was Plato. Succeeding years were Classical drama and poetry. Even after all this, a class on Homer was difficult, almost like a new language. (Linear B was another story altogether.)

 

 

My college experience with Greek was very similar. And really, that is the same approach that Mueller uses in his Great Courses course (but using Homeric Greek as a base rather than Attic). Every lesson includes a Koine discussion, and the exercises include Koine sentences. the vocabulary includes Koine entries. So really, you are getting two-in-one, both a course in Homeric Greek and a Koine course with NT readings. I think that you have basically validated the claim that it is easier to go from an earlier form (say Attic to Koine) than from a later form to an earlier (Attic to Homeric). But, I agree, it all depends on your goal for learning the language.

 

BTW, I suspect that Homeric seems more difficult because, not so much due to grammatical or vocabulary differences, but because it is poetry. The grammar is sometimes secondary to the meter, so sometimes features such as epsilon augment get dropped for metrical concerns, but on the other hand, contraction is far more rare. 

 

If you start with Attic, it will be more difficult (as both you and I experienced) to read Homer or even Herodotus. If reading Epic poetry is not important to you, then you are right, you might as well start with Attic. If the only goal is to read the NT, then start with Koine. On the other hand, if the goal is to eventually be able to read "Ancient Greek" in all of its many genres, dialects, and forms, then you might as well start with Homer, then learn Attic, and then Koine (which will seem very easy at that point).

 

My own goal for my kids is that they would be able, if they desire, to be able to pick up one of the Green Loebs (which cover from Homer to Proclus), and with effort (and perhaps a good dictionary and grammar) be able to read the Greek text without having to rely on the facing page translation constantly.