Building Your New Testament Greek Vocabulary

by Robert E. Van Voorst

Publisher:

Society of Biblical Literature (SBL)

, 1990

Overview

Building Your New Testament Greek Vocabulary, now in its third edition, provides students a user-friendly introduction to the basic vocabulary of New Testament Greek. Robert Van Voorst helps the student to move away from rote memorization toward better long-term vocabulary learning based on how Greek words are built and related to each other. He provides students with easy-to-remember English derivatives, lists the number of occurrences for each word learned, and provides lists that are easily learned in a single vocabulary-learning session. Most importantly, he organizes this book on the basis of word families and frequency. New to this edition are a comprehensive list of proper nouns and a section to help students understand common words. Definitions of Greek words have been revised where necessary according to the new, third edition of the Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament edited by Frederick Danker.

Van Voorst's Greek Vocabulary is respected by many scholars as an excellent training tool for students seeking to develop their New Testament Greek vocabulary. For students, adding this electronic book to your library means you will be able to have a quick reference to not only an extensive Greek vocabulary resource, but also the ability to study language structures according to Van Voorst's frequency and cognate sorting. This tool will allow you to engage the original language with a deeper understanding of word usage and context.

Key Features

• Basic introduction to New Testament Greek
• Practical studies and lists included
• Ideal for students or professors of New Testament Greek

Contents

Top Highlights

“The two most frequent methods of building words are derivation and composition.” (Page 4)

“This book combines the frequency method of listing vocabulary (based on the number of times a word occurs in the New Testament) with the cognate method (based on word families). Cognates are understood here to be words that are related to each other by their possession of a common element, usually called a stem or root, and that are therefore related in meaning as well. Words that are cognate make up a word family. To take an example from English, the words ‘believe,’ ‘belief,’ ‘unbelief,’ ‘believable,’ ‘believer,’ etc., are all obviously cognates.” (Page 1)

“The student should be aware, though, that by Hellenistic times some of these perfectives had lost the force they originally may have had. Failure to recognize this when it occurs leads to ‘overtranslating’ the verb.” (Page 7)

“Building Your New Testament Greek Vocabulary is designed to help the student of New Testament Greek cross that gap by learning all the words that occur five or more times in the New Testament.” (Page 1)

“The Greek language builds words in rather regular patterns.” (Page 4)

Praise for the Print Edition

This is a well-thought-out and attractive aid in acquiring Greek vocabulary...Van Voorst...astutely combines cognate words in groups according to frequency of occurrence. I doubt that it has ever been done in English in a more convenient way. Since every word that occurs five or more times in the Greek New Testament is included, those who work with this handbook should be able to approach with confidence the Christian Scriptures in their original language.

   - Raymond E. Brown, Union Theological Seminary

Van Voorst’s third edition is an invaluable tool for any student or scholar of the Greek New Testament, especially those who desire to read the texts with as little interruption as possible. The work, with its frequency and cognate lists and grammatical aids, can go a long way in reducing the frustrations of translating the texts and in making the reading of the Greek New Testament not only easier but also more enjoyable.

   - Jack Garland, Houston Baptist University

The real strength of the third edition of Van Voorst's text is the simplicity and clarity with which the language is presented, which makes the book extremely attractive to those faced with the challenges of learning to read New Testament Greek. Van Voorst greatly reduces the challenges of learning to read this language...

   - Allen H. Redmon, Purdue University

Product Details

• Title: Building Your New Testament Greek Vocabulary
• Author: Robert E. Van Voorst
• Edition: 3rd
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Publication Date: 1990
• Pages: 119

About Robert E. Van Voorst

Robert E. Van Voorst is a New Testament Studies Professor at Western Theological Semininary, as well as a pastor. He is the author of several scholarly works on the New Testament.