David, Funk's Greek expertise is impeccable. No conservative person who believes in verbal-plenary inspiration can find fault with anything in his grammar, regardless of what he taught in the Jesus Seminars.You wrote...The other thing about grammars that makes me uncertain about their reliability is that I can never tell whether something they say, whether a grammatical rule, whether a nuance of a word or phrase or structure, is true or based on the authors' beliefs. So far I did not find any yet in Funk's grammar, but after finding out about who he was (which cannot be discussed on B-Greek), well I don't know what to say! But I suppose it should be counted reliable until proven biased.
Funk uses the book of John as the basis of his inductive study. The workbook has you read through passages and do exercises. It has you refer to individual sections (like LaSor's inductive Hebrew and Greek grammars). A second year student would find reading through Funk's grammar difficult at some points, and would have to read some sections many times to get what he is saying, because he is not seeing an individual point used in context.. Funk's expertise is pointing out how Koine differs from Attic and in presenting grammar in a way that one can see the structure of the language. On the other hand, unless you have the full book in print, there is no supplement to having Smyth's A Greek Grammar. No Greek grammar supersedes Smyth's. Mark Lightman once wrote "Cross out the Title on it and write KOINE GREEK GRAMMAR". Attic is 97% similar to Koine. The vocabulary in Koine is changing a bit, but Smyth still applies for almost all paradigms (except εἰμί, δίδωμι (plural), and a few small other verbs). But you cannot treat Greek grammar like math - there are too many unpredictable idioms; not everything is regular - neither in forms or syntax. And Koine does not always match Attic, and that is where Funk shines through.I also started on Funk's grammar, but I find it extremely difficult to follow because it is not very well organised, such that I do not know what I need to know and what is additional information, and sometimes I have to search entire chapters page by page to find what I remember reading somewhere as it is not in the expected place. However I noticed that most of the unusual features of the Greek language that I had previously encountered were indeed mentioned in that Grammar and often not in others. Oh well...
I recommend getting involved with others who can give you guidance. The GreekStudy list has a number of courses where competent people participate. Perhaps we could have a 1st John / Upper Room Discourse (John 13-17) first year course on B-Greek where beginners like yourself could participate and ask questions. If anyone thinks this is a good idea - I would be willing to lead one. I'm going to be going through 1st John and John 14-16 next semester with my students. We could have a forum in the Beginner's section for 1 John Questions and take all the exercises, etc. to another site. But the point is to get guidance (either one-on-one or in a group setting). The B-Greek beginner's forum would be a great place to talk about 1 John.