Sumners: Essentials of New Testament Greek

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jsandersonmdelp
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Joined: May 31st, 2011, 10:04 am

Sumners: Essentials of New Testament Greek

Post by jsandersonmdelp »

(This thread has been copied from the introduction of Steve Anderson http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/vie ... =35&t=1135)

Hi,

I'm Steve Anderson. I've been studying Koine for a year or so on my own ( in not very organized fashion). Currently my pastor is teaching me using Ray Summers text (first edition). I am supplementing this on my own with David Alan Black's text.
My goal is to be able to read the New Testament, and perhaps eventually even other, non-Koine ancient Greek works like Plato.
I really enjoy B-Greek and have learned a lot in a year or so of lurking.

Steve
Jesse Goulet
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Re: Sumners: Essentials of New Testament Greek

Post by Jesse Goulet »

Welcome. I had to use the "revised" edition of Summer's book, and needless to say, it was terrible. It's actually more of an abridged version of the first edition, and my class found it too vague and confusing, with too many errors in it that made frustrating to use. Why they made a shorter version and labelled it as "revised" I have no idea. But we were so frustrated with is that someone in our class called the publisher and the publisher gave us all some free books.
jsandersonmdelp
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Joined: May 31st, 2011, 10:04 am

Re: Sumners: Essentials of New Testament Greek

Post by jsandersonmdelp »

Thanks Jesse
I think the original Summers is better than the revised version, but neither is all that great. The exercises are mostly sentences with English word order/structure that are to be translated into English. We are using it because it is the book my pastor used in seminary. I supplement it with David Alan Black's text and also Mounce on occasion. I am probably going to order Randall Buth's series of books as well. B-Greek is also a great resource.
Louis L Sorenson
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Re: Sumners: Essentials of New Testament Greek

Post by Louis L Sorenson »

I learned via Sumners in 1976. Recently I bought a set I saw on the shelf. I don't have unkind memories of his book, but I did realize it was nothing like the Latin book Latin Via Ovid which was filled with stories.

Sumners' book is kind of like Machen, without very many section numbers (Machen 553 versus Sumners 123). Like Machen, it has 33 chapters. But Sumners has about half the exercises (Greek and English) that Machen does. He stops giving Greek to English exercises at chapter 22. His syntax sections are short.

I had a couple of Exegesis classes and a Syntax class taught from the same grammar-translation method. Nevertheless, I learned from it (I was 17), had a quick mind then, and mastered the forms (I can still spit them out verbatim - all done with no meaning attached even now, 36 years later and being fairly adept at reading various Greek texts - those memorized paradigms are just sound with no meaning). I then got immersed in Homer and learned to read from having to read two pages of Homer three times a week. About 10 times what we did in exegesis a semester. That's what a person needs.
jsandersonmdelp
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Joined: May 31st, 2011, 10:04 am

Re: Sumners: Essentials of New Testament Greek

Post by jsandersonmdelp »

The other resource I'm using is Olive Tree software for iPad/iPhone. It has the Greek New Testament with Mounce-Kovisto tagging; BDAG, Louw-Nida, the UBS Concise Greek-English Dictionary, and the Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament are hyperlinked to the text.
Perhaps I've missed reference to it on B-Greek, but what is the consensus as far as usefulness of the Eerdmans Exegetical Dictionary of the Nee Testament?
Eeli Kaikkonen
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Re: Sumners: Essentials of New Testament Greek

Post by Eeli Kaikkonen »

jsandersonmdelp wrote: Perhaps I've missed reference to it on B-Greek, but what is the consensus as far as usefulness of the Eerdmans Exegetical Dictionary of the Nee Testament?
I have never seen it, but I have seen it used as a reference in several scholarly texts. I have thought this could be nice to have. The purpose of this dictionary seems to be quite similar to theological dictionaries but probably with a bit more exegetical slant.
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