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Course 5 · Lesson 1.4

Koine Greek in brief: history, script and sound

10 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 5 outline

Module 1: What the Languages Are and What This Course Can Do

  1. The languages of the Bible: Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek
  2. What an introduction can and cannot do: no fluency, and why
  3. Biblical Hebrew in brief: history, script and sound
  4. Koine Greek in brief: history, script and sound

Module 2: Hebrew Fundamentals

  1. The Hebrew alphabet, reading right to left, and the vowel points
  2. Roots, nouns, gender, number and the construct chain
  3. Hebrew verbs: perfect, imperfect and the seven stems in outline
  4. A core Hebrew vocabulary and how to learn it

Module 3: Greek Fundamentals

  1. The Greek alphabet, accents and breathing marks
  2. Nouns, cases and the definite article
  3. Greek verbs: tense, aspect, voice and mood in outline
  4. A core Greek vocabulary and how to learn it

Module 4: The Texts: Masoretic, Septuagint and New Testament Manuscripts

  1. The Masoretic Text and the codices that preserve it
  2. The Septuagint and where translators consult it
  3. Greek New Testament manuscripts and printed editions
  4. How variants are recorded in footnotes and critical editions

Module 5: How Translations Are Made

  1. Formal and dynamic equivalence, and the middle positions
  2. Who translates: committees, churches and traditions of translation
  3. Hard cases: idioms, word play, gender and untranslatable words
  4. Reading a translation’s preface to learn its principles

Module 6: Tools for the Reader

  1. Interlinear Bibles: what they show and what they hide
  2. Lexicons and concordances: how to read an entry
  3. How to do a word study, step by step
  4. Common word study errors and how to avoid them

Module 7: Evaluating Translation Differences

  1. Locating the Hebrew or Greek words behind a verse
  2. Types of translation differences: text, grammar, word meaning and style
  3. A worked example from the Old Testament
  4. A worked example from the New Testament
  5. Knowing your limits, and when to ask a specialist

All courses

Program / Course 5: Biblical Languages / Lesson 1.4

What you will learn

  • Place Koine Greek in the history of the Greek language and explain what koine means.
  • Describe the range of style found in the New Testament, from plain to polished.
  • Explain why the earliest manuscripts have no spaces, accents or punctuation, and what that means for readers.
  • Name the main ways of pronouncing ancient Greek and say why none should be treated as certain.

The big idea

Koine Greek is the common Greek of the Hellenistic and Roman world, the language of the New Testament and the Septuagint. It grew from earlier Greek dialects after the conquests of Alexander the Great and was spoken by people of many backgrounds. The New Testament writers use it in different styles, some plain and some more literary. Ancient manuscripts were written without spaces or accents, so modern editions add features that early readers did not see. This lesson is an overview and does not teach the language to fluency.

Key terms

Koine
A Greek word meaning common. It names the standard Greek of the Hellenistic and Roman periods, used across the eastern Mediterranean.
Attic Greek
The Greek of classical Athens, used by writers such as Plato. It was the model for later literary Greek.
Hellenistic
Belonging to the period after Alexander the Great, when Greek culture and language spread across the Near East.
Papyrus
A writing material made from a reed. Many ordinary letters, receipts and contracts in Koine Greek survive on papyrus from Egypt.
Uncial
A style of manuscript writing in capital letters, used for the oldest surviving Greek Bibles. Also called majuscule.
Minuscule
A style of small, connected lowercase letters used in Greek manuscripts from about the ninth century.
Semitism
A feature of Greek that seems to reflect Hebrew or Aramaic, such as a phrase pattern or an idiom.

Background

Greek is a member of the Indo European family, which includes Latin and English, and is not related to Hebrew or Aramaic. It has a very long written history, from the earliest texts about three thousand years ago to the present. Ancient Greek was spoken in several dialects. In the fifth and fourth centuries before Christ, the dialect of Athens, called Attic, became the standard of great literature.

After the conquests of Alexander the Great, soldiers, traders and officials carried a simplified Greek, built on Attic, across the Near East and Egypt. This is Koine Greek. It became the common language of the region, and its range of use covered government, trade, philosophy and the street. When Jewish communities in Egypt translated their Scriptures into Greek, they used Koine. When the apostles wrote to churches, they used it as well.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The nature of New Testament Greek

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, scholars began to study large numbers of everyday Greek papyri found in Egypt. They found that New Testament Greek is much closer to the ordinary writing of those papyri than to the classical authors. For a time some said that the New Testament was written in a special sacred dialect. The papyri showed that it was not.

New Testament Greek is not uniform. Mark and John use short sentences and simple vocabulary. Luke, in his prologue and in Acts, writes in a more literary style. The letter to the Hebrews is polished, with long and balanced sentences. Paul writes in an energetic style with long sentences that often move quickly from one thought to the next.

Step 2: Semitic influence

Many New Testament writers were Jews, and some of their Greek reflects Hebrew or Aramaic patterns. Scholars call these features Semitisms. They may come from the Septuagint, whose Greek often follows Hebrew phrases closely, or from Aramaic sources behind the Gospels, or from the speakers’ own habits. How much New Testament Greek reflects such influence is debated, and the answer varies from book to book. Luke’s Gospel, for example, shows a style close to the Septuagint in its first chapters.

Step 3: The script and the page

The Greek alphabet came from the Phoenician script, with vowels added. The oldest Bible manuscripts are written in capital letters, with no spaces between words, no breathing marks, no accents and little or no punctuation. A line of text may look like a continuous string of letters. Scribes sometimes used abbreviations for sacred names, such as God, Lord, Jesus and Christ, written with a line above them. These are called the nomina sacra.

Lowercase handwriting, called minuscule, spread in the ninth century and made copying quicker and cheaper. Accents, breathing marks and spaces became normal in manuscripts over time. Modern editions of the Greek New Testament print these features, but they are editorial. They show how a modern scholar reads the text. They are not part of the oldest writing, and in rare cases they affect meaning.

Step 4: Sound

No one can hear the ancient language, so pronunciation is reconstructed from the spelling of words, the comments of ancient grammarians and later changes in the language. Students commonly use one of three systems. The Erasmian system, named after the scholar Erasmus, gives each vowel and diphthong a distinct sound and is widely used in English language classes. The modern Greek system is used by Greek speakers and in the Greek Orthodox Church. A third approach, used by some scholars, tries to reconstruct the pronunciation of the first century.

The systems differ most in vowels. In modern Greek several vowels and diphthongs sound alike, which happened gradually over centuries. Whatever system a student uses, it should be treated as a tool for learning and not as the true sound of the apostles.

  1. Is the passage I am reading plain or polished in style, and does that matter to its meaning?
  2. Does the Greek seem to echo a Hebrew phrase or a Septuagint passage?
  3. Which features of the text I am reading, such as accents or punctuation, were added by editors?
  4. Is my English Bible’s footnote about a punctuation or word division question?
  5. Which pronunciation system am I using, and why?
  6. What would I need to know to judge whether a Semitism has been correctly claimed?

Examples

Letters on papyrus

A surviving papyrus letter from Egypt in the Roman period begins with a greeting, a wish for health and a request, in a style that resembles the opening of many New Testament letters. Such finds show that the apostles used the forms of ordinary correspondence. (A general description of a type of document, not of a single quoted letter.)

Reading without spaces

Try writing an English sentence in capital letters without spaces or punctuation. A reader must decide where words end. Greek readers faced the same task with texts such as Romans 9:5, where the placement of punctuation affects the sense of the verse.

Two sound systems

A student in a class using the Erasmian system pronounces the letter eta as a long a sound, while a Greek speaker pronounces it like the ee in the English word see. Both read the same word, and the written text is not changed.

Different perspectives

Orthodox

The Orthodox Church has used Greek in its liturgy for centuries, and for Greek Orthodox Christians the New Testament is read in Greek in church. The language of the New Testament is not identical with the Greek spoken today, but it is regarded as the same living tradition. Other Orthodox churches use translations.

Catholic

The Catholic Church has a long tradition in Greek, especially in the Eastern Catholic churches. The Second Vatican Council taught that translations of the New Testament should be faithful and made from the original texts.

Protestant

Erasmus, a Catholic humanist, published the first printed Greek New Testament, and the Reformers made wide use of the Greek text. Protestant translation began from Greek and Hebrew. Churches in this tradition place emphasis on study of the Greek text in preparation for ministry.

Scholarly

Scholars of New Testament Greek agree that it is Koine and that it varies in style. They debate how strong Semitic influence is, how best to describe its verbs, and how the language relates to Attic and to later Greek.

Why it matters

Knowing that New Testament Greek is common Greek, written in manuscripts without the aids modern readers expect, helps a student to read with realistic expectations. It explains why scholars speak of editions and variants, why punctuation can be disputed, and why one must be careful about claims based on a pronunciation or a single feature.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: New Testament Greek is a special holy language.

Correction: It is ordinary Koine Greek of its period, as shown by many papyri. Its content is sacred to Christians, but its language is the common language of its time.

Misunderstanding: Koine Greek is the same as modern Greek.

Correction: Modern Greek developed from Koine but has changed in sound, vocabulary and grammar. A modern Greek speaker can learn to read the New Testament more easily than most, but still needs study.

Misunderstanding: The accents and punctuation in my Greek New Testament are in the original writing.

Correction: They were added by later scribes and editors. The oldest manuscripts have none, and some disputed readings turn on where a reader places them.

Misunderstanding: All the New Testament books are written in the same style.

Correction: The style differs. Mark and John are plain, Hebrews and Luke are more polished, and Paul has his own manner.

Knowledge check

What does the word koine mean, and how did Koine Greek arise?

Koine means common. It names the Greek that spread across the eastern Mediterranean after Alexander the Great’s conquests, built on the Attic dialect of Athens. It became the language of government, trade and daily life, and the New Testament and the Septuagint are written in it.

Why do scholars say New Testament Greek is not a special holy dialect?

Everyday papyri found in Egypt, such as letters and receipts, use the same sort of Greek as the New Testament. This showed that its language was the common language of its time. Its style varies by author, and some books are more polished.

What was missing in the oldest Greek manuscripts that modern editions supply?

The oldest manuscripts are in capital letters without spaces between words, without accents or breathing marks, and with little punctuation. Modern editions add these features. They help reading but are editorial, and in some verses the decision about punctuation changes the meaning.

Why should a student not treat any pronunciation system as certain?

No one can hear ancient speakers. Pronunciation is reconstructed from spelling, comments of ancient grammarians and later developments. Common systems differ, especially in vowels. They are tools for learning and reading aloud, and none is certainly the sound of the first century.

Think it through

  1. What does it change for you that the New Testament is written in everyday Greek and not in a lofty literary style?
  2. How might the lack of spaces and punctuation make a reader more careful?
  3. Which style of New Testament writing do you find easiest to read in English, and does it correspond to the Greek?
  4. What are the advantages of a sacred language and of a common one?

Independent assignment

A style sample

In your own notebook, write 300 to 400 words. Read the first chapter of Mark and the opening four verses of Luke in an English translation. Describe the difference in style, such as sentence length and vocabulary, that you notice, and consult an introduction to the New Testament to learn what scholars say about the Greek of each. Then write one paragraph on what you could and could not know about the Greek from the English alone. Do not send this to anyone.

Further study