Following up on my post about getting a Hebrew-English OT: It goes without saying that, if it’s valuable to have a Hebrew Old Testament, it’s even more important to have a Greek New Testament, if only for this reason: Greek is a much easier language than Hebrew.
Hence, if you’ve been to seminary and taken Greek, even if you’ve forgotten some of it, you probably still remember much of it. If you make it a habit to read in the original languages every day, even just a small amount, you can maintain your Greek and begin to recover what you’ve forgotten.
The reason I like this particular edition is that the more challenging verbs are parsed, and any word occurring less than 30 times in the NT is translated in the footnotes. I have unfortunately not developed the discipline of reading in the Greek on a regular basis, but it is a standard practice of mine to go back to the original languages whenever there is something that is unclear, I want to go deeper on, or that is ambiguous. This Greek NT is the best I’ve encountered for doing this, because of the fact that the more complex verbs are parsed and the less common words are defined right there on the page in the notes at the bottom. That is awesome.
Note that the one in the image above has a black cover. That’s what I recommend. Why would you ever get burgundy? You wouldn’t. Get the black one.
Sorry if this sounds like a day of advertisements today. I’ve had these stacked up on my “to blog” shelf for quite a while, and they were there for one reason: because they are super helpful, I genuinely recommend them, and I think that anyone who has taken some of the original languages should have a Bible in the original languages. For the NT, this is the one I recommend.
Here’s the description from Crossway’s site:
This reader’s edition of the UBS Greek New Testament is an essential resource for pastors, professors, and others who regularly work with the New Testament in its original language, as well as students and others learning Greek. Containing the complete UBS4 Greek New Testament text from the United Bible Society, this edition features a clean layout with the Greek text above notes on every page. These notes include parsings of difficult verb forms as well as translations of Greek words occurring 30 times or less in the New Testament. In addition, a dictionary in the back defines words occurring 30 times or more, serving as a helpful reference for all learning to read Greek. Published in two different leather covers, the UBS Greek New Testament will serve as a lasting resource for all seeking to study the New Testament in its original language.