Dr. J. W. Roberts Memorial Web Page

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This page is dedicated to the work of Dr.  J. W. Roberts. Dr. Roberts taught Greek at Abilene Christian College from 1946 to 1973. Here is a short biography and complete bibliography: Restoration Quarterly 1974. I invite his former students, friends, and anyone interested in New Testament Greek to assist me in this project. At present I am working on editing and republishing his incomparable:  A Grammar of the Greek New Testament for Beginners. The Roberts' Grammar hyperlink at the top of the page will take you to the Table of Contents where you will be able to download the Adobe pdf file for each chapter. This is a work in progress. Please e-mail me any errors you note. I should like to publish a carefully edited work worthy of the distinguished author.  I plan to publish the Grammar in both e-book format and as a loose leaf notebook. Audio CDs will be availabe to help students develop oral fluency and comprehension. Dr. Ian Fair, who studied under Dr. Roberts and taught Roberts' Grammar while teaching at the Natal Bible School in South Africa, encouraged me to republish Roberts' great work, mentioning that he considered it better than W. H. Davis. Here are some articles by Dr. Roberts from the Restoration Quarterly: Every Scripture Inspired of God, and The Preposition eis in Mat. 12: 41.

Progress to date

Lesson 50, the last one, was posted 6/20/05. MP3 audio files have been posted for the Introduction and Lesson 1 - 3. These audio files should prove invaluable to students working through the Lessons without a teacher. Much thanks to Wayne Price, a former student of Roberts, who is teaching from my Online edition and helping to bring it to a high degree of correctness. Thanks also to David Singleton, a former student of Dr. Roberts, who loaned me his copy of Grammar so I could included some of his class notes to the present work. Many of the Lessons have recently undergone extensive correction as of 3/16/06. I hope to have audio files to accompany all the Lessons. A Spanish translation of Dr. Roberts' Grammar is well along. I will start posting chapters shortly.

Goal

The goal of this page is to encourage children of God to learn to read the New Testament in the original Greek with expression and understanding in order to enrich their spiritual lives.

Contact

Anybody who wishes to help with the project is invited to e-mail me at don@donpotter.net

You can type Greek with Type Greek. Learn how to type the Greek Alphabet with this program.

Concerning my Greek system of pronunciation

My own Greek pronunciation largely follows the recommendations in W. S. Allen's Vox Graeca: A Guide To The Pronunciation Of Classical Greek, Cambridge 1987. You can purchase Allen's authoritative book at: Vox Graeca: W. Sidney Allen. I privately published a work entitled  A Practical Guide the Pronunciation and Reading of New Testament Greek in 1987 in which I sought to apply my studies in Ancient Greek pronunciation and Articulatory Phonetics to the oral rendition of New Testament Greek. I hope to make that work available to students in an updated and simplified edition with an audio CD.  

Simple On-Line Course 
Don Potter's Method for Pronouncing NT Greek

Click here for a Simple On-line Course in NT Greek Pronunciation. Once you have worked through my materials, you will profit much from the following Classical Greek site which will enable you to listen to lots of Greek words pronounced with the same system I am following: Welcome to the Ancient Greek Tutorial site of the Department of Classics of the University of California, Berkeley, a project of Professor Donald Mastronarde and the Berkeley Language Center. I recently discovered another web site loaded with practical information on Ancient Greek pronunciation, including audio files and numerous links: Biblical Greek Pronunciation 

Listen to the Greek Text of Ephesians
Read by Dr. Louis Tyler

Dr. Tyler has just recorded (Jan. '06) the Robinson-Pierpoint Byzantine Textform (R-P). I will leave the earlier recordings of the Textus Receptus below for those who prefer the TR. Dr. Tyler plans to make the entire R-P NT available in audio. The Partiarcial Text of the Greek Orthodox Church which I believe to be virtually identical to the R-P text. To listen just chick on the chapter: Ephesians 1, Ephesians 2, Ephesians 3, Ephesians 4, Ephesians 5, Ephesians 6. Here is the Byzantine text of the Greek Orthodox Church, which I believe is virtually identical to the R-P Byzantine text of our recordings. Ephesians - Greek Orthodox Text. Here is an Interview with Robinson. Dr. Tyler now has his own web site: www.audiohebrewgreekbible.com

My good friend Louis Tyler M. Div, M.A., Ph.D. has just made a meticulously accurate recording of the book of Ephesians from F. H. A. Scrivener's 1894 and 1902 edition of the Textus Receptus. Click on the Chapter Links below to listen to the mp3 audio. To order a high quality audio CD.. His e-mail is: lrtyler@grandecom.net. Or just click here: Contact Dr. Tyler. Ephesians 1; Ephesians 2; Ephesians 3; Ephesians 4; Ephesians 5; Ephesians 6. Here is a cross reference edition of the TR: Ephesians TR - 1873. Here are my Marlin Hoffman Universal Memory Cards for Ephesians in the English KJV and Greek TR. I am afraid the Greek did not print correctly so I will retry in a few days. The English should be fine.

Home School Greek

For students laboring to make their own way into Greek without a teacher, I recommend Harvey Bluedorn's Home School Greek. Harvey's method is largely programmed so the student can teach himself. Audio Cassettes are available. Order your copy at: Home School Greek  A second volume covering advanced grammar and the entire verbal system should be available in the near future.  

NT Greek: Alpha to Omega

Dr. William D. Ramsay has published an excellent elementary New Testament Greek course at NT Greek: Alpha to Omega. He has numerous helpful mp3 files.

Greek OT and NT with Morphological Tags

This is one of the most valuable sites for those who are beginning their Greeks studies or for advanced scholars who need a definition of a rare word or to double check their parsing of a particular word: Zack Hubert's Tagged Text.

Computer Assisted Koine Greek Stories

Here is a interesting, interactrive story approach to learning begining Koine Greek: CALL: Koine Greek

Greek Fonts

I recommend only the UNICODE Classical Greek Font which is available for download from Tavultesoft:  Keykman 6 It is easy to touch type all the Greek letters and accents! This is quite an improvement since the days when I typed the English with my Royal Safara  manual typewriter, and wrote the Greek by hand!

Greek Master

One of the very best tools for learning Greek is Dr. Gleason Archer's Greek Master by Heaven Word. I have spent many happy hours listening to his rendition of Matthew, John, and Romans. Listening, I have found, is the best way to learn any language. His pronunciation is exactly like mine, except that I trill my Rhos, and deaspirate my stops. His oral rendering of the Greek accents is precise. He carefully connects the proclitics and enclitics with the words to which they are to be pronounced. I developed my system of pronunciation years before listening to Dr. Archer's, but it is very gratifying to learn that a highly respected Greek scholar has adopted for his personal reading of the Greek text a nearly identical method. This program has the whole New Testament according to the Nestle Text, with an excellent interlinear for those who need it. Barclay Newman's little New Testament Dictionary published by the American Bible Society is included, making it easy to find the definitions of Greek words. For more information see the Heaven Word web site: Heaven Word. This program is currently out-of-print, but the company is working with my friend Dr. Louis Tyler to see if perhaps they can produce a new version. The best way to learn any language (living or "dead") is orally. This program remains the best tool for gaining a mastery of NT Greek and needs to be reissued. We lament that Dr. Archer died a few years ago.

Grammatical Analysis of the Greek New Testament

One book that I have used almost daily to assist me in reading my Greek New Testament is that most helpful volume, Grammatical Analysis of the Greek NT by Max Zerwick. Basically it is a one volume commentary on the grammar and vocabulary of the Greek New Testament. Order your copy at : Grammatical Analysis of the Greek New Testament. With nothing but Zerwick, a good lexicon and a basic Grammar (like the one by J. W. Roberts mentioned above) the serious student can go a long way in reading the Greek NT for himself.

I have several lexicons in my library from an 1850 edition of Edward Robinson to the latest BAGD. Quite frankly there are two that answer most of my needs and are small and easy to tote about. They both have the handy feature of listing irregular verbs in alphabetical order, eliminating the need for an analytical lexicon. The first is better but much more expensive. They can both be ordered on-line at:  Shorter Lexicon: Gingrich-Danker or  Dictionary of the GNT: Newman. 

Greek and Latin Textbooks: FREE 

Valuable treasures of old Greek and Latin textbooks, original language text, and translations await you in the form of free e-books at the Textkit  site.  I am pleased to announce that John William White's First Greek Book is now available for download This is the all time best beginner's grammar of classical Greek.  Other than A. T. Robertson's Big Grammar, the only Greek grammar mentioned in Dr. J. W. Roberts' Grammar was W. Gunion Rutherford's First Greek Grammar: Accidence (1912), which is available for download at the Textkit site.  I am delighted to announce that Textkit has just published S. G. Green's A Brief Introduction to NT Greek. TextKit has just published one of the very finest intermediate Greek Grammars ever written: H.P.V. Nunn's A Short Syntax of New Testament Greek. They have also published a small beginning NT Greek grammar of which I was not aware: James Strong's Greek in a Nutshell. For students interested in the LXX,  we now have Conybeare and Stock's Selections from the Septuagint. Alexander Souter's Pocket Greek Lexicon is a handy tool reflecting information from the papyri. Here is H. R. Heatley's The Gospel of Luke (1893) which contains the Greek text of the Gospel and grammatical commentary. The vocabulary at the end of the book is especially valuable.

Moses Stuart and Edward Robinson A Greek Grammar of the New Testament, 1825. Here is the 1841 edition: A Greek Grammar of the NT.

William Trollope 1841 A Grammar of the Greek New Testament and to the common or Hellenic diction of the Later Greek.

Edward Robinson's 1851 translation of Phillip Buttman's A Greek Grammar for the Use of High Schools and Universities. Here is some information on the Life of Edward Robinson. He was the premier American Biblical scholar of his day.

William Webster's The Syntax and Synonyms of the Greek New Testament, 1865.

For a very excellent study of the Greek Moods and Tenses as used in the Greek New Testament, students can still gain valuable insights from E. D. Burton's Syntax of Greek Moods and Tenses. 

J. Hope Moulton's A Grammar of the Greek New Testament: Prolegomena, 1906.

W. F. Moulton's translation of G. B. Winer's A Treatise on the Grammar of New Testament Greek, 1882. I find it interesting that Harold E. Hoehner's recent (2002) Exegetical Commentary on Ephesians had numerous references to this edition of Winer. I have spent many pleasant and profitable hours studying Hoehner's master work on Ephesians.

Machen, Davis, and Cary - Free beginning Greek grammars on the web

While you are waiting for me to finish Dr. Roberts' Grammar, here is a site where you can begin your study of New Testament Greek with J. G. Machen's time honored grammar: New Testament Greek for Beginners. (Note: You have to have Greek fonts installed to read the Greek in Machen). W. H Davis wrote a fine NT Greek Grammar that is available for download at: Beginner's Grammar of NT Greek. (Davis Grammar is in pdf format) Davis' Grammar fortunately, like Roberts, introduces the infinitive earlier than Machen and others, allowing the students to create and read Greek much earlier. He is also very strong on the accents. Davis has much more detailed information concerning Greek usage than Machen. but Machen has more sentences for translation practice. Dr. Ian Fair once told me that Roberts' Grammar is much better, but you will have to wait for me to find the time to finish it. Geo. L. Cary 1878 An Introduction to the Greek of the New Testament.

Read the Old Testament in Greek Online

For an excellent, readable copy of the Old Testament in Greek A. E. Brooke, N. McLean, H. St-J. Thackeray, ed., London : Cambridge University Press, 1906-. I read the Greek OT for my daily devotions in 1978. It was a marvelous experience, and I recommend at least one reading of the entire Greek OT with a pencil in hand for noting vocabulary, grammar, and spiritual points of interests. Read the Old Testament in Greek.

Many Greek texts require that you install a particular Greek font in order to be able to read and print the text. A convenient pdf file of the Greek Old Testament and New Testament is available at: Greek OT & NT  A quick comparison of this text with the Majority Text of Hodges and Farstad indicates that it is not a Majority text.

Greek New Testament (by Tony Fisher): the text of the New Testament is rendered here as images. You do not need any Greek fonts installed to view the pages.  If you click on a Greek word, it turns red and a table appears, giving morphological information about the word, including its root and grammatical category. You can also do word searches. This is an excellent aid for anyone seeking to learn to read his Greek New Testament.

The Online Greek Bible

This web site offers NT search capability along with parsing. It is a great source to have up and running when reading the New Testament: The Online Greek Bible.

Memorize Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians

I am working on memorizing the book of Ephesians in English (KJV) and Greek (TR) using the Hoffman Method for Memorizing God's Word.  My procedure is to memorize the English and then the Greek for each verse. For those who care to join me on this exciting spiritual adventure, I am posting the English and Greek texts in parallel column. I will also produce an audio file for each verse so you can hear both the English and the Greek. Click on the chapter you wish to read, or the chapter/verse you wish to hear read.
TEXT:    Ephesians 1: 1 - 10.
AUDIO: 1:1, 1:2, 1:3, 1:4, 1:5, 1:6, 1:7, 1:8, 1:9, 1:10, 1:11, 1:12, 1:13, 1:14, 1:15, 1:16, 1:17, 1:18, 1:19, 1:20, 1:21, 1:22, 1:23

Elementary New Testament Greek by Open Texture is a three year program for NT Greek.

Greek New Testament  and Hebrew OT Textual Criticism Links

For a veritable plethora of information on New Testament textual criticism, see the TC Links page.

A. W. Wilson has provided us a fresh prespective on NT Textual Crticism: New Directions in New Testament Textual Criticism.

GREEKLATINAUDIO.COM

For excellent mp3 files of the Greek NT in Modern Greek pronunciation, and Classical Latin be sure and click on the title above. The printed text is also available. Although I use the Erasmian pronunciation, I can follow the Modern Greek pronunciation with no problem at all.    

Edward Robinson's 1850 Greek and English Lexicon of the New Testament. Although old, this lexicon is especially valuable because of its examples of word usage from classical authors. Here is Hudson's Critical Greek and English Concordance of the New Testament. J. A. Bass 1860 A Greek and English Manual Lexicon to the New Testament wih Examples of all Irregular and more Difficult Inflections.

The best edition of the Textus Receptus can be found at TR 1873. Its cross reference system is one of the best I have ever seen. It also includes the Eusebian Canons, an ancient method for finding Gospel parallels. Remember to download this: "any" is the name and "any" is the password.

KAINH: The Original Greek New Testament Page
By Petros Petallides: "a complete electronic edition of the Original Orthodox Greek New Testament as it is used by the Greek Orthodox Church". These are MS Word documents for downloading. They are available in Palatino Linotype Unicode font. This font is compatible with Windows XP.

Here is an article by Henry C. Theissen, "Should NT Greek Be Required in Our Ministerial Training Courses?"

Machen: The Minister and His Greek Testament. Here is a brief but vital excerpt: "The Greek of the New Testament is by no means a difficult language; a very fair knowledge of it may be acquired by any minister of average intelligence. And to that end two homely directions may be given. In the first place, the Greek should be read aloud. A language cannot easy be learned by the eye alone. The sound as well as the sense of familiar passages should be impressed upon the mind, until sound and sense are connected without the medium of translation. Let this result not be hastened; it will come of itself if the simple direction be followed. In the second place, the Greek Testament should be read every day without fail, Sabbaths included. Ten minutes a day is of vastly more value than seventy minutes once a week. If the student keeps a "morning watch," the Greek Testament ought to be given a place in it; at any rate, the Greek Testament should be read devotionally. The Greek Testament is a sacred book, and should be treated as such. If it is treated so, the reading of it will soon become a source of joy and power." Here is a Spanish translation: El Ministro y su Nuevo Testamento Griego. Los de habla español pueden comprar Griego del nuevo testamento para principiantes por Machen aquí: Griego.

A. T. Robertson's (1909) A Short Grammar of the Greek New Testament This was revised in 1933 with the help of William Hershey Davis and published as A New Short Grammar of the Greek New Testament.

Gessner Harrison (1858) Treatise on the Greek Prepositions and on the Case of the Nouns with which they are used. Harrison taught John A. Broadus who taught A. T. Robertson. I saw a copy of this at the Winona Lake Theological Seminary Library in Warsaw, Indiana. Harrison was one of the first to make use of the new knowledge of comparative philology.

Here are three chapters from Dr. A. T. Robertson's The Minister and His Greek New Testament (1923).

Clyde W. Votow's The Use of the Infinitive in New Testament Greek (1896).

Richard Weymouth 1894 On The Rendering into English of the Greek Aorist and Perfect

William Ramsey has a complete Greek Course available at Inthebeginning.com

Here are some Classical Greek texts with accompanying translations to aid you in expanding your Greek horizons beyond Biblical literature Classical Greeks Texts with Translations. Some of the translations are from ancient to modern Greek, others to English.

Here is slide presentation of elementary Greek: Greek Helps

Moses Stuart 1845 Commentary on the Apocalypse.

Arthur Ellis 1862 Bentlii Critica Sacra (The textual and biblical scholar, Richard Bentley notes.)

DeWette 1858 An Historico-Critical Introduction to the Historical Books of the New Testament.

Rose's 1833 editon of Middleton's famous 1828 Doctrine of the Greek Article.

A. C. Barrett 1878 Companion to the Greek New Testament A Cambridge School and College Testbook.

C. E. Hammond 1880 Outlines of Textual Criticism Applied to the New Testament.

Marvin R. Vincent 1899 A History of the Textual Criticism of the New Testament.

F. H. Scrivener 1861 A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament for the Use of Biblical Students. In general, he defended the traditional text. Also his 1859 Contributions to the Criticism of the Greek New Testament being the Introduction to an Edition of the Codex Augiensis and Fifty Other Manuscripts.

Edwin Abbott's Johannine Vocabulary 1905; and Johannine Grammar, 1906.

Here and There in the Greek New Testament by Potwin. An excellent little introduction to exegesis.

A First Greek Reader with Notes and Vocabulary by Charles Melville Moss, 1887. A good reader for beginners.

E. A. Sophocles: History of the Greek Alphabet with remarks on the Orthography and Pronunciation, 1848.

The Pronunciation of Greek and Latin by E. H. Sturtenvant, 1920. This is a standard work in the field by a leading linguist of the time.

The Restored Pronunciation of Greek and Latin, 1908.

Here is a book comparing Modern and Ancient Greek pronunciation: The Modern Greek: Its Pronunciation and Relation to Ancient Greek.

Richard Payne Knight's An Analytical Essay on the Greek Alphabet, 1791. An old but interesting work.

William Penn 1874 How to Learn to Read the Greek New Testament.

A Practical Guide to the Greek New Testament, 1900. Samuel Bagster & Sons. A neat book for getting quickly into the GNT. It will take you through the Sermon on the Mount!

Historical Grammarians like A. T. Robertson's quoted often from this manual: A Short Manual of Comparative Philology for Classical Students. It was a standard reference work in 1901.

Analytical Vocabulary 1878 of all the words in the Greek New Testament. An extremely valuable work of enabling one to master the vocabulary of the Greek New Testament.

There is Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Teatament 1889. I had the privelege of studying under Professor R. C. Foster, as student of Dr. Thayer. Dr. Thayer also wrote a helpful book, Books and Their Use, An Address, to which is appended a list of books for Students of the New Testament.

H. B. Sweet's great commentary on the Greek text of Mark.

Hobart's 1882 Medical Language of Luke. Here is Harnack's great work on Luke: Luke the Physician. Plummer's commentary in the International Critical Commentary remains a model of scholarship. William Ramsay wrote Luke the Physician.

Greenfield and Hunt Greek Papyra Series II.

Samuel J. Andrews (1870) The Life of Our Lord Upon the Earth Considered in its Historical, Chronological, and Geographical Relations. This is a very valuable work, deserving careful study. It will build your faith.

John William Donaldson (1862 ) A Complete Grammar for the Use of Students. This work is particularly valuable because it makes use of comparative philology and is quite complete. He also wrote (1859) The New Cratylus: Or Contributions Toward a More Accurate Knowledge of the Greek Language.

F. W. Farrar (1867) A Brief Greek Syntax and HInts on Greek Accidents, with Some Reference to Comparative Philology and with Illustrations from Various Modern Languages. I am not so sure what he meant about "brief," but the work is very valuable. He intended to make it interesting for boys. That's what he said!

John H. Huddilston (1895 ) Essentials of New Testament Greek. I have a 1947 reprint of this book. I had planned to scan it and publish it here. Thanks to GoogleBook for doing the work for me! Machen used Huddilston in the preparation of his still-popular beginners's grammar.

C. B. Williams (1908) The Participle in the Book of Acts. Important for its attempt to classify the participles. He later published a modern speech translation of the NT which attempted to express the Greek tenses with care.

Adolf Deissmann (1908) New Light on the New Testament from the Records of the Graeco-Roman Period. Deissman's work continues to impact modern New Tesament scholarship. Also important is his Philology of the Greek Bible. Lectures delivered to the Cambridge summer school of the Free churches, July and August, 1907. First published in the "Expositor," October 1907-January 1908.

Edwin Hatch (1889 ) Essays in Biblical Greek. Hatch attempts to show how the LXX influenced the meaning of NT words. Considered a pre-Deissmann work because he did not make much use of the new papyri finds. Here is Hatch's 1888 Hibbert Lectures: The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, fourth edition, 1892.

Horace Addison Hoffman's (1919) Everyday Greek: Greek Words in English including Scientific Terms. The best book I have seen for learning English words that come from Greek. The book requires a knowledge of the Greek alphabet. A very fine book. Highly recommended.

F. A. Paley's (1881) A Short Treatise on the Greek Particles According to Attic Usage.

Hatch and Redpath (1906) Concordance to the Septuagint. Still the standard.

Moulton and Geden's (1900) Concordance to the Greek Testament remains a model of industry and accuracy.

R. C. Trench (1906 edition) Synonyms of the New Testament. A helpful work in NT exegesis.

James Clyde (1881, 6th edition) GREEK SYNTAX WITH A RATIONALE OF THE CONSTRUCTIONS CONTAINING AN ENGLISH SUMMARY FOR THE USE OF LEARNERS AND A CHAPTER ON ACCENTS. An extremely useful work. Published late enough to make good use of comparative philology, but too early to make use of the new papyri finds.

Chr. Wordsworth's (1881) Greek Text and notes of the Gospels.

Hawkins' Horae Synopticae (1909) Contributions to the Study of the Synoptics.

The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers. (1905). This work is a technical discussion of the manner in which the Apostolic Fathers quoted from the New Testament.

Louis Bevier, Jr. (1903) Brief Greek Syntax. This is a handy and useful review of Greek syntax. We all need to review the basics from time to time to keep sharp. I do, anyway!

John T. White's (1877) St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans with Greek Vocabulary. One of the all time best aids for learning to read Romans. The vocabulary is priceless. Other book by John T White with vocabularies: 1885 John, 1887 Matthew, 1888 Luke, 1885 Acts of Apostles, 1886 Mark,

Arthur Charles Barrett's (1869) Companion to the Greek New Testament. An older book, but contains a lot of helpful information.

Morrison and Goddell (1903) Greek Lessons for Beginners. Of all the beginners books for Classical Greek this is the most brilliantly organized I have seen. Those who have worked in the field of NT Greek would do well to go through this grammar one time to refresh and deepen their feel for the language. Here is Goddell's 1903 School Grammar of Attic Greek.

Gold Wave

The best program I have found for creating and editing audio files is Gold Wave. You can download a free trial copy from: Gold Wave  It is very inexpensive to register. This program will let you convert your wave files into mp3. It will also rip audio off of CDs.