Online New Testament Greek I and II

September 2009 - May 2010

This web page was last updated on September 26, 2009.

Any questions about the course itself, contact the instructor, Susan Jeffers, susan.jeffers@utoronto.ca

Questions about registration, fees, deadlines, etc, contact the Knox College registrar, Ruth McCarten, at knox.registrar@utoronto.ca. For Greek I, students must register either for credit or audit by the first day of class, September 14. Tuition is $496.50 per course for Canadian students, $1,327.50 for Visa/International students, $200.00 to audit.

INSTRUCTOR: Susan Jeffers, susan.jeffers@utoronto.ca

PREREQUISITE: None

COURSE DESCRIPTION:
Taken in sequence, Greek I and II provide an introduction to the basic elements of New Testament Greek. Students will master essential aspects of Greek morphology and syntax and acquire a substantial reading vocabulary. The courses employ both deductive and inductive methods, with increasing emphasis on the latter as students progress through the year. By the end of the first semester, students will have mastered first and second declension nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and indicative verbs, and have experience analyzing Greek sentences and simple literary structure. Students will be expected to use audio recordings and practice listening to and reading Greek aloud, as well as writing Greek both by hand and using a word processor with Greek fonts. These courses will be conducted online. Evaluation: Weekly written assignments, mid-term translation project, proctored final exam.

STUDENT LEARNING GOALS:

Upon successfully completing these two courses, the student will have demonstrated:

1. Ability to analyze (parse) Greek nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verbs.

2. Facility sight-reading Greek sentences, and writing Greek script both by hand and using Greek fonts in a word processor.

4. Ability to analyze and translate New Testament Greek passages with the help of a lexicon.

5. Acquisition of a basic New Testament Greek vocabulary.

REQUIRED TEXTBOOKS:

You can order these books online or from a local bookseller. Just make sure you get the correct edition, particularly for the Lexicon. Older editions of Croy differ only in not having the CD - the textbook itself is the same. For the GNT, you need the Fourth Revised Edition so the "textual apparatus" will match what we'll discuss in class. And the Dictionary is a very very useful tool for beginning students.

1. A Primer of Biblical Greek, by N. Clayton Croy (Eerdmans). Second Edition, 2007 (includes a CD). ISBN 9780802860002.

2. The Greek New Testament, Fourth Revised Edition with Dictionary (Deutsche Biblegesellschaft/United Bible Societies/American Bible Society) ISBN 3438051133 or 978-3438051133.

3. Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd edition, by Walter Bauer, William Arndt and Frederick W. Danker (University of Chicago Press, 2000) ISBN 0226039331.

Note: A couple of students in the class have emailed suggestions of sources for the lowest cost source for the Bauer Lexicon, including ""Indigo / Chapters" and Amazon; be sure to shop around for best price, and confirm delivery in time for the course start date. I will post all materials needed for the first week's work, but you need to have your books!

COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND POLICIES:

Our work will proceed on a weekly cycle, with each week covering particular textbook lessons(s) and/or reviews. Each week runs from Monday through Friday, with a deadline of 6 a.m. Eastern time Monday morning for posts or other assignments in the preceding week. It's fine to work ahead, but do NOT get behind!

All work other than the final exam is open book and open notes; students are encouraged to help one another, ask questions online or whatever else you want to do to help your understanding. You are welcome to use answer keys, and for the LXX and NT exercises, to consult an English translation. However, if you use such helps as a short-cut, be sure to also figure out why and how the sentence works in Greek!

The final exam will consist of translating some Greek sentences and a short passage from the Greek New Testament, with some words underlined to be parsed. For the final exam, you will need to arrange for a local proctor; students in the same location (e.g. Toronto) may arrange for one proctor and take the final exam together at one time. You will be permitted to use the Croy textbook, Bauer, and any notes that you have prepared yourself. However, no other books, computers or software resources (e.g. BibleWorks) are allowed in the exam.

STUDENT EVALUATION

The instructor will make every effort to give students feedback as we go through the course, and students are encouraged to help one another whenever possible. Our primary goal is to learn as much New Testament Greek as possible, and to learn how to learn NT Greek; anyone who applies him or herself to that task should have no trouble passing the course.

You need 700 points or more in order to earn credit in each of the two courses in the sequence.

Points are assigned as follows:

300 Assignments for each lesson, 20 points per lesson starting with Lesson 2
150 Online class participation for each lesson, 10 points per lesson starting with Lesson 2
250 Mid-term exam/assignment
300 Final exam (proctored; each student to arrange for the final exam period at the end of the term)
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1000 total possible points

In order to receive the full 10 points for each lesson's online class participation, you must post at least two* substantive questions, comments, or substantive responses to others in the Discussion forum for that lesson. To receive credit, your posts must be timestamped no later than 6 a.m. Eastern, of the Monday after the lesson ended.

* minimum reduced to one post per lesson due to large class size; more posts are welcome but not required

At the end of the course, students will receive both their numerical total and a letter grade:

A note on Greek pronunciation: This course will present both modern Greek and the "Erasmian" pronunciation taught in many seminaries and universities in North America. Each student is welcome to use both sets of audio recordings; however it is important that each student choose one or the other pronunciation system to master and use. Students planning to continue their studies at Knox College MUST use modern Greek pronunciation in this course. Others may choose either system.

For those choosing modern Greek pronunciation:
* Skip chapter 1 in the required Croy textbook (see above).
* Use this Modern Greek Pronunciation document and accompanying audio to learn the basics.
* Then use this audo recording and pdf to practice listening and reading along with John 1:1-8:
John 1:1-8 - audio - excerpted from Spiros Zodhiates' modern Greek New Testament CD set; I've added a 2-second pause between verses, to help you keep your place. The full CD set is available at www.christanbook.com.
John 1:1-8 - text from the UBS/NA text we will be using in the class

For those choosing Erasmian pronunciation:
Use chapter 1 in the required Croy textbook (see above), along with these audio recordings:
http://www.earlham.edu/~jeffesu/NTGreek1/longer.htm
You will need to install the "bwgrkl" font (see below) in order to see the Greek characters on your computer screen.

Displaying Greek characters and typing in Greek: In order to learn Greek over the Internet in this course, you will need to install the "bwgrkl" Greek font on the computer you will be using. Fonts are the computer's way of handling Greek letters, so you see the Greek alphabet on your computer screen rather than English. If you're not particularly computer savvy, get someone to help you, or just try following the instructions at the link. If you get stuck, you can email or call the instructor, but try it on your own first.

Bwgrkl is a font that comes with the computer program BibleWorks. It will be the primary font I'll use when I post examples, exercises and quiz questions. You will use it to type your assignments. You can also use it for incorporating Greek script into your academic or other writing, for example if you want to discuss a particular Greek word or phrase. Download Bwgrkl at http://www.bibleworks.com/fonts.html. When you have it properly installed, you should see the following displayed in Greek characters:

evlqe,tw h` basilei,a sou\ genhqh,tw to. qe,lhma, sou( w`j evn ouvranw/| kai. evpi. gh/j\ (Matthew 6:10)

If you have questions about the course itself, contact the instructor, Susan Jeffers, susan.jeffers@utoronto.ca

Questions about registration, fees, deadlines, etc, contact Knox College, University of Toronto.

Questions about Blackboard or other computer issues, contact St. George Campus Information Commons, First Floor, Robarts Library
Phone: 416.978.HELP (4357), email help.desk@utoronto.ca.