There is a new introductory Greek textbook by the "deans" or "dons" (or what have you) of McMaster Divinity School now newly evaluated by two reviewers at the Review of Biblical Literature (http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=7893
Publication details:Fundamentals of New Testament Greek (+ Workbook)
Porter, Stanley E., Jeffrey T. Reed and Matthew Brook O'Donnell
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010 pp. xxi + 466/xii + 260. $59.99
Review by Panayotis Coutsoumposhttp://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/7893_8628.pdf
Review by Laurence M. Vancehttp://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/7893_8970.pdf
Coutsoumpis is very positive in his evaluation, while Vance doesn't much like the textbook. I would like to take a closer look at the grammatical presentations, which both reviewers indicate as being more-or-less exhaustively complete. Vance, in fact, faults the the work as presenting too much information for beginners; I find that judgment somewhat amusing, inasmuch as in my own teaching I've always tried to warn students that the details of Greek morphology and syntax are considerably more complex than beginning texts are likely to acknowledge. When I was beginning Greek more than half a century ago this is the sort of textbook I would have found very appealing, I think.
It is clear that use of the workbook is essential for anyone seeking to learn to read Biblical Greek: the textbook by itself simply introduces the lessons, while the essential practice and learning exercises are to be found in the workbook. That is comparable to the widely-used Mounce textbook which is almost useless to a beginner without the workbook; the same is true for what I think is the best comparable beginning textbook for Classical Greek, the JACT Reading Greek
It also seems pretty clear that the pedagogical method here is the traditional "grammar and translation" method as opposed to the immersion methodology emphasizing oral/aural and reading/writing communication advocated by the likes of Randall Buth, Christophe Rico, and Daniel Streett.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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