Review: Greek for Life: Strategies for Learning, Retaining, and Reviving New Testament Greek

Benjamin L. Merkle and Robert L. Plummer. Greek for Life: Strategies for Learning, Retaining, and Reviving New Testament Greek. Baker Academic, 2017. 

I took a year of classical Greek in College (Crosby and Schaeffer, Introduction to Greek), a three-week introduction to Koine Greek (Machen, New Testament Greek for Beginners) as the first class in seminary. I have tried over the years to retrieve and use what I learned for Bible study and sermons. I have benefited from good commentaries that provided useful linguistic, cultural, and exegetical information. But, I am in a time and place where I want to occupy my mind with the Greek New Testament and the Septuagint. I want more than a familiarity with the text. Is there a way to get going again, but also not flame out after three weeks? 

For folks like me, Merkle and Plummer provide useful, practical advice with loads of antidotes. They address issues like time management, distractions (the Internet comes up A LOT), and how to memorize and to set patterns of study that lead to longevity. They list resources, paper and digital, that are available for beginners, intermediate, and advanced learning. In the 139 pages of text, the authors address every excuse I could come up with for not restarting a systematic study of Koine Greek. 

For the chapters on time management and distractions, the Internet does come up quite a bit. The Internet is a remarkable tool for communication and learning. Sadly, it can also be an enormous time sucker and waster. They recommend using software that limits use or reports on usage. If nothing else, to help you understand that you probably have more time than you realize. For the advice on memory work, they are advocates for learning in small batches: Smaller chunks of designated time; work on a smaller number of vocabulary words at a time; use associations as much as possible; work on fewer verses of text per day. 

I laughed out loud, when I read the following on pages 125 and 126, in the chapter on How To Get It Back. In a subsection labeled Be a Radical Time Miser, included in the bulletin points is this amusing query: "Remove time-wasting apps from your phone (e.g. Facebook or Instagram). Looking back on your life, do you really want to say: 'You know what characterized my life on a daily basis? A constant willingness to look at the latest distraction, shiny thing, or viral video that entered my field of vision.' I once heard someone say: 'If I printed out all the stuff I read on the internet and bound it together as a book, I would never buy that book. It would be a terrible book. Why, then, do I wasted my time looking at that stuff?'" Indeed.  

The Internet really has opened up the potential for remote learning. Merkle and Plummer recommend a wide variety of digital resources. I subscribe to their dailydoseofgreek.com. It is a two minute explication of one Greek New Testament verse per day. Someone else in their Bible department is responsible for dailydoseofHebrew.com. 

I strongly recommend Merkle and Plummer's little book for those interested in learning Greek. They make you believe that it is possible, no matter age or circumstance. Definitely a Good Read!