Dec 27, 2012

Review of The Handy Guide to New Testament Greek


Douglas S. Huffman, The Handy Guide to New Testament Greek: Grammar, Syntax, and Diagramming (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2012).

During my Bible college days I remember purchasing A Card-Guide to New Testament Greek by Benjamin Chapman and Gary Shogren. This was a laminated sheet, printed on the front and back, highlighting the basic information covered in first year Greek. Zondervan also now produces a four-page laminated overview produced by William Mounce.

Huffman’s work is more than these two resources but less than a first-year Greek grammar and/or a second-year Greek syntax. It is a supplemental resource designed to conveniently distill the information typically covered in first and second year Greek courses and texts. By this measure, Huffman’s guide is largely successful. There is a lot of information packed in these 112 pages. It is full without feeling cramped. The printing is easy on the eyes and the use of color is both attractive and helpful. This guide contains helpful definitions, explanations (simple without being simplistic), descriptions, examples, tables, and memory devices (e.g., “Old MacDonald nouns,” p. 10). The work is rounded out by a solid chapter on diagramming that reads more like a book than the first two chapters. The value of this resource is also enhanced by a fairly comprehensive and nicely organized bibliography (for the table of contents go here). I actually enjoyed going through this guide and my overall impression of this work is very positive. 


The main challenge as I see for this niche product is finding an audience outside of the Bible college or seminary classroom where it is a required text. If this resource is intended to be used after graduation then I suspect the best hope will be to put it out in the main ebook formats. 

Douglas Huffman is a Professor and associate Dean of Biblical and Theological Studies at Biola University. You can read an excerpt here.

Thanks to Kregel Academic for providing the free copy of this book used in writing this unbiased review. 

  

2 comments:

Kevin Ray Gabriel said...

Thanks for the review, Charles.

Kevin Ray Gabriel said...

Thanks for the review, Charles.