What is the difference between attic greek and koine greek

I will be close to 40 years old at the time when I've progressed to Septuagint Gk. Basically I'm too old. After Septuagint Gk I've planned taking the three-year engineer program. So my studies will be really prolonged! Or would you choose both?

I learned Erasmian pronunciation in seminary, but switched over to Restored Koine a few months ago. A comparison of the pronunciation schemes and a defense of Restored Koine follows in this document prepared by Randall Buth. I wouldn't let pronunciation be the determining factor as to whether you should learn Attic or Koine.

The switchover from Erasmian to Restored Koine was actually pretty easy. I pretty much had it down after a week of reading Greek, but I can still read it in Erasmian also. Unfortunately, this makes the omicron and the alpha sounds indistinguishable. If you have the ability to study either, I would recommend Attic Greek. When you learn Attic Greek, you essentially learn Koine, but not the reverse. Koine's grammar and vocabulary are essentially a subset of Attic.

I would not worry at all about pronunciation. There is not even any real certainty within reasonable limits as to how the language was pronounced. Buth's work is interesting--when I have more time I will probably dive in whenever that might be. But with regard to the comment above, an observation. First, lots of different letters have the same sound in many different languages.

The allure of Erasmian, of course, is that it makes each letter have its own sound, or nearly so. This is an attractive concept, but I'm not sure how much one can expect it to be followed in actual historical practice. Rarely, if at all, I would think. The tendency of humans is to go lazy in most pursuits, and language follows that trend. Modern Greek is a perfect example, where the original vowel sounds have been reduced down to about actual numbers may vary , to the sounds that are the least taxing to pronounce, thus mostly short sounds remain.

Richard DeRuiter:. Actually, "Hellenistic" as a term refers specifically to the time of Alexander's expansion through the time of Roman ascendancy in the first century BCE. Although the First Macedonian War was inconclusive, the Romans, in typical fashion, continued to make war on Macedon until it was completely absorbed into the Roman Republic by BC. In the east the unwieldy Seleucid Empire gradually disintegrated, although a rump survived until 64 BC, whilst the Ptolemaic Kingdom continued in Egypt until 30 BC, when it too was conquered by the Romans.

The Aetolian league grew wary of Roman involvement in Greece, and sided with the Seleucids in the Roman-Syrian War; when the Romans were victorious, the league was effectively absorbed into the Republic. Although the Achaean league outlasted both the Aetolian league and Macedon, it was also soon defeated and absorbed by the Romans in BC, bringing an end to the independence of all of Greece.

Macedonia became a Roman province while southern Greece came under the surveillance of Macedonia's praefect; however, some Greek poleis managed to maintain a partial independence and avoid taxation. The Aegean islands were added to this territory in BC. Athens and other Greek cities revolted in 88 BC, and the peninsula was crushed by the Roman general Sulla.

The Roman civil wars devastated the land even further, until Augustus organized the peninsula as the province of Achaea in 27 BC. Greece was a key eastern province of the Roman Empire, as the Roman culture had long been in fact Greco-Roman.

The Greek language served as a lingua franca in the East and in Italy , and many Greek intellectuals such as Galen would perform most of their work in Rome. The territory of Greece is mountainous, and as a result, ancient Greece consisted of many smaller regions each with its own dialect, cultural peculiarities, and identity.

Regionalism and regional conflicts were a prominent feature of ancient Greece. Cities tended to be located in valleys between mountains, or on coastal plains, and dominated a certain area around them. In the south lay the Peloponnese, itself consisting of the regions of Laconia southeast , Messenia southwest , Elis west , Achaia north , Korinthia northeast , Argolis east , and Arcadia center.

These names survive to the present day as regional units of modern Greece, though with somewhat different boundaries. Mainland Greece to the north, nowadays known as Central Greece, consisted of Aetolia and Acarnania in the west, Locris, Doris, and Phocis in the center, while in the east lay Boeotia, Attica, and Megaris.

Northeast lay Thessaly, while Epirus lay to the northwest. Epirus stretched from the Ambracian Gulf in the south to the Ceraunian mountains and the Aoos river in the north, and consisted of Chaonia north , Molossia center , and Thesprotia south. In the northeast corner was Macedonia, [ 18 ] originally consisting Lower Macedonia and its regions, such as Elimeia, Pieria, and Orestis.

Around the time of Alexander I of Macedon, the Argead kings of Macedon started to expand into Upper Macedonia, lands inhabited by independent Macedonian tribes like the Lyncestae and the Elmiotae and to the West, beyond the Axius river, into Eordaia, Bottiaea, Mygdonia, and Almopia, regions settled by Thracian tribes. Chalcidice was settled early on by southern Greek colonists and was considered part of the Greek world, while from the late 2nd millennium BC substantial Greek settlement also occurred on the eastern shores of the Aegean, in Anatolia.

During the Archaic period, the population of Greece grew beyond the capacity of its limited arable land according to one estimate, the population of ancient Greece increased by a factor larger than ten during the period from BC to BC, increasing from a population of , to a total estimated population of 10 to 13 million.

From about BC the Greeks began years of expansion, settling colonies in all directions. Eventually Greek colonization reached as far northeast as present day Ukraine and Russia Taganrog. Greek colonies were also founded in Egypt and Libya. These colonies played an important role in the spread of Greek influence throughout Europe, and also aided in the establishment of long-distance trading networks between the Greek city-states, boosting the economy of ancient Greece.

Ancient Greece consisted of several hundred more or less independent city-states poleis. This was a situation unlike that in most other contemporary societies, which were either tribal, or kingdoms ruling over relatively large territories. On the one hand, the ancient Greeks had no doubt that they were 'one people'; they had the same religion, same basic culture, and same language. Furthermore, the Greeks were very aware of their tribal origins; Herodotus was able to extensively categorise the city-states by tribe.

Yet, although these higher-level relationships existed, they seem to have rarely had a major role in Greek politics. The independence of the poleis was fiercely defended; unification was something rarely contemplated by the ancient Greeks.

Even when, during the second Persian invasion of Greece, a group of city-states allied themselves to defend Greece, the vast majority of poleis remained neutral, and after the Persian defeat, the allies quickly returned to infighting.

Thus, the major peculiarities of the ancient Greek political system were; firstly, its fragmentary nature, and that this does not particularly seem to have tribal origin; and secondly the particular focus on urban centres within otherwise tiny states. The peculiarities of the Greek system are further evidenced by the colonies that they set up throughout the Mediterranean Sea, which, though they might count a certain Greek polis as their 'mother' and remain sympathetic to her , were completely independent of the founding city.

Inevitably smaller poleis might be dominated by larger neighbours, but conquest or direct rule by another city-state appears to have been quite rare. Instead the poleis grouped themselves into leagues, membership of which was in a constant state of flux. Later in the Classical period, the leagues would become fewer and larger, be dominated by one city particularly Athens, Sparta and Thebes ; and often poleis would be compelled to join under threat of war or as part of a peace treaty.

Even after Philip II of Macedon 'conquered' the heartlands of ancient Greece, he did not attempt to annex the territory, or unify it into a new province, but simply compelled most of the poleis to join his own Corinthian League.

Initially many Greek city-states seem to have been petty kingdoms; there was often a city official carrying some residual, ceremonial functions of the king basileus , e. It is unclear exactly how this change occurred. For instance, in Athens, the kingship had been reduced to a hereditary, lifelong chief magistracy archon by c. Through each stage more power would have been transferred to the aristocracy as a whole, and away from a single individual. Inevitably, the domination of politics and concomitant aggregation of wealth by small groups of families was apt to cause social unrest in many poleis.

In many cities a tyrant not in the modern sense of repressive autocracies , would at some point seize control and govern according to their own will; often a populist agenda would help sustain them in power. In a system racked with class conflict, government by a 'strongman' was often the best solution. Athens fell under a tyranny in the second half of the 6th century. When this tyranny was ended, the Athenians founded the world's first democracy as a radical solution to prevent the aristocracy regaining power.

A citizens' assembly the Ecclesia , for the discussion of city policy, had existed since the reforms of Draco in BC; all citizens were permitted to attend after the reforms of Solon early 6th century , but the poorest citizens could not address the assembly or run for office.

With the establishment of the democracy, the assembly became the de jure mechanism of government; all citizens had equal privileges in the assembly. However, non-citizens, such as metics foreigners living in Athens or slaves, had no political rights at all. After the rise of the democracy in Athens, other city-states founded democracies.

However, many retained more traditional forms of government. As so often in other matters, Sparta was a notable exception to the rest of Greece, ruled through the whole period by not one, but two hereditary monarchs.

This was a form of diarchy. Both dynasty founders were believed to be twin sons of Aristodemus, a Heraclid ruler. However, the powers of these kings was trammeled by both a council of elders the Gerousia and magistrates specifically appointed to watch over the kings the Ephors.

Only free, land owning, native-born men could be citizens entitled to the full protection of the law in a city-state later Pericles introduced exceptions to the native-born restriction.

In most city-states, unlike the situation in Rome, social prominence did not allow special rights. Sometimes families controlled public religious functions, but this ordinarily did not give any extra power in the government.

In Athens, the population was divided into four social classes based on wealth. People could change classes if they made more money. In Sparta, all male citizens were given the title of equal if they finished their education. However, Spartan kings, who served as the city-state's dual military and religious leaders, came from two families.

Slaves had no power or status. They had the right to have a family and own property, subject to their master's goodwill and permission, but they had no political rights.

By BC chattel slavery had spread in Greece. By the 5th century BC slaves made up one-third of the total population in some city-states. Two-fifths some authorities say four-fifths of the population of Classical Athens were slaves. Most families owned slaves as household servants and labourers, and even poor families might have owned a few slaves. Owners were not allowed to beat or kill their slaves.

Owners often promised to free slaves in the future to encourage slaves to work hard. Unlike in Rome, freedmen did not become citizens.

Instead, they were mixed into the population of metics , which included people from foreign countries or other city-states who were officially allowed to live in the state. City-states legally owned slaves. These public slaves had a larger measure of independence than slaves owned by families, living on their own and performing specialized tasks. In Athens, public slaves were trained to look out for counterfeit coinage, while temple slaves acted as servants of the temple's deity and Scythian slaves were employed in Athens as a police force corralling citizens to political functions.

Sparta had a special type of slaves called helots. Helots were Messenians enslaved during the Messenian Wars by the state and assigned to families where they were forced to stay. Helots raised food and did household chores so that women could concentrate on raising strong children while men could devote their time to training as hoplites.

Their masters treated them harshly every Spartiate male had to kill a helot as a right of passage , and helots often resorted to slave rebellions. For most of Greek history, education was private, except in Sparta.

During the Hellenistic period, some city-states established public schools. Only wealthy families could afford a teacher. Boys learned how to read, write and quote literature.

They also learned to sing and play one musical instrument and were trained as athletes for military service. They studied not for a job but to become an effective citizen. Girls also learned to read, write and do simple arithmetic so they could manage the household.

They almost never received education after childhood. Boys went to school at the age of seven, or went to the barracks, if they lived in Sparta. The three types of teachings were: grammatistes for arithmetic, kitharistes for music and dancing, and Paedotribae for sports. Boys from wealthy families attending the private school lessons were taken care of by a paidagogos , a household slave selected for this task who accompanied the boy during the day.

Classes were held in teachers' private houses and included reading, writing, mathematics, singing, and playing the lyre and flute. When the boy became 12 years old the schooling started to include sports such as wrestling, running, and throwing discus and javelin. In Athens some older youths attended academy for the finer disciplines such as culture, sciences, music, and the arts. The schooling ended at age 18, followed by military training in the army usually for one or two years.

A small number of boys continued their education after childhood, as in the Spartan agoge. A crucial part of a wealthy teenager's education was a mentorship with an elder, which in a few places and times may have included pederastic love. The teenager learned by watching his mentor talking about politics in the agora , helping him perform his public duties, exercising with him in the gymnasium and attending symposia with him. The richest students continued their education by studying with famous teachers.

Some of Athens' greatest such schools included the Lyceum the so-called Peripatetic school founded by Aristotle of Stageira and the Platonic Academy founded by Plato of Athens. The education system of the wealthy ancient Greeks is also called Paideia. At its economic height, in the 5th and 4th centuries BC, ancient Greece was the most advanced economy in the world.

According to some economic historians, it was one of the most advanced preindustrial economies. This is demonstrated by the average daily wage of the Greek worker which was, in terms of wheat, about 12 kg. This was more than 3 times the average daily wage of an Egyptian worker during the Roman period, about 3. At least in the Archaic Period, the fragmentary nature of ancient Greece, with many competing city-states, increased the frequency of conflict, but conversely limited the scale of warfare.

Unable to maintain professional armies, the city-states relied on their own citizens to fight. But there is also a case to be made for restricting oneself, intentionally, to the limited corpus of Koine.

As of this posting, there are nearly Greek grammars available in Logos 7. How much might that improve your reading ability and the quality of your exegesis, and therefore your preaching and research? Could you even exhaust grammars in your lifetime? Whether you want to is another question. My favorite and most challenging class in seminary was an exegesis course covering Romans 1—8.

Every Thursday, five of us nerdy language majors were required to show up to class with an entire chapter of Romans fully translated in our heads!

The prof would then call on us at random to sight-translate an entire verse out loud, followed by identification of every nuance of syntax that Wallace had referenced in that verse and if we misidentified any instance of indirect discourse, he would fling his ID card on the desk in front of us; let those who have ears to hear…. My Greek NT is still marked up on every line in Romans with tiny number symbols above the text, indicating the page numbers in Wallace where certain words or phrases were used as an example to demonstrate a point of syntax see header image.

I learned to read Romans fluently through that class, and began the long road of mastery of the syntax. You can do the same thing yourself with a little bit of discipline, and a plan. Choose a book of the NT. How many glosses of NT words do you know?

While reading outside of the NT will help expand your Greek vocabulary, ask yourself which Greek is appurtenant. Koine, Classical, Medieval, Modern? I suggest focusing on one, specifically Koine, with the lifelong goal of truly mastering this particular type of Greek as thoroughly as possible.

A related benefit of a singular focus on the semantics of Koine is an increased facility with linguistics. You also end up gaining better access to an entire other corpus of texts and vocabulary outside the NT, namely, the Greek translation of the OT Scriptures. This may be one of the strongest arguments for zeroing your efforts in on Koine Greek. You will have immediate access to an immense body of Koine Greek texts that are directly pertinent to your study of the NT—the Septuagint.

Some have even made the case that knowing the OT in Greek is of greater value to scholars, pastors, and exegetes of all varieties than the Hebrew. Whether you agree or not, it is worth considering how often the citations of the OT by NT authors were pulled seemingly verbatim or nearly from the Greek Scriptures.

Granted, you will need to grab another lexicon or more in order to tackle the LXX. Gaining the facility to read quickly and naturally through both the OT and NT in Greek means you can spend less time on parsing and looking up words, and more time in deep thinking about the meaning of the text. Or to put it another way, you can do more theology. The greatest theologians in the history of the church were also masters of the biblical text in the original Greek. Aquinas was a genius whose logical approach to the teachings of Scripture marked the advent of what we know as systematic theology.

He was an undeniable master of Greek. Luther is known for the sheer brilliance of his theological musings, but also for his insistence on the necessity of mastering the original languages, both Greek and Hebrew.

If you are spending more and more time reading into the the vast corpus of Ancient Greek literature outside of the NT, there is no doubt that you will be enriched personally and intellectually.