> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://thepatrologist.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Reading Greek Deeply, a review (part one) - URL: https://thepatrologist.com/reading-greek-deeply-a-review-part-one/ - Published: 2026-10-23T06:45:27.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-23T06:45:27.000Z - Author: Seumas Macdonald *Reading Greek Deeply*, Kevin Grasso, De Gruter Brill, 2nd Nov 2026. Kevin Grasso begins his new Greek grammar with an apology, in both senses, for yet another Greek grammar. I don't think he needs to apologise, especially when I was asked recently whether any published textbook supports my position on voice or aspect and I couldn't list any. But it's true that new grammars do need to make their case for existing. Before we get into this and subsequent posts, let me say that I consider Grasso a fairly close ally in pedagogical philosophy. I don't know Kevin personally, but I have been warmly supportive and yet continue to be critical of Biblingo. I think Grasso has a very sound linguistics, ancient Greek, and pedagogical basis for what he does, even though I disagree with him at various points. And I think we share far more than we diverge on, not least our general aims and hopes for ancient language pedagogy. So my critical comments in these posts should be read as friendly wounds (I hope). So, what is new/distinct about Grasso's grammar (okay, let's not call it that! What about RGD). He outlines 5 features in his preface: 1. He doesn't have years of experience in Koine Greek teaching, but in linguistics, and so his point of reference is linguistics not the silo'd world of "New Testament Greek". Big tick from me on this. 2. It's not "morphology" followed by "exegesis", it's a book written with the conviction that "Greek should be taught primarily as a language to be used." Two ticks from me. 3. It incorporates science on learning itself. That involves cognitive learning strategies and SLA theory. Another tick. 4. The 'workbook' for this textbook is Biblingo. It's designed to complement that. 5. It's open access. I downloaded it for free. Big kudos for this. It's free, which makes it priceless. I want to stop and comment on point four. I think Biblingo falls short of its promise, because to be frank it really feels like a glorified version of "sentence-level flashcards" with pictures and audio. I don't think that is *enough* of a learning environment to genuinely create *enough* communicative input for learners to really get somewhere with that alone. In fact, I think this is probably the problem with most app-based learning - apps can only do so much, and Biblingo can't bear enough weight on its own to sustain learning. I'm welcome to hear push-back on this, but I think Biblingo isn't living up to its own ideals, or its promises. I suppose this is the point that I tell you that I have a Biblingo account, paid out of my own money. I have no other association with Biblingo. But these are indeed very good reasons for a new textbook, and I'm excited to see what this one holds. So, onward we go. In the introduction which follows, some of the same points are touched upon, but more with the user in mind. I do not a mention of a 4-volume deeper work in the future, a comprehensive grammar of Greek and Hebrew. Well, we will wait for that! Still in the intro, Grasso introduces linguistics. Bravo. Every NT student needs to understand basic linguistics, and often they don't encounter anything like linguistics in their grammar textbooks. He goes on to explain in simple but not dumbed-down language what the major subdomains of linguistics are. I particularly enjoyed this sentence: > "Students are often frustrated with Greek not because Greek is itself difficult, but the methods employed in Greek classrooms are known in SLA to be poor ways of learning a language. These sections have been written to educate you on how to learn languages efficiently and effectively, so that you can be empowered to take control of your own language learning." (p. 11) ### Lessons 1-9 I don't intend to give you anything like a page by page treatment of the book, you can read it for yourself. What I will do is group some of my observations by section, for easier reference. The presentation of each lesson is relatively brief. It's descriptive, and the actual "learning material" of this textbook is really Biblingo, and associated materials. Each lesson introduces a number of 'unrelated' grammar topics. This is better pedagogically, but it means you can't easily use the textbook as a reference grammar. On the whole, the adoption of a linguistics-grounded approach is very welcome. And so, for instance, we talk about verbs taking "arguments" instead of the clumsy and unhelpful language of direct and indirect objects or the like. After lesson 3 we get what I think are interlude sections. They cover a variety of topics and are deeper dives, and the first is SLA. It is so pleasing to see a Greek textbook take SLA theory seriously, engage it, explain its principles, and teach students how to learn a language. Part of the massive problem Greek, Latin, and other historical languages have is that the whole edifice and tradition of teaching and learning them has little to no engagement with SLA. Much of this is shaped by Paul Nation's 4-strand approach. If I could quibble, I'm not sure that Language-focused learning "is essentially the grammar-translation method." Grasso also spends some time here contrasting his/Biblingo's methodology against a traditional LFL/GTM model, and on the other hand a living language methodology, exemplified by the Biblical Language Center, and the Polis Institute. Both excellent examples of that methodology. He does identify problems with their approach, three: 1. "Immersion guarantees *input*, but it does not guarantee *meaning-focused input*" (p.40) or, said otherwise, staying in the target language makes it difficult to ensure differentiated instruction where all students are understanding enough of the input. 2. Lack of LFL. BLC doesn't do explicit LFL, and Polis does it in the target language. 3. Little attention to fluency development, that is deverloping automaticity and speed. For these reasons, Grasso/Biblingo (a) includes LFL material because they believe that some amount of explicit grammar instruction is useful. (I agree). And (b) specific fluency-targeted activities. I don't do that because I think there are a number of complicating factors with, e.g. timed activities. On p47-48 we are first introduced to aspect. Grasso treats aspect as a relationship between Eventuality Time and Reference time, and uses imperfective/perfective labels for this. I think this explanation probably makes good sense to students and he includes more detailed explanation elsewhere. Interlude 2, after chapter 6 (they come every three chapters) provides a more systematic introduction to accents, which have been treated throughout. Again, it is pleasing to see a textbook not neglect accents but rather give them due space (side-glance at Duff who deletes them from his Greek text). In ch 7 we get introduced to the medio-passive voice.I don't entirely agree with the treatment here. Grasso goes into more depth in the interlude "Syntax B" (p. 256-262). I think his position is based in solid work, and involves thinking about arguments and roles, and how that differs for middle and passive voice. At the same time, there's no discussion or reference to Rutger Allen, Suzanne Kemmer, or Rachel Aubrey, which are the kinds of works that have shaped my view. He also discusses the term "deponen(t/cy)". In Grasso's view, it's right to set aside the traditional sense of "middle in form but active in meaning", but given that broader linguistics is happy to use "deponent" to mean "middle in form with no active counterpart form", argues that we should not abandon the term but reclaim it in line with how it's used in broader linguistics. I suppose I am not terribly opposed to that, but given how often and how incorrectly deponency has been taught, it probably behoves NT Greek teachers to, a-hem, set aside the term for a spell. Interlude 3 gets us into Lexical Semantics, with a discussion about how to think about, and analyse, nouns and verbs. Grasso introduces us to aktionsart and argument structure. Again, not terms you hear in most first year textbooks! He gives examples an explanations of telicity, stativity, duratives, and so on. Given that this is a 620 page book, I think that's enough for part one of my review. I look forward to reading more and discussing it with you all.