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# Why you need to read outside the NT corpus
- URL: https://thepatrologist.com/why-you-need-to-read-outside-the-nt-corpus/
- Published: 2015-12-16T21:36:04.000Z
- Updated: 2015-12-16T21:36:04.000Z
- Author: Seumas Macdonald
- Tags: Greek, Pedagogy, Uncategorized, #Migrated-1784156034836, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-07-15 22:54

Here's the shortest case I can make. There are, depending on edition, 138,020 Greek words in the New Testament canon. Here are some comparable English works:

134,462 - The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien  
134,710 - Schindler's List, Thomas Keneally  
135,420 - A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens  
138,098 - Snow Falling on Cedars, David Guterson  
138,138 - 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, Jules Verne

Would you really trust the interpretive abilities of someone whose entire knowledge of English was limited to reading *one* of these novels, and who had never read anything in English apart from their selected novel?