Reading and Pronouncing Biblical Greek: Historical Pronunciation Versus Erasmian

This book invites you to see not only how Hellenistic Koine ought to be pronounced but also why. Rigorously investigating the history of Greek orthography and sounds from classical times to the present, the author places linguistic findings on one side of the scale and related events on the other. The result is a balance between the evidence of the historical Greek sounds in Koine and pre-Koine times, and the political events that derailed those sounds as they were being transported through Europe's Renaissance academia and replaced them with Erasmian. This book argues for a return to the historical Greek sounds now preserved in Neohellenic (Modern Greek) as a step toward mending the Erasmian dichotomy that rendered post-Koine Greek irrelevant to New Testament Greek studies. The goal is a holistic and diachronic application of the Hellenic language and literature to illume exegetically the Greek text, as the New Testament contains numerous features that have close affinity with Neohellenic and should not be left unexplored.

Philemon Zachariou is New Testament Greek instructor for BibleMesh Institute, and instructor of English at Northwest University. He is the author of The Proselytizer: The Diaries of Panos T. Zachariou, Pioneer Minister of the Gospel in Greece (1999). Philemon graduated from high school in Greece and from a Bible school in England and holds a BA and MA in linguistics and a PhD in religious education. During most of his career as an educator and public school administrator he taught, among other college subjects, Modern Greek and New Testament Greek at various schools and colleges.