ESSENTIALS OF NEW TESTAMENT GREEK (Hardcover)

It has some positives to it: it has a lot of vocabulary in it (80% of all the words used in the NT/all words used more than 50 times). It also has good charts for the different tenses and uses of irregular forms of New Testament words.

The main flaw to the book is that it uses the eight case system, and it doesn't use the five (the eight case system has all but fallen out of favor). The only other problem I have with it is that it doesn't dicuss the optative mood at all (most introductory grammars do not, because it is so rare in the New Testament). As I said, I am partial to this work, because it is the text I learned with. You will get some good things from the work, but it does have its disadvantages. This is a good work, but I would recommend also using Mounce along with Summers for a different perspective all together.

But the explanations are clear and easy to follow. The text is well-written and concise. The font is quite readable and clear, and you shouldn't have any problems reading the Greek text itself.

If you get this book, do yourself a favor and get the workbook too. Together they make a nice pair.

I previously bought Wenham's Elements of NT Greek, but was put off by its (not surprisingly, considering it is published by Cambridge) overly academic style. I was looking for a simple NT Greek course and Summer's book seemed like it might fit the bill, especially when used with the video course.

One fundamental flaw/problem: on the back of the dust jacket, the blurb at the bottom mentions a workbook (Essentials of New Testament Greek Student's Guide). I have not found any references to this book anywhere else, including the publisher (who never returned my emails) or the publisher's web site. Searching across multiple web search engines returned no applicable hits, either.

The chapters are short. Maybe too short. The discussion is very brief on all the topics covered. Compared with Mounce's Basics book, this one seems emaciated (weighing in at under 200 pages, including index and verb charts). Many of the chapters lack substantive (some lack any!) examples, reducing both the benefit and length of the text.

I recently bought Mounce, hoping that it's more geared for the self-taught student. Summer's book is definitely not. Maybe the vapor-ware (?) Student's Guide would help. Has anybody ever seen the Student's Guide??