Greek word frequency in the NT & LXX?

arapahoepark

arapahoepark

Puritan Board Professor
Are there any good lists for Greek word frequency for the New Testament? What about the Septuagint? I would assume prepositions and conjunctions take the top so is there anything that leaves those out?
Or are there any 'must know' words, and their respective conjugations, that one can get through the reading pretty easily? In other words, what's the base one must know without constantly consulting a dictionary.
 
arapahoepark said:
Are there any good lists for Greek word frequency for the New Testament? What about the Septuagint? I would assume prepositions and conjunctions take the top so is there anything that leaves those out?
Or are there any 'must know' words, and their respective conjugations, that one can get through the reading pretty easily? In other words, what's the base one must know without constantly consulting a dictionary.
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The words in the LXX and the NT are very frequently Greek. In fact, I think they are exclusively Greek. ;)

Seriously, though, you might consult Robert E. Van Voorst's Building Your New Testament Greek. It does a bit of what you are looking for. However, it won't cover the LXX (if I remember correctly).
 
arapahoepark said:
Or are there any 'must know' words, and their respective conjugations, that one can get through the reading pretty easily? In other words, what's the base one must know without constantly consulting a dictionary.
Click to expand...
One should know all of the words in the NT without consulting a dictionary. There aren't that many of them and 100% of them can be memorized in a couple years with moderate daily study.
The number of distinct lexemes used in the NT is significantly less than one must learn to be conversant in French or German, or the number used in Homer or Cicero. So as far as language study goes it's quite far from the impossibly high bar it's often treated as.
 
Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek is a good resource for learning Greek at a basic level, starting with the alphabet and introducing Nouns, Pronouns, Verbs, and Participles. He even offers a quick reference sheet and flash cards.

I can't remember the exact %, but about 300 words represent over 80% of the words in the NT.

The issue of understanding, however, is knowing the different forms in Greek syntax. This is why Strong's is interesting but insufficient if you want to understand syntax.
 
As a beginner I have been using Lexical Aids for Students of New Testament Greek by Metzger. It has a list of NT words by frequency, a section which organizes words by their root, along with some pretty standard tables and charts.
 
I’ve been working on learning vocab by book, and I’m convinced this is by far the best way to gain proficiency in NT vocab. Pick a book and learn all the vocab for that book, then pick another. They will build on each other and over time you will learn all the vocab in the NT

There is an app called Bible Vocab which is a marvelous tool for this method— you can create custom lists based on section of Scripture and do frequency based review which will show you a word less often each time you get it right. It makes the learning by book method simple.
 
Blood-Bought Pilgrim said:
I’ve been working on learning vocab by book, and I’m convinced this is by far the best way to gain proficiency in NT vocab. Pick a book and learn all the vocab for that book, then pick another. They will build on each other and over time you will learn all the vocab in the NT

There is an app called Bible Vocab which is a marvelous tool for this method— you can create custom lists based on section of Scripture and do frequency based review which will show you a word less often each time you get it right. It makes the learning by book method simple.
Click to expand...

I find by experience that there is a real qualitative difference in acquisition of vocab by studying the word in context as opposed to a word list.

The word list will define the word rightly, but it's the word in context, in its home, that gives the word its clarity and memorability.
 
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