Rating: 
Summary: Great beginners book
Review: I am a Lutheran pastor. Forty years ago I used Machen as the first year text by which I learned New Testament Greek. Over the years, I have used this text to teach a few interested persons New Testament Greek one-on-one. I tried another text once, but its arrangement of subjects seemed out of place. For me, the great feature of Machen is the numerous exercise sentences at the end of each chapter. Too many first year texts provide the students with too few exercise sentences by which they can practice what they have learned. It is not really a book for self-study. But, with the help of a teacher who has studied New Testament Greek, it is simply the best book available after its nearly 80 years in print. That alone speaks much in its behalf.
Rating:
Summary: unsurpassed and timeless classic
Review: I have used this book as a classbook, to teach Greek, since the late 1980's. Just as important, it has been a concise, reliable, and lucid reference, far exceeding any other grammatical reference books in my entire library. I continue to add new Greek references and study books, but this is the one I keep coming back to.
Rating: 
Summary: Solid text, nothing fancy
Review: I learned NT Greek from Machen's text in an intensive 4-week course. The text is old-school, but thorough. If you can handle having paradigms tossed at you in an entirely businesslike manner, and you can get someone to explain the subtleties of participles, then this is text can be a fast introduction. A word of warning: Machen follows the classical tradition of teaching grammar by aphorism in the exercises at the end of each chapter. The exercises tend to reflect Machen's worldview: that of an embattled evangelical feeling marginalized in an increasingly modernistic denomination. Example: "If you do not receive our testimony, you will not be saved."
Rating: 
Summary: Great for the Knowing Beginner
Review: I spent two semesters in college going through this book in a Classroom setting and found this work entirely helpful for the understanding of New Testament Greek. The method by which Machen divided up his Chapters allows the student to begin understanding (and writing) Greek sentences after only a few lessons whereas some grammars will go over every single Noun Ending and Rule before moving on to the Verbs and it could be fifteen lessons before the Student is able to understand even a basic sentence. There are a few problems with the text and those are mainly involving the way in which he describes some of the more difficult concepts. Without a knowledgeable person explaining Participles to the student, the novice would be hard-pressed to understand the complexity of the Participle in Greek and would flounder through Machen's descriptions of them. If the solitary student is trying to brush up on his Greek or has already learned one or more languages then he or she will have a much easier time grasping the more difficult concepts because they would be used to going through a grammar and learning ideas about a foreign language. The Lexicon in the Back (with the principle parts) is also a very helpful tool for the beginning student so the student does not have to flip through every single lesson trying to find the definition of a word given previously while working on a later lesson. Once the student has completely finished using Machen's book he or she will be able to, armed with only this grammar and a Lexicon, tackle a significant majority of the passages in the New Testament. While there are obviously some more difficult passages in the New Testament (Hebrews, etc) that will be a struggle for the beginning student this work will provide him or her with a very solid foundation to work from and will be an invaluable tool for the rest of the student's time spent in Greek.
Rating:
Summary: Great for the Knowing Beginner
Review: I spent two semesters in college going through this book in a Classroom setting and found this work entirely helpful for the understanding of New Testament Greek. The method by which Machen divided up his Chapters allows the student to begin understanding (and writing) Greek sentences after only a few lessons whereas some grammars will go over every single Noun Ending and Rule before moving on to the Verbs and it could be fifteen lessons before the Student is able to understand even a basic sentence. There are a few problems with the text and those are mainly involving the way in which he describes some of the more difficult concepts. Without a knowledgeable person explaining Participles to the student, the novice would be hard-pressed to understand the complexity of the Participle in Greek and would flounder through Machen's descriptions of them. If the solitary student is trying to brush up on his Greek or has already learned one or more languages then he or she will have a much easier time grasping the more difficult concepts because they would be used to going through a grammar and learning ideas about a foreign language. The Lexicon in the Back (with the principle parts) is also a very helpful tool for the beginning student so the student does not have to flip through every single lesson trying to find the definition of a word given previously while working on a later lesson. Once the student has completely finished using Machen's book he or she will be able to, armed with only this grammar and a Lexicon, tackle a significant majority of the passages in the New Testament. While there are obviously some more difficult passages in the New Testament (Hebrews, etc) that will be a struggle for the beginning student this work will provide him or her with a very solid foundation to work from and will be an invaluable tool for the rest of the student's time spent in Greek.
Rating:
Summary: Simply the best.
Review: I studied Greek for over five years, but when I think Greek, the image of Machen's little blue book always comes to mind. It was as if our class lived and breathed with Machen, so much so that we called it "baby Greek." Machen is simply the best place to start learning Greek. I would recommend no other.
Rating:
Summary: Great beginners book
Review: I took four years of high school Greek and we used this book all the way through. I am now taking Greek in College and we are using Croy's book: A Primer of Biblical Greek. After using Croy's book for two semester's, I can say that I prefer Machen. He is very thorough and yet very clear in his presentation of beginning concepts. Machen's dictionary in the back is also invaluable for the beginning student. It is truly a great work.
Rating:
Summary: Great exercises - Machen vs Mounce
Review: Machen's New Testament Greek for Beginners is concise and clear in what it teaches. It is no-nonsense and gets right to the point of each individual lesson. The chapters are fed to the student in small "bite-size" portions that are easily digested - not too much info in one sitting. The real benefit of this grammar, however, is in the exercises at the end of each chapter. The student is taught one or two new grammatical concepts per chapter, and then is asked to apply those concepts through numerous translations - first from Greek to English and then from English to Greek. It is the second set of exercises (English to Greek) that really cements the points of the lesson in one's mind - for one could scramble through translating from the Greek if they had to, but taking the English and writing the equivalent in Greek takes a clearer understanding of the concepts. Another benefit of the excercises in Machen is the fact that the sentences to be translated are not directly from the Bible. I started out my trek through Koine Greek with Mounce's grammar. He does not have the student translate from English to Greek because he states (and I'm paraphrasing) that "we're not learning to write, we're learning to read". In addition, all of the exercises were passages from the Bible. If, as in my case, you have studied the Bible before moving on to Greek, many of the exercises to be translated will be familiar to you. It seemed that I could make it through the translation after the first few words because I had heard the English many times. This did not help because I was not forced to work through each word or phrase individually (because I knew what it said before I got to that point). Machen makes up his own sentences, having to do with the vocabulary words learned up to that point. There is no such thing as translating, "For God so loved the world..." and then not having to complete the exercise because you happen to know the rest of the verse. While Mounce provides much more explanation in his chapters, you can't beat Machen for practical exercises. It should be noted that the style of Machen is more "academic", while Mounce is more "contemporary".
Rating:
Summary: Great exercises - Machen vs Mounce
Review: Machen's New Testament Greek for Beginners is concise and clear in what it teaches. It is no-nonsense and gets right to the point of each individual lesson. The chapters are fed to the student in small "bite-size" portions that are easily digested - not too much info in one sitting. The real benefit of this grammar, however, is in the exercises at the end of each chapter. The student is taught one or two new grammatical concepts per chapter, and then is asked to apply those concepts through numerous translations - first from Greek to English and then from English to Greek. It is the second set of exercises (English to Greek) that really cements the points of the lesson in one's mind - for one could scramble through translating from the Greek if they had to, but taking the English and writing the equivalent in Greek takes a clearer understanding of the concepts. Another benefit of the excercises in Machen is the fact that the sentences to be translated are not directly from the Bible. I started out my trek through Koine Greek with Mounce's grammar. He does not have the student translate from English to Greek because he states (and I'm paraphrasing) that "we're not learning to write, we're learning to read". In addition, all of the exercises were passages from the Bible. If, as in my case, you have studied the Bible before moving on to Greek, many of the exercises to be translated will be familiar to you. It seemed that I could make it through the translation after the first few words because I had heard the English many times. This did not help because I was not forced to work through each word or phrase individually (because I knew what it said before I got to that point). Machen makes up his own sentences, having to do with the vocabulary words learned up to that point. There is no such thing as translating, "For God so loved the world..." and then not having to complete the exercise because you happen to know the rest of the verse. While Mounce provides much more explanation in his chapters, you can't beat Machen for practical exercises. It should be noted that the style of Machen is more "academic", while Mounce is more "contemporary".
Rating:
Summary: Keeping mine!
Review: Machen's work is still used at many schools decades after its initial publication, and for good reason. Other reviewers have extolled the virtues of Machen in general, so I'll limit myself to one additional comment. Many other Greek grammars are massive, or require a separate 8.5" x 11" workbook. Machen's little black book, on the other hand, is wonderfully compact and portable. Students can take it anywhere in a coat pocket and study whenever the opportunity presents itself - on the bus, on their lunch break, etc. The book itself is very well made and should last indefinitely, but the price is still awfully high. Buy it used!
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