Why Greek?
The New Testament was written in Greek: not the Greek of Plato, but the everyday Greek of the first century, spoken from Rome to the edge of India. In the text here that is 136,728 words, drawn from 5,385 different ones.
The common language
After Alexander the Great's conquests in the fourth century BC, Greek became the shared language of the eastern Mediterranean, the way English is shared around the world today. Scholars call this form of it Koine, "common" Greek. Letters, contracts and shopping lists from the period, found on papyrus in the sands of Egypt, are written in the same Greek as the New Testament. Its writers were not using a holy or literary language. They wrote the way people talked, so that anyone could read it.
Jewish writers, Greek words
Almost all of the New Testament's writers were Jews whose scriptures were Hebrew and whose daily speech was often Aramaic; the Gospels even keep some of Jesus' Aramaic, like talitha koum (Mark 5:41). So their Greek words often carry Hebrew meanings. In ordinary Greek, doxa meant an opinion or a reputation; in the Bible it means glory, because it stands for the Hebrew kavod. To read the New Testament well, you have to hear the Hebrew underneath it.
The Bible of the first Christians
Two centuries before Jesus, Jews in Alexandria began translating their scriptures into Greek. This translation, the Septuagint, was the Bible most of the first Christians read, and the New Testament quotes the Old most often in its words. Its choices became the New Testament's vocabulary: kyrios, Lord, where the Hebrew has God's name; diathēkē, covenant; doxa, glory.
A language that marks how things happen
Greek verbs say not only when something happens but how it is seen: as a single event, as something going on, or as something done whose result still stands. Its nouns change their endings to show what they do in the sentence, so the word order is free to put the important word first. Much of what English translations smooth over lives in those small differences.
Words English struggles to carry
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λόγος
logos · G3056
Logos: a word, but also the reason and order behind things. John uses it for Christ, and Greek readers heard both.
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ἀγάπη
agapē · G26
Agapē: love that chooses the good of another. The New Testament takes a rare word and makes it its own.
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ἐκκλησία
ekklēsia · G1577
Ekklēsia: an assembly of people gathered together, as citizens met to decide a city's business. Never a building.
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μετάνοια
metanoia · G3341
Metanoia: a change of mind, a turning around of how you see and live. More than feeling sorry.
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πίστις
pistis · G4102
Pistis: trust, and also faithfulness and loyalty. Believing someone, and staying true to them.
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δικαιοσύνη
dikaiosynē · G1343
Dikaiosynē: righteousness and justice, one word for both. Being in the right, and setting things right.
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δόξα
doxa · G1391
Doxa: in ordinary Greek, an opinion or a reputation. In the Bible, glory, because it stands for the Hebrew kavod.
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εὐαγγέλιον
euangelion · G2098
Euangelion: good news, the word for a public announcement of a victory or a new king. Printed "gospel".
How Drift Bible shows it
Every New Testament verse here shows its Greek at the top, with a transliteration and a word-by-word rendering underneath; start with John 1:1. Tap any word to open its page: what it means, and every verse that uses it. The word data, with each word's Strong's number, is from STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).