When I was approached by Cambridge University Press and asked if I would be interested in writing a revision of my late father’s The Elements of New Testament Greek, I was grateful for the invitation, but I declined. I am someone who uses Greek in my work, but I have not taught beginners’ Greek very much at all.
My father’s book came out of practical classroom teaching, and any effective revision would have to be done by a teacher.
Dr Jeremy Duff is such a teacher, and a very effective one. When he began teaching Greek at Wycliffe Hall in Oxford, what is often an unpopular subject suddenly started to go down very well.
Students actually enjoyed Greek! So it occurred to me that Jeremy would be a worthy reviser of the Elements.
I was very glad that Cambridge University Press, having been put in touch with Jeremy, agreed that he should be given the task of revising the book.
In fact what has come out is much more than a revision. It is in almost all respects a brand new book, though arising out of Wenham.
There is an excellent precedent for such a revision, because my father’s work was a similarly radical revision of H.P.V. Nunn’s earlier book.
My pleasure in writing this foreword is twofold. First, Jeremy is a friend and a colleague of mine at Wycliffe Hall in Oxford; he is someone who has brought energy and interest to the college, and not just to the teaching of Greek.
Secondly, of course, I am glad to write this foreword because of my father. He was amazed at how long and well his version of the Elements lasted. It is a tribute to how good his book was that it went on and on while other books came and went.
But he firmly expected it to be superseded before too long, and I am sure he would be glad to see it superseded by someone like Jeremy!
And maybe it is good anyway to be superseded as the author of a Greek textbook: my father sometimes said that he was probably the best-hated name in the theological college world.
That was in the days when most theological students had to study Greek, even if they weren’t any good at it and even if they didn’t wish to.
Maybe the hatred is diminished now, but if Jeremy is willingly taking over the role of best-hated name, then we may be grateful on my father’s part!
The other side to that, of course, is that significant numbers of people in many countries are grateful for my father’s book.
Learning Greek may be a slog, especially for some; but, just as with learning a musical instrument, the rewards for hard work can be very great.
