Biblical Greek: The Alphabet of the New Testament

The Greek of the New Testament — and of much of the Greek-speaking ancient world — is called Koine Greek (Κοινή, "common"). It's the same 24-letter alphabet used in classical Greek and modern Greek, but with distinctive features in pronunciation, punctuation, and manuscript conventions. This page explains what's the same, what's different, and the special abbreviations called nomina sacra that appear throughout New Testament manuscripts.

What Is Koine Greek?

After Alexander the Great's conquests in the 4th century BCE, Greek became the lingua franca of the eastern Mediterranean — used for trade, government, and literature from Egypt to India. The variety that spread was a simplified version of Attic Greek with admixtures from other dialects, called Κοινὴ Ἑλληνική (Koinḗ Hellēnikḗ, "common Greek").

Koine remained the international standard for roughly seven centuries (300 BCE to 300 CE) and is the language of:

• The Septuagint (3rd–2nd century BCE): The Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible used by Greek-speaking Jews and quoted throughout the New Testament.
• The New Testament (1st century CE): All 27 books written in Koine — Paul's letters are early examples, the Gospels and Acts are slightly later.
• The Apostolic Fathers (late 1st–2nd century CE): Early Christian writings outside the New Testament.
• Josephus, Philo, and Plutarch: Major Jewish and Greco-Roman authors of the same era.

Koine differs from classical Attic (the Greek of Plato and Aristotle) mostly in grammar — fewer noun cases used in practice, simplified verb forms, more analytic constructions — but the alphabet itself is identical.

The Alphabet

Koine uses the same 24 letters as classical and modern Greek. The complete inventory is alpha (α), beta (β), gamma (γ), delta (δ), epsilon (ε), zeta (ζ), eta (η), theta (θ), iota (ι), kappa (κ), lambda (λ), mu (μ), nu (ν), xi (ξ), omicron (ο), pi (π), rho (ρ), sigma (σ/ς), tau (τ), upsilon (υ), phi (φ), chi (χ), psi (ψ), omega (ω). See our full letter index for individual letter pages.

One important note about manuscripts: New Testament manuscripts from the 1st to 4th centuries are written entirely in uncial (capital) letters. The lowercase forms we use today weren't developed until the Byzantine period (9th-10th centuries). Critical editions of the Greek New Testament render the text in modern mixed case for readability, but the original manuscripts looked very different — all capitals, no spaces between words, no punctuation, and no chapter or verse divisions.

Pronunciation: Erasmian vs. Modern vs. Restored Koine

There are three common pronunciation systems used in biblical Greek courses, and you'll encounter different ones depending on the school of thought:

Erasmian Pronunciation

Named after the Renaissance scholar Erasmus, who proposed a reconstructed classical pronunciation in 1528. Standard in most U.S. seminaries and Bible colleges. Distinct sound for each letter — easy for English speakers to learn, but doesn't reflect how Greek was actually spoken in any historical period.

• Pros: Each letter has a unique sound; spelling and pronunciation map cleanly.
• Cons: Not how 1st-century speakers actually pronounced their language.
• Common in: Most introductory biblical Greek textbooks (Mounce, Wallace, Black).

Modern Greek Pronunciation

How a Greek speaker today would read the New Testament. Many letters merged into the [i] sound (iotacism); β became [v]; θ, φ, χ became fricatives.

• Pros: Used by living speakers; respects centuries of linguistic evolution.
• Cons: Multiple letters and digraphs sound identical, making spelling harder for students.
• Common in: Greek Orthodox seminaries and Greek-language schools in Greece.

Restored Koine Pronunciation

A scholarly reconstruction of how 1st-century speakers likely pronounced Greek. Falls between classical and modern: β was halfway through its [b] → [v] shift, υ and ι had already partially merged, and so on. Developed mainly by Randall Buth in the 2000s.

• Pros: Historically accurate to the New Testament era.
• Cons: Less well-known; fewer learning resources.
• Common in: Some advanced graduate programs and language-immersion courses.

Comparison Table

See our full pronunciation guide for more detail.

Breathings, Accents, and Iota Subscripts

Biblical Greek is normally printed in polytonic form — with the full set of diacritical marks inherited from classical Greek:

• Rough breathing (῾): Placed over an initial vowel to mark an /h/ sound. Example: ὁ (the) = "ho", not "o".
• Smooth breathing (᾽): Placed over an initial vowel to mark no /h/ sound. Example: ἀ (negation prefix) = just "a".
• Acute accent (´): The most common; marks high pitch in ancient Greek, stress in modern. Example: λόγος (logos).
• Grave accent (`): Replaces the acute on the last syllable of certain words. Example: καὶ ἐγένετο.
• Circumflex (῀): A combined rise-fall pitch; appears on long vowels and diphthongs. Example: τοῦ.
• Iota subscript (ᾳ ῃ ῳ): A small ι written beneath α, η, or ω marking an originally long-vowel diphthong; pronounced silently in Koine and after.
• Diaeresis (¨): Indicates that two adjacent vowels should be pronounced separately, not as a diphthong. Example: Mωϋσῆς (Moses).

Manuscripts from the 1st-4th centuries usually have no breathing marks or accents — these were added in later medieval copies. Modern critical editions like Nestle-Aland and UBS include them for readability.

Nomina Sacra (Sacred Names)

One of the most distinctive features of New Testament manuscripts is the use of nomina sacra — special abbreviations of sacred names, marked by an overline. These appear in nearly every Christian Greek manuscript from the 2nd century onward and are unique to Christian scribal tradition.

• Θ̅Σ̅ = Θεός (theos, "God")
• Κ̅Σ̅ = Κύριος (kyrios, "Lord")
• Ι̅Σ̅ = Ἰησοῦς (Iēsous, "Jesus")
• Χ̅Σ̅ = Χριστός (Christos, "Christ")
• Π̅Ν̅Α̅ = Πνεῦμα (pneuma, "Spirit")
• Υ̅Σ̅ = Υἱός (huios, "Son")
• Π̅Η̅Ρ̅ = Πατήρ (patēr, "Father")
• Μ̅Η̅Ρ̅ = Μήτηρ (mētēr, "Mother")
• Α̅Ν̅Ο̅Σ̅ = Ἄνθρωπος (anthrōpos, "Man/Human")
• Ο̅Υ̅Ν̅Ο̅Σ̅ = Οὐρανός (ouranos, "Heaven")
• Δ̅Α̅Δ̅ = Δαυίδ (Dauid, "David")
• Ι̅Λ̅Η̅Μ̅ = Ἰερουσαλήμ (Ierousalēm, "Jerusalem")
• Σ̅Τ̅Ρ̅Ο̅Σ̅ = Σταυρός (stauros, "Cross")

The first letter and last letter of the word are usually retained, with the middle letters omitted and a horizontal line (called a titlos) drawn over the abbreviation. These conventions are visible in the earliest Greek New Testament manuscripts — Papyrus 66 (around 200 CE), Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus (4th century).

The Chi-Rho monogram ☧ — combining Χ (chi) and Ρ (rho) — is a related abbreviation for Christ, popularized by Emperor Constantine after his vision before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312 CE.

Punctuation in Greek Manuscripts

Ancient Greek manuscripts had little or no punctuation — words were run together (scriptio continua) and the reader supplied the divisions. Modern editions add Greek punctuation marks distinct from English:

• Period (.) — same as English.
• Comma (,) — same as English.
• Greek question mark (;) — looks like an English semicolon, but it's a question mark.
• Greek semicolon (·) — middle dot, also called the "ano teleia." Looks like a raised period.
• No quotation marks in classical Greek; modern editions sometimes add them.

Famous Greek Words from the New Testament

A few Koine words have entered theological vocabulary and English religious discourse:

• λόγος (logos): "Word." "In the beginning was the Word" (John 1:1). Also means "reason," "discourse."
• ἀγάπη (agapē): Selfless love, one of four Greek words for love (alongside eros, philia, storgē). The defining love of New Testament ethics.
• χάρις (charis): "Grace" — God's unmerited favor.
• πίστις (pistis): "Faith" or "trust."
• εὐαγγέλιον (euangelion): "Good news" — the source of the English word "gospel."
• ἐκκλησία (ekklēsia): "Assembly" or "called-out ones" — source of English "ecclesiastical." Used for "church" in the New Testament.
• ἀμήν (amēn): "Truly" or "so be it" — actually a Hebrew word transliterated into Greek.
• Χριστός (Christos): "Anointed one" — Greek translation of Hebrew Messiah.
• βαπτίζω (baptizō): "To immerse" — source of English "baptize."
• Α καὶ Ω: "Alpha and Omega" (Revelation 1:8, 21:6, 22:13). The phrase originates here.

Learning Biblical Greek

If you want to study biblical Greek, the standard first-year textbooks are:

• Mounce, Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar — the most widely used in U.S. seminaries.
• Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics — for second-year syntax.
• Black, Learn to Read New Testament Greek — alternative beginner text.
• The Nestle-Aland or UBS Greek New Testament — the standard critical text once you can read it.
• Online tools: Logos, Accordance, BibleHub, STEPBible all provide parsed text where you can hover for grammatical information.

Plan on 1–2 years to read the New Testament with reasonable fluency, plus a lifetime to keep refining. The alphabet itself is the easy part — see our memorization guide to get started in about a week.

Related Pages

• Ancient vs. modern Greek — broader comparison.
• Chi — central to "Christ" and the Chi-Rho monogram.
• Alpha and Omega — the "alpha and omega" pairing in Revelation.
• History of the Greek alphabet