Reading the Word in Greek: Which Greek Bible Do You Want?

By Kevin White — founder of Spirit Media Publishing and lead steward of the Father's Heart Bible. Updated November 8, 2026.

What is the Greek Bible? The phrase covers three different things, and the one you want depends on why you are searching. The Septuagint is the Old Testament translated into Greek more than two thousand years ago. The Greek New Testament is the original text of the 27 New Testament books, written in Koine, the common Greek of the first century. A Modern Greek Bible is the whole Bible in the Greek spoken today in Greece and Cyprus. If you want to study the wording the apostles wrote, you want the Greek New Testament. If you want to see how the Old Testament sounded in the apostles' day, you want the Septuagint. If you want to read all of Scripture in the Greek you could speak at the dinner table, you want a Modern Greek Bible. Our Father's Heart Bible™ Greek edition is that last kind: Modern Greek, not Koine, and we say so plainly below.

Key takeaway: "Greek Bible" means the Septuagint, the Greek New Testament, or a Modern Greek Bible. The Father's Heart Bible™ Greek edition is Modern Greek, not the Koine of the New Testament.

Jump to: Three texts · Septuagint · New Testament · Our edition · Logos · Which to pick

Three Greek Texts, Three Different Jobs

Most people who search for a Greek Bible are really asking which Greek text fits their goal. There are three, and each does a different job. The Septuagint is a Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, begun in Alexandria around the third century BC, and it was the Scripture many first-century Jews and early Christians read. The Greek New Testament is the original text the apostles and their companions wrote, in Koine, meaning "common" Greek. A Modern Greek Bible is a translation into the Greek of today, so a Greek speaker can read all 66 books without learning the ancient language first. None of the three is better than the others. They answer different questions, so choose by purpose, not by prestige. The table puts them side by side.

The Septuagint: The Old Testament the Apostles Heard

The Septuagint, often written LXX, is the oldest major Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. Tradition says seventy-two scholars produced the translation of the Torah, which is how it earned a name meaning "seventy." Over the following centuries the rest of the Old Testament was added, along with some books that never entered the Hebrew canon. It mattered because Greek was the shared language of the Mediterranean world, and Jews scattered across it needed Scripture they could understand. Many Old Testament quotations in the New Testament follow its wording. Its first line is one you may know: Genesis begins "Ἐν ἀρχῇ," "In the beginning." The Father's Heart Bible™ renders the verse this way: "In the beginning, our Heavenly Father created the heavens and the earth." Choose the Septuagint when you want to study the Old Testament in the form the early church used.

The Greek New Testament: Koine, the Common Tongue

The 27 books of the New Testament were written in Koine Greek, the everyday language of the eastern Roman world, not the polished Greek of classical Athens. That is part of the story: the good news was written in the language of markets, homes and synagogues so ordinary people could follow it. John opens with the same two Greek words as the Septuagint's Genesis: "Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος," which means "In the beginning was the Word." In the Father's Heart Bible™ the verse reads: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with our Father, and the Word was God." A scholar's Greek New Testament prints the original wording, often with notes on manuscript differences. It is the right tool for line-by-line study, usually with a lexicon beside it. John's plain vocabulary is one reason many first-year Greek students begin with his Gospel, and the same plainness is why it rewards slow, patient reading. It is the source text, not a translation into the Greek spoken today.

Our Greek Edition Is Modern Greek, Not Koine

This is the place to be exact, because the words "Greek Bible" invite a wrong guess. The Father's Heart Bible™ Greek edition, Ελληνική Βίβλος, is a Modern Greek Bible. It is not a Koine text, not an interlinear, and not a copy of the Septuagint. It is the Father's Heart Bible™ translated into the Greek spoken today in Greece and Cyprus, so a family there can hear our Father's voice in their own language. Here is John 1:1 in that edition: "Στην αρχή υπήρχε ο Λόγος, και ο Λόγος ήταν με τον Πατέρα μας, και ο Λόγος ήταν Θεός." Set it beside the Koine line above and you can see two thousand years of change. The edition holds all 66 books in 902 pages, comes in paperback (ISBN 979-8-89307-401-7) and hardcover (ISBN 979-8-89307-400-0) at 6 x 9 inches, and prints our Father's words in blue, the Son's in red and the Spirit's in purple. You can look inside the Modern Greek edition or read it free online.

Read John 1 in Modern Greek, free. Open John chapter 1 in the Greek edition, or read it in English.

One Word, Three Eras: Logos

The word behind "Word" in John 1:1 is logos, meaning a spoken word, a message, a reason. Greek is unusual because you can follow one word across the Septuagint, the apostles' letters and the Greek spoken today. Koine wrote it λόγος. The Modern Greek edition above prints it Λόγος, the same word, still in use. John's claim about this Word is the heart of the Gospel: "The Word became flesh and lived among us. We saw his glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." The English word "Bible" itself is Greek: it comes from biblia, "books," the plural of biblos, a scroll or book. Greek has carried Scripture for more than 2,000 years, and it is an official language of two European Union members, Greece and Cyprus. Roughly 13 million people speak Greek worldwide, according to the language figures behind our edition pages. For them, this is not ancient history. It is the language of the kitchen table, the school playground and the Sunday gathering, and our Father speaks it there too. A Bible that reaches them in that everyday Greek, and not only in the ancient forms, meets them where they actually live.

Which One Should You Pick?

Choose by what you want to do, and you will not go wrong. Each reader below has a different goal, and each goal has a different book.

1. Studying the apostles' exact wording? Choose a Greek New Testament and a lexicon. You are reading the source, so expect to work.

2. Studying how the early church read the Old Testament? Choose the Septuagint.

3. Reading or giving Scripture in Greek today? Choose a Modern Greek Bible such as our Ελληνική Βίβλος.

4. Not sure you read Greek at all? Start in English with John 1 in the Father's Heart Bible™, and see our guide on how to read the Bible.

If you are wondering why our pages say "our Father" where other versions say "God," I explain that choice in why FHB renders God's name as our Father. When you are ready for a copy to hold, the Modern Greek edition is the take-home step for a Greek-speaking family, church or friend. Sons and daughters hear our Father best in the language they dream in.