Theater Mask (ca. 2nd century BC; Athens Museum)
Photo taken by Max Lee © 2014

It is probably the most miserable time of the semester for me. I just finished giving my last set of final exams and now have stacks of papers to grade, exams to read, essays to assess, student Greek translations to decipher. PTL for an endless supply of coffee, red bull, and chocolate-covered expresso beans to keep me going!
   But a touch of humor is also always welcome (and hence the photo above of a relief featuring a comic mask from the 2nd century BC, taken during my visit to the Athens Museum). Thanks to James McGrath over at Patheos (whom I got to know back when we were both part of the steering committee for the Intertextuality and New Testament Interpretation Section at SBL) for cluing me to the following Koiné Greek music video! 
   It looks like a group of students in the classical studies department at the University of Auckland decided to dress in togas and sing a Koiné version of “Let It Go!” from the Disney animated hit film Frozen. The nice part is that the music video has Karoake-style subtitles at the bottom of the screen so you can follow along in Greek. It’s the Erasmian pronunciation too (as far as I can tell!) and it’s a great way to introduce students to Koiné Greek outside of the New Testament (though there is an overlap in the vocabulary). Here it is (below): 



   This video also reminded me of an older musical tribute (called “All Things Are Better in Koiné”) by a band of Biola University students working through their beginning Greek classes. It’s still one of my favorite music videos (Greek-teaching wise) and you can watch it here:
 Enjoy! Now back to grading…