In conjunction with the Christian and classical Latin college course discussed here, I am working my way through Dr. Derek Cooper’s Basics of Latin: A Grammar with Readings and Exercises from the Christian Tradition (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2020). (Learn how you can make charitable donations at Amazon.com when you buy books there by clicking here, and learn here how to save money on Internet purchases in general.)

Dr. Cooper and Zondervan were kind enough to supply me with a complementary review copy of his grammar, as well as of his Dr. Cooper’s video lectures on his grammar:

although, with CDs going the way of the dinosaurs, I had to find a way to get the material off the CDs and believe that I will find the videos of his lectures on Logos Bible Software much more user-friendly. (You can also purchase his book on Logos–I got it there as well as utilizing the physical copy he supplied to me.)  There was no compulsion or pressure at all to write a positive review in exchange for a copy of his book.

Positives about Derek Cooper’s Basics of Latin: A Grammar With Readings and Exercises from the Christian Tradition

First, Derek Cooper knows Latin well. He is associate dean of the faculty and associate professor of global Christianity at Reformed Episcopal Seminary. He is also managing director of Thomas Institute. A long-term foreign language instructor, he has taught Latin, Spanish, and Biblical Greek. Dr. Cooper is the author of many books, and has offered professional Latin translations for the Reformation Commentary on Scripture, the Martin Luther Handwriting Font Book, and is the translator of Philip Melanchthon’s Commentary on Proverbs. I was looking forward to meeting Dr. Cooper as part of a faculty tour of Greece with Tuktu Tours, but that tour, unfortunately, got cancelled because of COVID. (By the way, Tuktu Tours does a great job getting extremely knowledgable scholars to lead their tours. We have done faculty tours of Egypt and Turkey with them, and they were excellent. If you want to visit Bible lands, you would do well to go with Tuktu.  Lord wiling, I will get posted on the KJB1611 YouTube channel relatively soon videos from Dr. James Hoffmeier, our tour guide in Egypt and a leading evangelical Egyptologist, discussing a variety of fascinating things relating to the intersection of Israelite and Egyptian history that he kindly allowed us to record during our tour of Egypt with him.)  So Cooper’s grammar is written by someone who knows what he is talking about.

Second, the grammar covers the Latin of Christendom–which is what interests me in the Latin language. It is fine to be able to read Virgil in Latin, but I am interested in Latin as the language of Christendom for most of Christian history, as the language of the Old Latin and Latin Vulgate Bibles, of John Owen and Augustine of Hippo, of John Calvin and Thomas Aquinas, of the confessions of the Reformation and the polemics of Tertullian.  In addition to focusing on the Latin of professing Christianity, I appreciate that he does not limit himself to Catholic Latin. A work like John Collins’ A Primer on Ecclesiastical Latin (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1985) will cover the Latin of the Vulgate, of the patristic writers or so-called “Church Fathers,” and of the Roman Catholic medieval tradition, but Reformation and post-Reformation Latin is excluded.  Cooper certainly does not exclude Catholic authors, but neither does he exclude Protestants who rightly identify the Roman Catholic “Church” as the Whore of Babylon associated with the Antichrist.

Third, all of Cooper’s exercises are from actual Latin writers; he does not include made-up sentences to learn Latin. This is a great way of doing things, and it copies the method that William Mounce uses in his Basics of Biblical Greek, where all the exercises are from the New Testament, the LXX, or other Koine sources, instead of being made up.

Fourth, Cooper’s Latin text is appealing in its formatting.  Zondervan has done a good job making the book look nice. The exercises, with an answer key, are included in the volume.  Useful chapter summaries are included.  The book is well laid out and a pleasure to read.

Fifth, Cooper’s lessons begin with an interesting historical notice illustrating the Latin to be learned in that chapter and ends with a Latin prayer.  The historical information keeps students’ interest as they work through the book.

In summary, there is much to commend in Dr. Cooper’s Latin grammar.

Areas to Improve Derek Cooper’s Basics of Latin: A Grammar With Readings and Exercises from the Christian Tradition

There is only one major area of improvement I would suggest for Dr. Cooper’s Latin Grammar.  There are not nearly enough exercises after each lesson to actually learn the Latin in the chapter.  The exercises that are present are from actual Latin sources and are very interesting, but there simply are not nearly enough of them.  As a comparison, in the Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata series, which I am working through in conjunction with Dr. Cooper’s grammar, chapter 12 discusses 3rd declension adjectives and 4th declension nouns.  There are 23 sets of exercises (combining the exercises in the textbook and the exercises in Exercitia Latina I), each exercise generally having ten or more questions.  One is in no danger of not having enough exercises–it may not be necessary to complete them all, but if you do complete them all, you will actually know the new grammatical material in the lesson of the Lingua Latina series.  By way of contrast, there are only fifteen questions, total–three groups of five–to learn the material in chapter 12 of Cooper’s grammar.  The exercises are interesting ones connected to extant historical Latin sources–that is great.  But there simply are not nearly enough of them to actually learn the Latin.

An experienced Latin teacher could use Dr. Cooper’s Basics of Latin as a stand-alone text only if he supplied many exercises of his own to supplement those contained in the grammar.  Perhaps a genius linguist could learn Latin from Cooper’s grammar on its own, but for the rest of us, it would simply not be possible.  Thus, unfortunately, despite is many positive qualities, I cannot recommend Basics of Latin: A Grammar with Readings and Exercises from the Christian Tradition as a stand-alone Latin textbook, at least unless Dr. Cooper writes a supplementary workbook or in some other way provides students with a lot more exercises.

However, I do recommend, and recommend highly, utilizing Cooper’s grammar as a supplementary text to those who are actually learning Latin some other way. For example, one could (as I am doing) actually learn Latin grammar from the Lingua Latina series and then use Cooper’s grammar to review grammatical material already learned, with Cooper also serving as a transitional text from the classical Latin of the Lingua Latina series to the Latin of Christendom.  For those who are actually interested in Christian Latin, the interesting historical material spanning the millennia of the use of the Latin language in Cooper’s grammar is interesting and motivating.  Reading Cooper is a motivating reward for working through the material in the classical Latin textbook.

Concluding summary: my view of Derek Cooper’s Basics of Latin: A Grammar With Readings and Exercises from the Christian Tradition

So, in light of all of the above, how would I view Derek Cooper’s Basics of Latin: A Grammar With Readings and Exercises from the Christian Tradition? As a supplementary text to Latin grammar learned through another method, I recommend Cooper highly.  As a stand-alone text to learning Christian Latin, I cannot recommend it, because it does not include enough exercises.

–TDR

Note: Links to Cooper’s grammar at Amazon are affiliate links.