When I was in seminary (10+ years ago), my favorite professor/mentor was Dr. Rod Decker who taught most of the Koiné Greek classes. He kept us up to date on the latest goings on in the world of New Testament Greek linguistics, because getting the most out of learning the biblical languages takes more than memorizing vocabulary and verb conjugations. This collection of scholarly essays provides that kind of help for the intermediate Koiné Greek student (or pastor who is trying to keep current).

This book does require some knowledge of the subject matter and academic jargon. For example, expect sentences like, “This, Barber rightly argues, encapsulates the basic polarity between the active and middle voices, and it does so in categories that manifestly entail a difference in transitivity.” These essays come from presentations at a conference, so their overall tone is slightly more conversational that normal for an academic work, but they are still fairly dry overall.

Most of the chapters relate to one of three topics: linguistic theories, verbal tense/aspect, and the best way to teach/learn New Testament Greek. The authors are not all in agreement on some of the issues (e.g. the aspect of the perfect/pluperfect tense), so you get to see some scholarly interaction in those cases. I thoroughly enjoyed dipping back into the academic world, and picked up at least a few things that should prove helpful in my personal study. I would highly recommend this book to those with some knowledge of Koiné.

review

This book covers several important topics in Greek study and translation, such as the ways to understand the perfect tense to disputing the validity of “deponency” to pronunciation. These could be valuable to advanced students and scholars alike. Each author does a good job of presenting his topic and provides references to secondary literature that a reader could consult for further study. My impression from teaching Greek is that it is all that a first-year student can do to learn the basics of grammar. That first year would have to include overviews of many topics not usually covered, like verbal aspect, to prepare a student for this book.

Chapter one, by Porter, orients readers to the issues and some of the vocabulary that will be found in other chapters. However, reading it makes me feel like it will be challenging to those who have not studied linguistics. Porter names several people that are important for linguistic theories that many are unlikely to have read. This means the chapter will be tough going for some readers. I think the idea of a student with one year of Greek but unfamiliar with the topics and vocabulary will have a difficult time and might indeed find it too difficult. This book desperately needs an extensive glossary, as chapters use terms that have not necessarily been defined by other authors. While the order of chapters could be flexible, readers need to read the chapter on verbal aspect before venturing further. I have read a couple of books on linguistics and New Testament Greek, including Silva’s Biblical Words and Their Meaning but that has not prepared me for transivity That topic, while perhaps important, does not have an obvious “take away” for students. Buth’s chapter on pronunciation shows the relevance of pronunciation, reading, and speaking Greek. It offers pedagogical insights. On the other hand, it is difficult to translate the chapter on the perfect tense into an explanation one could use for exegesis. It shows possibilities but it leaves this reader with the sense that the meaning or significance of the perfect tense is still being debated. That makes it difficult to apply. The book could be improved by each author showing an example of how to use the chapter’s topic in exegesis. I wanted to like this book and did learn from it but it could be made more useful to students and probably two years of Greek will be needed to get the most out of it.

Some chapters, like Michael Aubrey’s on the perfect tense are much easier to follow without a lot of technical background. He explained most of he terms he used, though he assumed that readers already understood aspect. Aubrey offers many examples to demonstrate his point and these are quite helpful. Jonathan Pennington’s chapter on deponency is a valuable contribution, as almost all beginning grammars talk about this category due to the fact that many common verbs do not have ah active form. Runge’s chapter on word order focuses on a difficult topic that is important for New Testament interpretation and that many seem to not understand. Levisohn’s chapter on discourse analysis offers some helpful ideas.

A collection of essays/papers related to the present condition of the study of linguistics in terms of Koine Greek and New Testament studies.

This is definitely a work for those who have decent to advanced understanding of Koine Greek and at least some familiarity with the greater world of linguistics.

Much is made in these essays regarding a lot of the differences in opinion regarding understanding of grammatical forms, especially how verbal aspect works, along with how much of recent linguistic theory and research is being brought to bear on New Testament studies and how.

For those with some understanding of ancient Greek and linguistics and who have interest in these matters, this is a helpful survey of the field and its conditions.