Steve Combs,
The Translator’s Grammar of the Textus Receptus. Dahlonega, GA: The Old Paths Publications, 2021.
Steve Combs is a Bible translation consultant with Bearing Precious Seed Global, otherwise known as Global Bible Translators (a ministry of Plantation Baptist Church in Plantation, Florida). Their website is:
www.bpsglobal.org. Their goal is to empower translators from the received text, and I like that.
According to “About the Author,” Combs “holds a doctor of Theology from Covington Theological Seminary” (p. 357). This school has been called a degree mill, and a cursory examination of their website seems to indicate that, since their degrees are earned by email, and there is no list of faculty and their degrees, as is common with genuine schools of higher learning. (See the discussion at:
What Is Wrong with Diploma Mills?)
Another author associated with this ministry, H. D. Williams, also has a degree from that institution, and made his dissertation into a very poor book on how to translate the Bible, entitled
Word-For-Word Translating of The Received Texts. Williams is a KJV-Only author who used to be associated with the Dean Burgon Society and D. A. Waite, but reportedly left it over leadership struggles.
Covington Seminary has no Hebrew courses listed in its catalog, and only has one course in Greek listed, which is “Beginners (sic) Greek,” a 4 credit course offered only at their extension locations, not through email. None of their degrees, undergrad or grad, list this class as a requirement, including the ThD that Combs has. However, regardless of the quality of this phase of his education, Combs appears to have learned Greek fairly well.
There are a number of unusual features in Combs’ grammar. Part 1 (Ch. 1-5) is all about the doctrines of inspiration and preservation, the history of the Received Text, why we should translate from the original languages instead of the KJV (one reason: “It is the method used by the King James translators,” p. 84), and Ch. 5, “The Great Need for Bible Translating.” That chapter I mostly agree with.
Chapter 2 shows the author’s KJVO prejudices: he dismisses the Hodges/Farstad Majority Text and the Robinson/Pierpont Byzantine Textform. He mistakenly says, “Neither of these is according to the majority text” but are from Von Soden (p. 64). However, he doesn’t seem to understand that the TR Greek NT is also from the Byzantine/Majority text type. Instead, he says it was from “Traditional Text manuscripts” (p. 65), but doesn’t explain the difference. This phrase is often used to refer to Byz/Maj. manuscripts. I got the impression he’s never actually looked at either Greek text, or he would have seen the extensive apparatus each has.
Chapter 4 is very negative towards lexicons, seeming to buy into the Gail Riplinger book against them,
Hazardous Materials: Greek and Hebrew Study Dangers. Combs says that he sometimes uses early 19th century lexicons (p. 86). Then he says the KJVO line that the KJV itself is a lexicon, also taught by Riplinger. I’ve never been able to quite internalize the logic in that position.
Chapter 6 is the obligatory chapter on the alphabet and pronunciation. The author goes for modern Greek pronunciation rather than more traditional koine methods. Then Chapter 7 is very unusual for a Greek grammar, being a chapter on how to do word studies using the free and excellent Bible software e-sword, which I recommend to my students.
There are a couple of features of this book that make me think that the author has never actually taught Greek, though he apparently studied it under Robert Gromacki at Cedarville, since he calls Gromacki “a great teacher of Greek and the Bible. 1975-1977.” One example that makes me think he never has taught the subject is that Chapter 7 is John 1 from the TR. That’s the whole chapter. The funny thing is, every Greek teacher I’ve ever known has required that the students buy the Greek New Testament. So, why put a chapter in the book that they could read in their Greek NTs?
Then, the author’s first chapter on actual Greek grammar, Chapter 8, is on the article. I’m pretty sure that no other Greek grammar in print does that. Knowing the article does the student little good if they don’t know any nouns, adjectives, participles, or infinitives (all of which sometimes need the article). If I taught from this book, I would have to postpone that chapter until I had taught on nouns.
The rest of the book is fairly standard until you reach Chapter 28, which is on –mi (-μι) verbs. That chapter has a review, meaning explanation, of John 1:14-16. This is an essay on how the author thinks that passage should be translated in light of the KJV rendering. Chapters 30-35 are similar expositions of the rest of John 1 with many other references.
A good feature of this book, similar to some other grammars, is that Chapter 36, the last chapter, is a review chapter. I enjoy that feature in the beginning grammar I teach from by David Alan Black.
There are a number of typos, but also some out and out blunders. I’ll just give one. The author says that “inspired” in 2 Tim. 3:16 is in the present tense in the KJV and Greek text (p. 23). However, “inspired” (θεόπνευστος) is actually an adjective, and there is no verb until the end of v. 17, when there is a perfect passive participle. The word “is” must be understood in this case, not being explicit.
If you are a King James Only prof, you could use this book to teach from, I believe, in spite of the negatives I’ve mentioned. I could write much more about this tome, but I’ll stop here.
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