Featured Greek Grammars

I'm not familiar with that one.

 

Oh, of course. I'll review that later as an advanced grammar. I thought you were referring to a beginning grammar.

 

Stanley Porter, Fundamentals of New Testament Greek (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010).

And now, a controversial grammar. Among Greek academics, Porter is known for saying that Greek verb tenses are all about aspect and not about time. He rides his hobby horse early on in his basic grammar, writing, "Verbal aspect, not time, is the fundamental meaning expressed by the Greek tense" (p. xix). Later he defines aspect: "The primary category of Greek verb usage, namely, the speaker's or writer's perspective on the action of the verb; aspect is expressed by the selection of a particular tense-form" (p. 33).

I'm pretty sure I'll never teach from this grammar. First of all, I disagree that time is never in view in Greek verbs. Having translated the Greek NT into Japanese and much of it into English, I have over and over seen that time is important in the indicative moods, though I agree that it is often not important at all in the other moods: subjunctive, infinitive, imperative, and in the participles.

Again, this is a very long grammar, having only 30 chapters, but they are long and complicated at 382 pages. It would be tough to get through the textbook in two semesters of elementary Greek.

Another problem is that there are no homework translation problems in the book. This forces the prof to either make up his or her own exercises, or buy the supplementary textbook, Fundamentals of New Testament Greek Workbook, at $37.50 a pop on Amazon, in addition to the $50.10 already shoveled out to get the textbook used! (It's not in print right now.)

Other than those things, there are some positives about this grammar.
1. He has a good section on how to parse at the beginning.
2. The paradigms in the back of the book are well done.
3. There is an appendix on principal parts.
4. The volume itself is well done--good fonts, nice to look at.

 

He has his followers, but I don't know about authors who agree with him.

 

Few people know that the venerable A. T. Robertson wrote an intermediate grammar in 1908, A Short Grammar of the Greek New Testament. This was long before his huge advanced grammar was published in 1934. I don't remember where I got this grammar, but I have had it for many years. At some point long ago I read through half of it, then got sidetracked.

There are 35 chapters in 208 pages. He has interesting comments on the historical development of the language in the first several chapters. However, to me the most useful chapters are XV, on prepositions, and XXXV, on figures of speech, a subject often ignored in the intermediate grammars. Other than that, I would rather consult his advanced grammar, or another intermediate grammar.

This volume is available on Amazon in reprint issues, but I urge caution. Sometimes reprints of language books are very poorly done. Read the reviews before putting out any money.

 

Dana and Mantey

This grammar, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament, by H. E. Dana and Julius R. Mantey, has been a standard for many years, having been published in 1927. My grandfather, John R. Rice, studied under Dana at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary just before the book was published, so he probably got some of the notes before publication. I myself was taught from this volume in seminary in the fall of 1976, so you know it’s good, since it lasted so long! I still have that textbook from so long ago.

The treatment here of aktionsart (kind of action) became the inspiration for Rice’s famous book, Prayer, Asking and Receiving. The authors wrote, “Action as Continuous. Here the principle tense is the present” (p. 178). So Rice’s point was that we must keep on praying faithfully and continually until the Lord answers that prayer, which He will if it is His will. Since this book inspired many preachers to pray more faithfully, including such giants as Adrian Rogers, we can see the importance of Greek in daily Christian life, not just in the ivory towers of seminary. Rogers wrote, “I bought Dr. Rice’s book, Prayer, Asking and Receiving. I devoured that book, and to this day it continues to impact my life” (Joyce Rogers, Love Worth Finding. Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2005, p. 123).

Obviously, having lasted all of these decades, this is a good intermediate grammar, and no doubt still being used in colleges and seminaries. I would not teach from it because of the eight case system it uses, but there are good things about it: well written, accurate in its syntax and semantics, great foldout verb chart at the end, helpful English-Greek dictionary, helpful general and Scriptural indexes, etc.

 

C. F. D. Moule

An Idiom Book of New Testament Greek (2nd ed., 1953, 1959) is not a book listing Greek idioms, but an intermediate grammar. Moule was a well known British scholar who taught at Cambridge—one of the better known British scholars of Greek.

All in all, this is a good intermediate grammar, and I’m sure it is popular in Britain, but perhaps not so much in the States. It has a good arrangement of subjects, starting out with a chapter on the language itself, and continuing with a good chapter on the verb tense system. That chapter starts out with a good discussion of aktionsart, one of the best I’ve seen. However, this was before the application of the linguistic concept of verbal aspect to Greek grammar, so there is no discussion of aspect. Therefore, perfective aspect (occurring in the past with continuing results) is not discussed.

Along that line, the book sticks with the old concept of the aorist as “punctiliar,” saying, “One may say that the present participle represents ‘linear action’ and the aorist represents ‘punctiliar’” (p. 99). More recent grammarians do not use the term “punctiliar,” believing it does not well represent the nature of aoristic aspect, which looks at the action of the verb as a whole, rather than as representing a point in time.

There are three good indexes (Scripture passages, Greek words, subjects), but no verb charts like Dana and Mantey have. All in all I would say that this is an informative grammar, useful as a secondary text, but I would not teach from it.

 

David Alan Black, It's Still Greek to Me, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1998).

This is my favorite intermediate grammar, not just because Dr. Black was my son's PhD mentor at SEBTS, but it's really well written. Dr. Black has a wonderful sense of humor, as can even be seen in the title of the book. At 146 pages (not including the appendixes and index), it's shorter than most intermediate grammars, but covers everything it needs to cover.

One thing it has that other such grammars does not is exercises (homework) at the end of each chapter, with the answers in the back. I feel that this is helpful to the professor.

Some may feel that this volume dumbs down the Greek, and doesn't go as far as it should. That may be true. But it is fun to read, and covers what is needful. However, the teacher might want to assign an extra book or two for the student to read in order to get the full benefit of that Greek grammar.

One possible use of this volume outside of the classroom is for review. If you learned Greek once upon a time, but want to get it back (like the doctor I went to on Wednesday, who had a BA in theology but went into the medical field), then this volume is your best choice.

I'm going to attach to this post Dr. Black's chart showing the operation of the Greek prepositions. Have fun!

 

Thanks! Very cool.

There are a couple of versions it could be. If it is Nathan Brown's NT, the first in Japanese, I have a reprint from this company. It could be the Moto Yaku (Original Translation), the first complete Bible in Japanese. I have a pocket edition of that from about 1910, but it would be nice to have this one.

 

Brooks and Winbery

James A. Brooks and Carlton L. Winbery. Syntax of New Testament Greek. Lanham, New York, London: University Press of America, 1979.

I was taught from this textbook when I took a semester of seminary on furlough in 1986. All in all it’s not a bad textbook for the time, covering all of the necessary subjects, though a little sparse. It’s 167 pages long, but only has subject and Scripture indexes, and no appendixes and no verb charts. The format is a little bit strange, looking more like an unjustified typewriter font than a published book, but that should not hinder the student.

I would not teach from this textbook, because (1) it may be the last textbook to use the eight case system; (2) I like the verb charts most intermediate textbooks have; (3) I admit it, the font bothers me; (4) it deals with aktionsart but not aspect; (5) This little paperback is listed for $38.84 new on Amazon! Are you kidding me?? Granted, you can also get it used for a couple of bucks, but I wouldn’t burden my students with this huge a price for a book that is not that great. Wallace’s intermediate grammar, a hardback of 321 pages, is far cheaper and far better. (I’ll review it later.)

 

The last intermediate Greek grammar I'll review is The Basics of New Testament Syntax, by Daniel B. Wallace, a well known Greek scholar. Since it is by Wallace, one would expect it to be good, and it is. This is the grammar used by our two second year Greek profs (including my son), and it is very good.

This tome was edited down from Wallace's advanced grammar, which is very large, so at 307 pages it is longer than the usual intermediate grammar, which is a good thing. It covers the material well, and has a ton of charts and tables which are very helpful.

In line with what I've been saying about the five case versus the eight case systems, Wallace has a very helpful section on the cases, comparing the two systems and helping the student understand just what the cases mean.

Interestingly enough, Wallace's book is not arranged in the typical chapter lineup, but instead has sections with titles, like "The Language of the NT," "Syntax of Words and Phrases," etc. I don't think this hinders the readability of the book, though.

There is also a helpful workbook available, A Workbook for New Testament Syntax: Companion to Basics of New Testament Syntax and Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, by Wallace and Grant Edwards. It gives the student homework exercises in the form of Scripture passages. Another help for the professor is Mounce's A Graded Reader of Biblical Greek.

There are just a couple of things I wish were different about this textbook. First of all, the index is hard to read. Secondly, I wish Mounce had included a verb chart at the end like some textbooks do. However, all in all this intermediate Greek text is excellent.

 

The genitive and ablative in the 8 case system are only the genitive in the 5 case system. The dative, locative, and instrumental in the 8 cases are together only the dative in the 5 case system. The 5 case system makes those extra ones simply usages instead of cases.