When I began studying Greek my professor used an old classical Greek grammar by Crosby and Schaeffer. When I taught Beginning Greek at TEDS, we used Wenham’s grammar. But the advent of aspectual theory made the need for a new greek grammar a major venture — and I’m happy to see that the right people (Stan Porter, J.T. Reed, and M. Brook O’Donnell) have written that grammar, and there’s an accompanying workbook. If you need to rework your beginning Greek, this is the place to go.
Fundamentals of New Testament Greek
Fundamentals of New Testament Greek: Workbook
Stan Porter’s massive dissertation as well as his continued outpouring of books on Greek grammar has made him a recognized authority on Greek grammar and syntax, and his articulation of aspectual theory is having a major impact. My soon-to-be-released (Feb 15) commentary on James (The Letter of James (New International Commentary on the New Testament)) makes use of aspectual theory, and I often refer to Stan’s work.
In essence, aspectual theory examines “tense” from the angle of how the author chose to depict action — perfective, imperfective, and stative. At any rate, so much has occurred in the last two or three decades that a new grammar is needed, and this one is that grammar.
If I were teaching beginning Greek, I’d be using this one.
Speaking of Greek, I want to call your attention to an exceptional Greek-language and Greek grammar oriented commentary series, the Baylor Handbook on the Greek New Testament. Two in this series have recently come out: M. Dubis, 1 Peter: A Handbook on the Greek Text (Baylor Handbook on the Greek New Testament), and M.C. Parsons, M.M. Culy, and J.J. Stigall, Luke: A Handbook on the Greek Text (Baylor Handbook on the Greek New Testament).
If you want a commentary that sticks to the Greek grammar and syntax and that focuses the commentary on those sorts of issues, there is simply no better commentary series today. I reviewed Dubis prior to publication and it is one fine commentary.
Interesting, though brief, review of Porter’s NT Greek book here:
http://www.supakoo.com/rick/ricoblog/2010/10/05/MoreOnPorterReedAndOrsquoDonnellrsquosFundamentalsOfNTGreek.aspx
by Logos Bible Software’s Rick Brannan
Scot, I learned Greek with Mounce’s Basics of Biblical Greek undergrad and Daniel Wallace’s Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics and Vaughn/Gideon’s A Greek Grammar of the NT. I still have a fairly good handle on Greek. Would you recommend Portal’s et. al. book for the aspectual theory or something else with an intermediate knowledge of Greek?
Thank you,
Shawna
do you have a recommendation for a hebrew workbook?
Kyle, check out the Cambridge Introduction to Biblical Hebrew it is the best IMO.
Scot,
How do you feel about adopting a grammar on one particular view on aspect? The major thinkers in the area don’t agree with one another. (Buist Fanning is doing an intro grammar with Kregel; Con Campbell’s little book on verbal aspect differs in opinion from Stan as well).
I agree on the importance of aspect, I just struggle with settling on one viewpoint on aspect.
The amount of vocabulary in Porter’s new intro book is too much IMO. I’m interested to hear over the next few years from teachers who actually adopt it other than the authors. That’s where I really start to get a good idea of how good an intro textbook is.
Shawna, yes, I would recommend this as a good entry into aspectual theory, esp for those who don’t know what it is.
Danny, they are roughly in the same school of thought so that is a matter of nuance, not general direction.
I bought desk copies of these several weeks ago and have been looking to replace Mounce in the Greek classes that I teach. I take your recommendation very seriously (especially since I had you for Greek exegesis some 20+ years ago!). I’ll go thru the books soon and consider the change for my next cycle of classes.
thanks for the reference. I’m also eager to see your James commentary as you know my dissertation work was in James. NICNT needed a replacement for that James volume.
Can I do this without a live teacher? Well, more appropriately, what are the major hurdles to doing this without a live teacher?
DRT, I think one of the biggest hurdles is that the social pressure of a class and a teacher and a grade keeps you going and keeps you moving when you would tend to give up or get bogged down alone. Pronunciation is important – I think you need to get something with audio and practice along with it.
FWIW, here is a link to some stuff that has a dated look to it but in some ways is like sitting in a class with a teacher. I have never met him but I know people who worked with Hildebrandt and I’ve always heard people say they like him and respect him. If you poke around, he also has links to quite a few articles about various issues. The tutorial here seems a lot like Mounce to me, which is different from the emphasis on aspectual theory of the books Scot is recommending here but I’m not 100% sure of all the practical ramifications of that, to be perfectly honest.
http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/Ted_Hildebrandt/New_Testament_Greek/Video/00-GTLearnVideos.html
I would agree with EricW that the review by Rick Brannan is interesting and needs to be considered. The sample chapter at Eerdmans :
http://eerdmans.com/shop/product.asp?p_key=9780802828279&i=3
to me, seems quite confusing and appears to draw little from modern linguistics.
Amen to the Baylor handbooks. There isn’t another series that I know of that does this job well. I bought both the volumes that you mention, Scot, at SBL. I might note that for Luke in particular, the old ICC commentary on Luke could be used in conjunction for additional information on grammar.
As for the grammar, I got it but have not looked deeply at it. However, since the issue of aspect is still somewhat in debate, and Porter takes what I’d say is an extreme position (in generally granting no time referent to tense), I’m not sure I’d want students to ingest only that view. It might not be helpful for a first-year student, and I don’t think a beginning student should be burdened with reading differing opinions on something in her/his grammar.
Ken
Nuance yes, but the devil is in the details. Stan sees no temporal factor in the verb, others see it in some cases or tenses. They disagree over the aspect of the perfect, and how to define a future. Since intro grammars spend a lot of time on verbs, these aren’t trivial details!
Shawna, Constantine Campbell’s book on verbal aspect is a good introduction to the whole topic.
Greetings. Just launched (3/11/11) The Porter NT Greek grammar website for more information, distinctive features, etc. See
http://www.portergreek.com