Classic Essays on the Use of Greek in Ministry (Luther, Robertson, Piper)

The Verb & Verbal Aspect

• Temporal Deixis of the Greek Verb in the Gospel of Mark in Light of Verbal Aspect (vol. 10 in the Peter Lang series, Studies in Biblical Greek, edited by D. A. Carson; published Oct. 2000 [though with a 2001 copyright date!]; ISBN: 0-8204-5033-2). This page provides information about the book, supplementary material, errata, and some extracts (editor’s and author’s prefaces, etc.). Review on RBL/SBL review site. Older material, with links to more detailed information, may be found on the following dissertation pages:
• Dissertation: “Temporal Deixis of the Greek Verb in the Gospel of Mark in Light of Verbal Aspect” (Th.D., 1998)
• Abstract: a 1-page overview.
• Synopsis: consists of: Introduction, chapter summaries, and conclusion (86K of text + a few GIF images).
• Bibliography: the complete bibliography in a separate file.
• Verbal Aspect in Recent Debate: Objections to Porter’s Non-Temporal View of the Verb, A Paper Presented at the Evangelical Theological Society Eastern Region Annual Meeting, 3/30/01, Philadelphia Biblical University, Langhorne, PA (137K, 16 pgs. sg.-sp., .pdf file). This is an edited adaptation of pp. 38-49 of my book.
• Tense Theory (30K .pdf file) This is an excerpt from pp. 70-73 of my dissertation; it explains some of the terminology in relation to tenses in language (M-tense and L-tense, etc.).
• Evaluating the discourse function of verbal aspect (step-by-step guide using Mark 1; pdf file)
• Euthus (εὐθύς), an excerpt from my dissertation, but worth posting separately due to discussion of this word on b-greek the summer of ’98.
• Intro to Verbs. This is my revision of (some parts of) ch. 15 of Mounce’s BBG. The first half attempts to incorporate an aspectual approach to Greek verbs more extensively than the book. The second half is excerpted from my book on the subject. (For class purposes, I leave the 2d half for the “diligent” student.) The document is in pdf format and formatted for printing double-sided at a size that will fit inside the cover of BBG.
• The Poor Man’s Porter—A synopsis of Stan Porter’s valuable tome, Verbal Aspect in the Greek of the New Testament, with Reference to Tense and Mood (Sheffield, 2d ed., 1993). This link is to a 31-page .pdf file, 132K.
• Review of Mari Olsen’s A Semantic and Pragmatic Model of Lexical and Grammatical Aspect. Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics. New York: Garland, 1997. Review published in JOMAT 2.1 (1998): 110-20. (33K .pdf file)

Other

Grammar, Morphology, etc.

• Supplemental Material on MI verbs: I’ve just posted two documents on MI verbs. One is a correction of p. 368 in Mounce’s textbook (the reference section of BBGcontains mostly second aorist MI verb forms that never occur in the NT—and the ones that do occur are almost entirely missing). The second document provides a full set ofall MI verb participles for the three main MI verbs (DIDWMI, hISTHMI, & TIQHMI) that occur in the NT. Both documents are sized so they can be trimmed and “tipped in” the back of BBG.
• A Brief Note on Greek Accents Particularly on Enclitic Forms and Most Particularly on the Enclitic Form εἰμί [EIMI]
• Jerusalem (Some notes on the Greek spelling). Aresponse to several queries from my first year Greek students upon encountering the plural form of “Jerusalem” in John 2:23. They are posted here for whatever value they may be to others who have puzzled over the same question.
• What’s the Subject? (70K .pdffile, v. 5) 2-page summary of the relationship of the subject and predicatenominative with linking verbs in koine Greek. Intended for beginning and intermediate Greek students.
• Colwell’s Rule for the Greek article summarized and illustrated. This link is to a 4-page .pdf file, 20K.
• Preposition > noun > ‘KAI’ > (preposition) > noun. (12 pgs., 79K .pdf file) containing search datafrom Accordance v. 3.5 regarding the syntactical pattern noted in the title of this listing. How significant is the inclusion or omission of the preposition in the 2d position? I have some tentative conclusions on the last two pages of the document. Please treat it as a “first draft” (since it is!), but I’d welcome your thoughts on the matter.
• Participle Use Flow Chart—newly revised (2006; posted 3/07)
• Simplified Verb Parsing Chart(25K .pdf file). This is a one-page reference chart that I use to summarize themorphology of indicative verbs for my first year Greek students. It generally follows the approach of Bill Mounce’s Basics of Biblical Greek, though I have made some of my own simplifications to his system.
• Greek Grammar Bibliography

Grammatical Diagrams

The phrasing generally follows Mounce’s style; the grammatical diagrams follow Grassmick’s style. The diagrams were originally generated using the diagramming tools in Accordance* and then touched up slightly with a graphics program. They have all been saved in Adobe Acrobat format so that you can view them with all fonts and formatting intact. (A limitation of earlier versions of Acrobat seems to be that it will not record dashed or dotted lines; instead it renders them as a gray line which is nearly indistinguishable from a solid black line. Perhaps it was due to the compression settings that I was using at the time.)*

Accordance is the best technical Greek software on any platform—though you’ll need to buy a Mac to use it—and it’s worth the price [of the Mac, that is!] to do so.  As of fall 2012 it has been announced that there will be a Windows version of Accordance! If this is as well done as the Mac version, it will be a major boon to Windows users who want the power and ease of use that Accordance has provided on Mac for many, many years. (FWIW, on Windows presently, BibleWorks is perhaps the most capable for language work [and now has a diagramming module, though a bit clumsy], though Libronix is slowly catching up—but the new language features are “grafted on” pieces—and that to a large, unwieldy, slow program. I will say that the diagramming module now included in Libronix is the best of the three programs listed here [though it still has its annoyances!]. And yes, I have all 3, but Accordance is my standard workhorse.)

• Acts 2:22-23 grammatical diagram (pdf file)
• Acts 2:38 grammatical diagram (pdf file)
• Eph. 1:3-14, phrasing, Greek &English in parallel cols. (2 legal pages, landscape mode; pdf file)
• Col. 2:1-2, grammatical diagram (pdf file)
• Col. 3:1-4, diagrammed, pdf file
• 2 Thess. 2:1-12 grammatical diagram (full version; pdf version)#$#
• 2 Thess. 2:1-12 grammatical diagram (student version; pdf version) This is a “worksheet” format with the full grammatical structure, but with progressively more “blanks” throughout the passage. Work through the text and fill in the blanks, then use the “full version” above as an answer key. This will help you not only understand the grammar and syntax of the text, but it will also begin to teach you (one form of) grammatical diagramming.
• Heb. 5:11-6:12,diagram (pdf file)
• 1 Peter 1:3-12, grammatical Diagram (Acrobat v. 3 .pdf file, 2 pgs.); also a “student worksheet” version; both prepared in Accordance. This is a “first draft” of a rather difficult passage, so if you find any problems, please let me know.