Greek Archives - Reading Acts

Book Review: Benjamin L. Merkle and Robert L. Plummer, Greek for Life

Merkle, Benjamin L. and Robert L. Plummer. Greek for Life: Strategies for Learning, Retaining, and Reviving New Testament Greek. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2017. 176 pp.; Pb.; $19.99. Link to Baker

In Greek for Life Merkle and Plummer want to encourage (and occasionally shame) seminary students and pastors to work hard at the task of learning Greek so they will be properly prepared to present God’s word in their ministries. They especially want to gently invite the “lost Greek lamb” back to the fold in order to recover Greek skills lost by years of neglect.

I have always been of the opinion that Greek is not difficult, it simply requires a little work every day (say, an hour a day during the semester for reviewing and reading) and memorizing details. But too many people claim they cannot memorize things. The same students who claim they cannot remember a paradigm or a set of vocabulary can reel off song lyrics without any difficulty, or for too many of my students, the intimate details of the Star Wars universe. Merkle and Plummer therefore devote chapters to reviewing strategies (ch. 3) and effective memory techniques (ch. 4). They have a nice section on using mnemonic devices. I find this very effective for students, working best when they create the device themselves. The sillier the better, as Merkle and Plummer illustrate with their story about a Methodist pastor wearing a tie. (My story: “Omen et a ousi. I do not know what an ousi is, but Omen et one.” I honestly say that phrase about fifty times in a first semester Greek class.) They suggest singing bits of Greek, and there are several resources available setting Greek paradigms to music. (I have a little song and dance that goes along with the rule, “neuter plural subject takes a singular verb.” It is terrible, but memorable.)

I mentioned in the first paragraph that Merkle and Plummer occasionally shame the reader, although it is a very friendly shaming. Chapter 2, for example, is entitled “Go to the Ant, You Sluggard.” The chapter is about time management and developing good habits which can be used to review Greek and master reading the New Testament. They are not anti-technology, in fact, Merkle and Plummer recommend many internet based resources for honing Greek skills. But when instagramming one’s dinner is more important than reviewing Greek vocabulary, perhaps there is a problem with priorities.

This includes some very practical steps like, put your phone away and focus on what is really important, in chapter 6 (“Don’t Waste Your Breaks”) they encourage Greek students to actually use Greek over winter and summer breaks. For example, for several years now I have assigned the Summer Greek Reader to third-semester Greek students. They are told work on it over the summer and get 12% for completing the twelve chapters of the book. Their summer is longer than twelve weeks, the readings are easy (in fact, there is a key in the back of the book!) I only grade on completeness, not accuracy since my objective is to keep their mind on Greek for at least some of the summer. Most students have good intentions in May, and are struggling to finish a week (or a day) before class starts. Usually ten out of twelve chapters is the best I can expect.

One thing Merkle and Plummer frequently return to is the lofty goal of using Greek every day. Most Greek students want to do this, but in the fury of an average college or seminary semester, this is very difficult to achieve. Yet the authors offer some very practical advice, including online resources which offer a few phrases of Greek every day. I follow sententiae antiquae, @sentantiq, to polish my atrophied classical Greek skills as well as Henry George Liddell, @LiddellAndScott, for some amusing daily Greek vocab reminders. There are several physical book resources which a Greek teacher might call a “cheater” book, but for someone trying to maintain (or revive) their Greek, there is no shame in using an interlinear or reader’s Greek New Testament. Carrying this book to class, chapel and church will help give a student familiarity with the Greek text and develop confidence in their reading.

Like the authors of this book, I sometimes reward myself with a new expensive Bible so I can read through it. Early in my Greek teaching career I bought a large-sized Nestle-Aland 26^th edition with every other page blank. I read through the Greek New Testament twice and through Acts a third time over the first two years teaching Greek, and I still think that was the time I finally “got it,” even though I had taken many semesters of Greek in Seminary. There is no better way to learn Greek than to read it daily. If you have to bribe yourself with a calfskin Greek Bible, then do so.

Greek for Life has several feature in each chapter. First, there are numerous sidebars with pithy quotes on the value of Greek from a wide range of Greek teachers and scholars. Second, these short quotes are supplemented by several “testimonials” by pastors and teachers on the importance of Greek for their ministry. Third, each chapter includes footnotes to resources mentioned, including (lengthy) links to websites. These will obviously work better in an electronic edition of the book, but most people will be able to use Google to find the sites mentioned. Fourth, each chapter includes four or five questions for reflection. Most of these are intended to push the reader toward making a plan of action. For example, “what are some practical ways you can incorporate all your senses in learning Greek?” Fifth, each chapter ends with a devotional demonstrating the value of using Greek to understand a text. These are similar to the devotionals in the Mounce’s Basics of Biblical Greek and Mounce himself contributes two devotionals drawn from his own blog, Mondays with Mounce. Others were written by Todd Scacewater of Exegetical Tools or the Daily Dose of Greek, maintained by Rob Plummer, and Kris Lyle’s Old School Script (although that particular blog has not been updated in some time).

Conclusion. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Greek for Life. The style was light and engaging, but the content will challenge anyone who is struggling to learn Greek to keep working hard because the rewards are immense. The book will make a great supplemental textbook in a first year Greek class, a gift (and subtle hint) for a pastor or teacher who has forgotten their first love of Greek.

NB: Thanks to Baker for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.

Book Review: Laansma and Gauthier, The Handy Guide to Difficult and Irregular Greek Verbs

Laansma, Jon C. and Randall X. Gauthier. The Handy Guide to Difficult and Irregular Greek Verbs. Aids for Readers of the Greek New Testament. Grand Rapids, Mich. Kregel Academic, 2017. 80 pgs; Pb. $13.99 Link to Kregel

Kregel Academic recently sent me a copy of their latest volume in the “Handy Guide” series of New Testament Greek tools. The first in the series was Douglas S. Huffman, The Handy Guide to New Testament Greek (reviewed here). Like this previous handbook, Laansma and Gauthier provide a user-friendly quick reference which will be an important supplement to any New Testament Greek course.

The goal of The Handy Guide to Difficult and Irregular Greek Verbs is to provide a set of vocabulary aids not found in other vocabulary lists. Most beginning Greek students tend to think of the present active first singular forms as a kind of “default” for a Greek verb, but this is often an unfortunate assumption. The authors therefore define a “difficult or irregular verb” from the perspective of that first year Greek student: these are the verbs which have unusual principle parts and are therefore the most difficult to recognize while reading the New Testament.

My typical approach to principle parts has been to have students memorize the 25 most common irregular verbs in the second semester of Greek, and then another 15 in the third semester (reviewing the original 25). The problem with this method is some principle parts are so rare in the Greek New Testament it is not profitable to memorize them. Laansma and Gauthier point out that φέρω occurs 192x in various compound forms, but the second principle part οἴσω only appears three times. It is probably a waste of student effort to memorize the rare form, but it is important to memorize the third principle part, the aorist form ἤνεγκα since it more common and used in compound forms.

The best thing about this book is the four page list of irregular verbs ordered by frequency in the New Testament. Each block of 10-12 forms are assigned a letter (a-j). The list begins with δόντος (the aorist active participle, masculine genitive singular of δίδωμι). Although δίδωμι itself only appears 415x in the Greek New Testament, compound forms run that number closer to 600x. By learning this form, the student will recognize forms of παραδίδωμι and ἀποδίδωμι, for example.

Part 2 of the book is an alphabetical list of verbs with their compound forms. Taking φέρω as an example, they list the six principle parts, printing the most common in bold and indicating which of the lists in part 1 the form appeared. Only the aorist and aorist passive forms are common enough to appear on the lists in part 1, the future active appears online three times and the perfect middle/passive does not appear at all in the Greek New Testament.

The book has two appendices. The first prints the full paradigms of εἰμί and ἵημι in present and imperfect forms. The first is the extremely common to-be verb and appears in numerous compound forms and must be memorized if one is going to read Greek. This second form is not found in the New Testament, but compound forms are common (ἀφίημι for example). The second appendix deals with perfect and pluperfect middle/passive forms as well as the optative mood. Although many of these are formed regularly, they are rare enough to qualify as “difficult” forms in this handbook.

Conclusion. This book should be in the hands of every Greek student as they struggle to read the New Testament. This handbook should be a go-to reference for difficult verbal forms.

NB: Thanks to Kregel Academic for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.

Book Review: Charles Lee Irons, A Syntax Guide for Readers of the Greek New Testament

Irons, Charles Lee. A Syntax Guide for Readers of the Greek New Testament. Grand Rapids, Mich. Kregel, 2012. 608 pp. Hb; $39.99. Link to Kregel

This new publication from Kregel follows in the tradition of Sprachlicher Schluessel Zum Griechischen Neuen Testament by Fritz Rienecker (translated and edited by Cleon Rogers, Jr., published as Linguistic Key to the Greek New Testament, Zondervan 1982), or The New Linguistic and Exegetical Key to the Greek New Testament, an updated text by Cleon Rogers, Jr. and Cleon Rogers, III (Zondervan, 1998).

In the introduction to the volume, Irons distinguishes his syntax guide from a reader’s guide for the Greek New Testament. In a reader’s guide, vocabulary words under a certain frequency are listed verse-by-verse in order to assist the reader rare words. There are several stand-alone volumes such as Michael Burer’s A New Reader’s Lexicon of the Greek New Testament (Kregel, 2008) or Zondervan’s A Reader’s Greek New Testament (edited by Richard J. Goodrich, Albert L. Lukaszewski, 2007).

A typical page in this syntax guide will have brief entries highlighting idiomatic phrases, often using modern English Bibles (ESV, NASB, NIV). For example, in Acts 20:20 Irons glosses κατʼ οἴκους as “from house to house.” In Hebrews 10:12, εἰς τὸ διηνεκὲς is glossed as “for all time.”

Second, the guide occasionally identifies syntactical categories. For example, in τῆς πολιτείας is identified as a genitive of separation, citing Dan Wallace’s Greek Grammar beyond the Basics, 107-8. Not every syntactical category includes reference to a grammar. In Eph 3:8, πάντων ἁγίων is identified as a genitive of comparison without a citation. In John 19:22 γέγραφα is identified as an extensive perfect. In Romans 5:1 the circumstantial participle Δικαιωθέντες is identified as causal, although there are other options.

Third, Irons may include brief comments on unusual uses of vocabulary. For example, in Acts 15:6 the phrase ἰδεῖν περὶ τοῦ λόγου is glossed “to consider this matter” (τούτου is omitted from the comment). For this use of λόγος Irons cites BDAG 1aε. In 1 Tim 3:14 the phrase ἐν τάχει is glossed as “quickly,” periphrasis for an adverb, citing BDAG ἐν 11.

Fourth, there are occasional helps for identifying forms. In 1 Corinthians 5:13 κρινεῖ is identified as “future (note accent).” Perhaps called this a liquid future would have been helpful (there is a minor variant on this verse with a different accent making the form present).

Fifth, Irons comment on textual critical issues, although the goals of the book prevent the entry going into too much detail. In Romans 5:1 he mentions the famous variant for ἔχομεν (present indicative) vs. ἔχωμεν (hortatory subjunctive). He does not provide witnesses, but cites Metzger’s conclusion. His notes on Galatians 2:4-5 are more detailed, but limited to four options based on syntax rather than textual evidence. He does not mention textual variants for John 7:53-8:11, 1 John 5:8, or the longer ending of Mark.

Following the verse-by-verse syntactical guide are indices of syntactical elements identified in the guide. These include Septuagintisms, foreign words (Aramaic, Hebrew, Latinisms and Semiticisms), discourse structure (asyndeton, coordination, parenthesis and period), and figures of speech (16 varieties). Under “atypical constructions” Irons includes anacoluthon, mixed and difficult constructions, pregnant and rare constructions, solecisms and other “peculiar” constructions. These indices are valuable to teachers of the Greek New Testament for finding examples of various syntactical features.

There is always a danger with a tool like this that it will become a crutch for students rather than a helpful tool. When I took Greek as an undergraduate some students relied on Sakae Kubo’s A Reader’s Greek-English Lexicon or The Analytical Greek Lexicon which parsed every verb and noun form in the New Testament. These tools have been largely replaced by Bible software which identifies all grammatical elements of words and can open BDAG with a simple click. What once was a crutch has become more like a mechanized robot suit! These tools enable people with a little Greek to comment on the text more intelligently, but run the risk of giving someone information without understanding. Just knowing a Greek word is in the aorist tense (for example) does not interpret the text. A student needs to be familiar with how an aorist tense verb can be used in a given context in order to shed light on a text.

Irons’s book does not strike me as a crutch, but a helpful guide to some of the syntactical problems a second year Greek student or busy pastor will encounter as they try to make sense of a particular verse in the Greek New Testament. Despite best intentions, most people do not keep up on their Greek after seminary, so a handy book like this will assist reading of the Greek without becoming a crutch.

The book is published to look like a companion to the UBS Greek New Testament. It is the same size and color, although published in hardback on bright white paper for easy reading. Although I would hesitate to recommend it for a student who is currently taking Greek, A Syntax Guide for Readers of the Greek New Testament should be a valuable help for reading the Greek New Testament for those seeking to hone their syntactical skills by reading the Greek Bible closely.

NB: Thanks to Kregel for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.

Book Review: Karen H. Jobes, Discovering the Septuagint

Jobes, Karen H., ed. Discovering the Septuagint: A Guided Reader. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel Academic, 2016. 351 pp. Hb; $20.00. Link to Kregel Academic

Karen Jobes is well known for her Invitation to the Septuagint (Baker 2000) co-written with Moises Silva, now in a second edition (Baker, 2015). That previous volume is an excellent handbook for the study of the Septuagint (LXX), but it lacks any exercises for students in the text of the LXX itself. This new volume from Kregel is intended to assist a student read through significant sections of the Septuagint.

This reader includes about 700 verses from nine books from the Greek Old Testament (Genesis, Exodus, Ruth, Additions to Esther, Psalms, Hosea, Jonah, Malachi and Isaiah). Her Exodus examples are divided into two separate chapters (Exod 14-15 and the Ten Commandments from Exodus and Deuteronomy). These selections give the student a wide range of experience in several genres as well as distinctive LXX styles.

Each chapter begins with a short introduction to the book in the Septuagint. Aside from a few obvious general comments, Jobes assesses the translation style of each book. Genesis, for example, is a “strict quantitative representation” of word order and syntax of the Hebrew Bible (19), while Hosea is in some respects quite different than the Hebrew text. This may indicate a different Vorlage or a corrupted text. The introduction concludes with a selected bibliography including a few recommended commentaries as well as monographs or articles on the Greek text of the book. The bibliographies are brief; in most cases these are about a half-page in length.

Each chapter is compiled by graduate students in Jobes’s LXX classes, including Wheaton doctoral students Carmen Imes and Caleb Friedman. After the introduction, the Greek text is presented verse-by-verse with comments on phrases. The Greek is drawn from the Rahlfs-Hanhart critical edition of the LXX. Not every word is glossed, and some a glossed several times with similar comments. For example, the common phrase και ἐγένετο begins both Ruth and Jonah. In both cases the word is parsed and compared to the conventional Hebrew וַֽיְהִי. In some cases rather simple words are parsed ( in Jonah 2:6, for example).

The comments on vocabulary begin by parsing verbs or identifying case, number and gender of nouns and offering a basic lexical gloss not included in Metzger’s Aids for Students of New Testament Greek. But as the introduction observes, some common words are glossed if they appear in unusual forms. In some cases the translation of the NETS is given. Occasionally a syntactical category is given (complementary infinitive, pendant nominative, etc.) The book concludes with a glossary of these terms.

Following glossed verses for a biblical chapter, the editors provide the NETS English translation and a list of quotations in the New Testament where applicable. Some of the examples are not strictly quotations. For example, Jonah 2:1 is presented as cited in Matt 12:40 but this is an allusion to the story of Jonah rather than a formal quotation. The quotation section could have been improved by including the Greek text side-by-side and providing some commentary on any differences between then LXX in Rahlfs-Hanhart and the NA²⁸ Greek text. Although Isaiah 7:14 is quoted exactly in Matthew 1:23, the allusion to Isaiah 54:13 is not as precise.

Perhaps the biggest shortcoming of the book is the lack of engagement with the Hebrew text. There are many times in the examples given where the LXX differs from the MT in significant ways. For example, in Jonah 2:3, the phrase τον θεόν μου appears in the LXX but not in the MT. There is no notice of this addition in the reader’s guide to Jonah 2:3. In Jonah 2:6, the LXX translator used ἐσχάτη for the סוּף, reed. The ESV translates the Hebrew word as weeds, “weeds were wrapped about my head.” The LXX translator appears to have read the MT as סוֹף, “end.” The NETS therefore translates the word as modifying the abyss, “the deepest abyss.” The notes indicate only that the “this reading of the Heb results in a different division of the clauses” (245), when the LXX has read a Hebrew word with a different vowel, resulting in a different translation.

Both of these examples were found using Emanuel Tov, The Parallel Aligned Hebrew-Aramaic and Greek Texts of Jewish Scripture (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2003). In both cases it is possible the translator had a different Hebrew text than what ultimately became the Masoretic text, or the translator added to the text for clarity or theological reasons. A third possibility is the translator misunderstood the text, something most beginning Hebrew students can appreciate. Ultimately this shortcoming is the nature of the book, it is a guided reader for the Septuagint, not a commentary on the differences between the MT and LXX. Perhaps the book could have been improved if the editors had chosen one or two such examples per chapter in order to demonstrate some of the problems facing those who work on the text of the Septuagint.

Regardless of this criticism, Discovering the Septuagint will be a good textbook for a seminary class on the Septuagint or Hellenistic Greek. I might have preferred a workbook style with more space for students to work out the translations, like Kregel’s Handbook for Intermediate Greek (Bateman) or Koine Greek Reader (Decker). Anyone who has a year or two of Greek could use this book to continue to improve their Greek skills by reading these selections from the LXX outside of a classroom setting.

NB: Thanks to Kregel Academic for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.

Book Giveaway Winner – New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, Vol. 10

Now that I have completed my grading for the spring semester and turned in the last of my grades, I am ready to announce the winner of the latest volume of the New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, edited by S. R. Llewelyn and J. R. Harrison, with E. J. Bridge (Eerdmans, 2012).

I collected all of the comments, randomly sorted them in a spreadsheet then used random.org to generate a winner. And the winner is…

Lindsay Kennedy

So Lindsay can contact me (email, plong42 at gmail.com, twitter DM, @plong42) I will arrange to send the book out to ASAP. And if pastorjimmyreagan sees this, you one the last giveaway and need to contact me with shipping info.

Thanks to everyone who participated. I have at least one more book set aside as a giveaway to celebrate One Million Hits at Reading Acts. Check back next week for details.