Advances in the Study of Greek: New Insights for Reading the New Testament

by Constantine R. Campbell, D. A. Carson (Foreword by)

Overview

Advances in the Study of Greek offers an introduction to issues of interest in the current world of Greek scholarship. Those within Greek scholarship will welcome this book as a tool that puts students, pastors, professors, and commentators firmly in touch with what is going on in Greek studies. Those outside Greek scholarship will warmly receive Advances in the Study of Greek as a resource to get themselves up to speed in Greek studies. Free of technical linguistic jargon, the scholarship contained within is highly accessible to outsiders.

Advances in the Study of Greek provides an accessible introduction for students, pastors, professors, and commentators to understand the current issues of interest in this period of paradigm shift.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780310515951
Publisher:	Zondervan Academic
Publication date:	07/28/2015
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	562,711
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Constantine R. Campbell (Ph D, Macquarie University) is a New Testament scholar, author, musician, and documentary host, and lives in Canberra, Australia. He was formerly professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and is the author of several books, including Paul and Union with Christ, Advances in the Study of Greek, Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek, Keep Your Greek, Outreach and the Artist, and 1, 2 & 3 John in The Story of God Bible Commentary series.

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Advances in the Study of Greek

New Insights for Reading the New Testament

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By Constantine R. Campbell

ZONDERVAN

Copyright © 2015 Constantine R. Campbell
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-310-51595-1

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CHAPTER 1

A SHORT HISTORY OF GREEK STUDIES: THE NINETEENTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT DAY

It is hardly possible for the student of the present day [early twentieth century] to enter into sympathy with the inanities and sinuosities that characterized the previous treatises on the N. T. idiom.

—A. T. Robertson

1.1 Introduction

"What's past is prologue." So wrote Shakespeare, and so it is for the study of Greek. In order to understand current Greek scholarship, we require an understanding of its past trajectory—its prologue.

This chapter outlines the history of Greek studies over the last two hundred years, paying attention to the study of Ancient Greek in general, Biblical (Koine) Greek in particular, and the rise of modern linguistics. The chapter will provide a context for the rest of the book, as well as demonstrate how and why certain discussions have taken shape.

The following historical outline is not restricted to Greek studies, but includes major movements within the field of linguistics. The influence of linguistics in Greek studies has become important, both for Koine Greek and Ancient Greek generally. Rather than offer two separate surveys—one for Greek, the other for linguistics—I have attempted to blend them so that the reader can understand how the currents of one have affected the other.

1.2 The Nineteenth Century

The nineteenth century saw dramatic advances in the study of Greek, many of which would reverberate well into the twentieth century. Two of the most significant achievements of this century were the analysis of Greek through comparative philology and breakthroughs in understanding the Greek verbal system. A brief survey follows, drawing on Robertson's summary of the period in particular.

1.2.1 The Pre-Winer Period

A. T. Robertson notes that prior to G. B. Winer's grammatical study Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Sprachidioms, "it is hardly possible for the student of the present day to enter into sympathy with the inanities and sinuosities that characterized the previous treatises on the N. T. idiom." This period was characterized by weak methodology, misunderstanding of the nature of language, and internal self-contradiction.

1.2.2 Georg B. Winer (1822)

Winer regarded the current state of affairs absurd, and instead insisted on a methodological order of interpretation: grammatical, historical, theological. The publication of his Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Sprachidioms in 1822 marked a new epoch in New Testament grammatical study. Two translations of Winer's Grammatik—one by Thayer and the other by W. F. Moulton—became standards for English-speaking Greek students and scholars.

1.2.3 Franz Bopp (1833)

Franz Bopp was the founder of comparative philology, publishing on the subject from as early as 1816. The second edition of his Vergleichende Grammatik popularized the term "Indo-European," and his work is regarded as the beginning of Indo-European studies as an academic discipline. According to Delbrück, before Bopp "in all grammars the mass of 'irregular' words was at least as great as that of the 'regular' ones, and a rule without exception actually excited suspicion.'"

1.2.4 Georg Curtius (1846ff.)

The chief significance of Curtius's scholarship was as the father of Greek verbal aspect studies. He was the first to argue that the Greek verbal system differs from Latin, and that temporal reference is limited to the indicative mood and is not a feature of the other moods (a fact taken for granted today). He also argued that the key difference between tenses was the type of time they express (Zeitart). Brugmann later changed the term Zeitart to Aktionsart, since the notion of type of action was regarded to be more accurate.

1.2.5 Brugmann and Delbrück (1886–1900)

Robertson regards Brugmann and Delbrück's Grundriß der vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen as the high-watermark in comparative grammar. He comments that "it is impossible to write a grammar of the Greek N. T. without taking into consideration this new conception of language." The account of Proto-Indo-European syntax presented in this five-volume work is still regarded as unsurpassed.

1.2.6 Friedrich Blass (1896)

The publication of Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch by Blass in 1896 marked a significant new addition to Greek grammar in this period. It remained one of the most widely used grammars for decades, with its latest iteration in English being produced in 1961, through the additional contributions of Debrunner and Funk. In this way, Blass's grammar remains the most potent injection of nineteenth-century Greek scholarship into modern times.

1.2.7 Ernest de Witt Burton (1898)

Burton's Syntax of the Moods and Tenses in New Testament Greek was one of the few significant nineteenth-century contributions to Greek scholarship written in English. Burton preempted the distinction that Saussure made famous (see §1.4.1) between historical and synchronic analyses of language, describing his own approach as "exegetical," which is in fact synchronic: "Exegetical grammar ... takes the forms as it finds them, and defines the function which at a given period each form discharged." Though he does not use the term, half of Burton's Syntax (dealing with "The Tenses") is a study of Aktionsart in the usage of verbs in the Greek New Testament. Burton's treatment of the Greek verbal system remained influential well into the twentieth century.

1.3 The Early Twentieth Century

The significance of the early twentieth century is seen through two important legacies. The first, beginning just prior to the turn of the century, saw great advances in understanding the Greek of the New Testament through careful examination of papyrological evidence, as well as inscriptions and ostraca. The second was the production of two of the greatest Greek grammars to be written in the English language—those by Moulton and Robertson. Both of these legacies have powerfully shaped all subsequent study of Greek.

1.3.1 Adolf Deissmann (1895ff.)

In light of the remarkable papyri discoveries in Oxyrhynchus and other regions within Egypt, Adolf Deissmann's Bibelstudien, Neue Bibelstudien, and Licht vom Osten set the ground for a new era in Greek grammatical studies. Deissmann condemned the idea of "biblical" Greek, which he demonstrated is no different from "profane" Greek; the language of the New Testament is simply that of popular Greek language of the time. He summarized the significance of the papyri, ostraca, and inscriptions for understanding New Testament Greek:

New Testament philology is at present undergoing thorough reconstruction; and probably all the workers concerned, both on the continent and in English-speaking countries, are by this time agreed that the starting point for the philological investigations must be the language of the nonliterary papyri, ostraca, and inscriptions.

1.3.2 Albert Thumb (1901)

A clear picture of Koine Greek was provided by Albert Thumb's Die griechische Sprache im Zeitalter des Hellenismus. Like Deissmann, Thumb drew on contemporaneous Hellenistic literature to discuss and illustrate the character and historical evolution of Koine Greek. Thumb was able to distinguish between literary and colloquial forms of Koine and designated at least five dialects within it.

1.3.3 Jakob Wackernagel (1904)

Jakob Wackernagel coined the term resultative perfect (Resultativ-perfektum), which would go on to become a widely accepted category of usage for the Greek perfect indicative form. He argued that the so-called "present result" of the action expressed by the perfect was attributed to the object, rather than the subject, of the verb. This understanding developed out of the increasing use of the perfect with transitive verbs through the Hellenistic period. In fact, Wackernagel's solution to the growing use of the perfect with transitive verbs reveals a crack in the traditional understanding of the perfect, in which it is necessary to split the perfect in two; "the aoristic action is carried out by the subject of the verb, while the present result is associated with the object." This problem led to significant discussions about verbal aspect, beginning with McKay in 1965.

1.3.4 James Hope Moulton (1906)

One of the first great contributions to New Testament Greek grammar to be written in English was James Hope Moulton's Prolegomena, volume 1 of A Grammar of New Testament Greek. Taking his cue from Deissmann, Moulton utilized insights from the papyri to enhance grammatical understanding of the language of the New Testament. The Greek of the New Testament is consonant with the vernacular Koine of the papyri.

1.3.5 A. T. Robertson (1914)

In 1914, A. T. Robertson produced the greatest of all New Testament Greek grammars, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research. As with Deissmann and Moulton, Robertson drew on the evidence of papyri, but he also employed the comparative method where appropriate. The most distinct feature of Robertson's grammar is that even today, a century later, it seems remarkably modern. This can only be explained by Robertson's carefully nuanced sense for the language, such that even prior to the dawn of modern linguistics, Robertson handles Greek in a way that is not (on the whole) overturned by modern linguistic principles and methodology. While the comparative method fell on hard times after Saussure (see §1.4.1), Robertson's employment of it has not greatly affected the enduring value of his contribution to Greek grammar.

1.4 Modern Linguistics

It is impossible to overstate the magnitude of change ushered in with the dawn of the new epoch known as modern linguistics. Linguistics shifted the study of language to such an extent that "much nineteenth-century work in the subject has become relatively remote from the concerns of the linguist in recent years." The nineteenth century had been dominated by philology—more commonly referred to as historical linguistics today—and comparative philology in particular. That is, most scholarly interest had involved the history of language development and the relationships between languages. The new era moved toward synchronic linguistics, namely, "the analysis of languages as communicative systems as they exist at a given point of time (often the present), ignoring (as their speakers ignore) the route by which they arrived at their present form."

The age of modern linguistics has forever changed the study of Greek. This section will trace some of the major movements within modern linguistics while also including some of the ongoing advances within Greek linguistics. This approach is preferred over trying to separate the history of modern linguistics and that of twentieth century Greek studies, since they have become inherently entwined—even if regrettably late.

1.4.1 Ferdinand de Saussure (1916)

The Swiss Mongin-Ferdinand de Saussure was trained as a historical linguist, and most of his career dealt with historical rather than synchronic linguistics, though the latter is responsible for his stature now as the father of modern linguistics. His Cours de linguistique générale was published posthumously in 1916 (Saussure died in 1913) by his colleagues Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye, who constructed the book from Saussure's lecture notes and from notes taken by students.

Fundamentally, Saussure stressed the importance of viewing language as a living phenomenon, of studying speech, of analyzing the underlying system of a language to demonstrate its structure, and of seeing language within its social milieu. As David Crystal states, the tradition of the study of Saussure has been to focus on various theoretical dichotomies extracted from his work; these will be laid out next.

The Saussurean dichotomy that most marks his work out from nineteenth-century emphases is that between synchronic and diachronic points of view. Synchronic linguistics examines language as it exists at a certain point in time. Diachronic linguistics considers the evolution of language over time.

A second dichotomy advanced by Saussure is that between langue and parole. Langue refers to the language system itself—its morphemes, grammar, structure, and so forth, as defined corporately and socially. Parole refers to the performance of the language user—the way in which an individual speaks the language. Langue is, in fact, an abstraction since it has no reality apart from the actual use of individuals, and yet parole is controlled by the social and communal expectations that are incorporated in the abstract langue.

A third dichotomy is that between the signifié and signifiant. The signifié refers to "the thing signified," while the signifiant refers to "the thing which signifies." The relationship of the thing signified and the thing that signifies it is a linguistic sign. Thus, there are three terms here: the signified, the signifier, and the sign. An item in the world is the thing signified, while a word may be the device used to refer to that thing. It is the relationship between these two things that Saussure calls a sign. For Saussure, the sign is the basic unit of communication, within the langue of the community; the langue is, in fact, is a system of signs.

Through all these dichotomies (and others) runs the common notion that a language is a system of mutually defining entities. Saussure employs the illustration of a chess game at various points in Cours de linguistique générale to elucidate this point. First, the internal game of chess can be separated from its external facts. The game passed from Persia to Europe, but the history of chess makes little difference to the internal interrelationships of the pieces on the board. Second, one move within a chess game "has a repercussion on the whole system," and yet one need not know the history of the game to be able to understand the state of play at any given moment, because "the route used in arriving there makes absolutely no difference." Third, a chess piece only has meaning when it takes a position on the board, in relation to all other pieces. By itself, or off the board, the piece is meaningless. Thus Saussure demonstrates that linguistic items, or signs, only have meaning in relation to other signs; by themselves they are meaningless. Additionally the history of the language makes little difference on the internal dynamics of language use as it currently stands; how the language got there does not affect how it works in real time.

Saussure marks the dawn of modern linguistics in at least two respects: first, by establishing a clear break with previous language methodologies, and second, by establishing the principles that are now foundational to all subsequent linguistic schools. His influence can be seen in all corners of linguistics through the twentieth century to the present day.

1.4.2 The Prague School (1920s)

The so-called "Prague School" was a circle of like-minded linguists who met for regular discussion, centered around the Czech Vilém Mathesius. The Prague School was characterized by a concern for synchronic linguistics, as was Saussure, and saw language in terms of function, in that "they analysed a given language with a view to showing the respective functions played by the various structural components in the use of the entire language." This concern for function set the Prague School apart from their contemporaries in that they went beyond description to explanation, "saying not just what languages were like but why they were the way they were."

Mathesius was concerned with the notions of theme and rheme. In relation to a conversation, theme refers to something the hearer already knows from the context, while the rheme is any new information contributed to the conversation. Generally, theme precedes rheme to create a context in the hearer's mind before anything new is established.

The Prague School remains influential today, with several leading linguists of the twentieth century being shaped by their interests. For example, Roman Jakobson's phonological theory is recognizably consonant with the Prague School's approach to phonetics. William Labov developed the school's interest in language use within different social settings into his sophisticated theory of sociolinguistics.

(Continues...)

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Table of Contents

1. A History of Greek Studies 2. Linguistic Studies 3. Pronunciation 4. Lexical Semantics and Lexicography 5. Voice and Deponency 6. Verbal Aspect and Aktionsart 7. Idiolect, Genre, and Register 8. Discourse Analysis: part 1 9. Discourse Analysis: part 2 10. Methods of Teaching Greek

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Students — and even some professors! — whose experience with Koine Greek has been limited primarily to standard elementary and intermediate textbooks, would be astounded to know the height and breadth and depth of work that has been accomplished on the original language of the New Testament in recent years. We live in a time in which great advances are taking place in a variety of directions, but both the specialized nature of the discussions and their relegation to stuffy conference rooms and technical journal articles, have limited the needed impact on frontline Greek pedagogy. Enter Con Campbell, who has provided us with a helpful overview of the history and most salient aspects of paradigm-shifting discussions.” — George H. Guthrie, Benjamin W. Perry Professor of Bible, Union University

“Want to get up to speed on recent research in New Testament Greek? There is no better book (in fact, this is the only book!). Con Campbell leads you expertly through the complexities of advances in scholarship so you can be a better teacher, preacher, and student of the Word. Highly recommended!” — Andreas J. Köstenberger, Professor of Biblical Theology and New Testament, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

“A brilliant idea, successfully executed! Anyone interested in grasping key issues in the modern study of New Testament Greek can do no better than read this clear and excellent survey.” — Moisés Silva, Retired professor of New Testament, author, and editor