Yearly Archives: 2013

Word Order, Focus-CC (Contextualizing Constituent, Topic) Inversion, Enclitics in Greek

While reading Philemon this morning I noticed what might be considered an inversion of Focus--Contextualizing Constituent (aka Topic) in the pre-verb area. The default order with two marked items, a CC and Focus, is normally from more topical to more salient, that is, first a CC then a Focus, followed by core template orders. Here [...]

Getting the Right Handles on the Greek Perfect

At SBL 2013 there was a session devoted to a description of the Greek perfect. Basically, there were three positions and they had been published previously. Stanley Porter argued that the perfect was a third aspect category in Greek with a meaning of "stative". Buist Fanning argued that the perfect entailed a complete action with [...]

By |2017-06-12T21:31:27-07:00November 29th, 2013|ancient Greek, Blog, Greek perfect|7 Comments

Faith that Grows, Genesis 15v6

While the need for Hebrew is self-evident for Jewish interpretation of the Hebrew Bible, it’s need is sometimes diminished within Chrisitan communities for the New Testament. The following little study shows how a close reading of the Hebrew Bible can raise useful questions for New Testament interpretation, too. In fact both Jewish and Christian communities [...]

Relevance Theory and the Problem of Tense-Aspect in Biblical Hebrew

  Genesis 22 is a common narrative text that is used in introductory biblical Hebrew courses. There are several points of syntax and narrative style in that passage that are often overlooked by both beginning-intermediate students and even by Hebrew grammarians.   Consider Gen 22:3 ויקם וילך אל המקום אשר אמר לו האלהים and he [...]

What is wrong with calling the Hebrew verb “an aspect”?

The biggest problem with calling the Hebrew verb “an aspect” is the English language. This problem also applies to any language that clearly differentiates aspect from tense, like most of the European languages including Greek. Unfortunately, because Hebrew is quite different from Greek or English, the verb is often described as an “aspect” system that [...]

A review of “Living Koine Greek Introduction Part One”

On January 3rd, a review of BLC's "Living Koine Greek Introduction Part One" was posted on the blog "Priceless Eternity." (Or, see their Facebook page.)While the reviewer is anonymous, the blog "is run by a college student... currently aiming for a major in Pre-Seminary Bible and also Mathematics," and I am assuming that the same [...]

By |2023-01-17T08:19:45-08:00January 10th, 2013|ancient Greek, ancient language acquisition, Greek immersion, Greek pedagogy, Koine Greek, Living Koine, second language acquisition|Comments Off on A review of “Living Koine Greek Introduction Part One”

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