New Volume on First Century Language in Land of Israel
The Language Environment of First-Century Judaea, edited by Randall Buth and R. Steven Notley, (Brill, 2014, ISBN 9789004263406) has finally appeared. Here is a PDF of the table of contents and preliminary chapter "Introduction: Language [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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. [...]
New Vision Statement
I just wanted to highlight that BLC has just updated its vision statement. Check it out here. Let us know what you think. We'd love to get your feedback.
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 [...]
Randall Buth on Peter Burton
I first met Peter at SBL's annual meeting in 1997. A true friendship was formed that has covered the past fifteen years but has now been sadly cut short. Peter was interested in seeing students [...]
Peter Burton
Just a quick note to inform our BLC friends that Peter Burton, Randall Buth's friend, colleague, and supporter of BLC, passed away peacefully on Thursday night (4 October 2012) of complications associated with ALS with [...]