The Greek Verb Revisited: A Fresh Approach For Biblical Exegesis

A Fresh Approach to the Greek Verb

For the past 25 years, debate regarding the nature of tense and aspect in the Koine Greek verb has held New Testament studies at an impasse. The Greek Verb Revisited examines recent developments from the field of linguistics, which may dramatically shift the direction of this discussion. Readers will find an accessible introduction to the foundational issues, and more importantly, they will discover a way forward through the debate.

Originally presented during a conference on the Greek verb supported by and held at Tyndale House and sponsored by the Faculty of Divinity of Cambridge University, the papers included in this collection represent the culmination of scholarly collaboration. The outcome is a practical and accessible overview of the Greek verb that moves beyond the current impasse by taking into account the latest scholarship from the fields of linguistics, Classics, and New Testament studies.

672 pages

Contents

• Foreword by Andreas Köstenberger
• Introduction
• Overview
  • Porter and Fanning on NT Greek Verbal Aspect: Retrospect and Prospect by Buist Fanning
  • What is Aspect? Contrasting Definitions in General Linguistics and New Testament Studies by Christopher J. Thomson
  • Tense and Aspect in Classical Greek, Two Historical Developments: Augment and Perfect by Rutger J. Allan
  • Aspect-Prominence, Morpho-Syntax, and a Cognitive-Linguistic Framework for the Greek Verb by Nicolas J. Ellis
• Application
  • Verb Forms and Grounding in Narrative by Stephen H. Levinsohn
  • Imperfects, Aorists, Historic Presents, and Perfects in John 11: A Narrative Test Case by Patrick James
  • The Contribution of Verb Forms, Connectives and Dependency to Grounding Status in Non-Narrative Discourse by Steven E. Runge
  • Participles as a Pragmatic Choice: Where Semantics Meets Pragmatics by Randall Buth
  • Functions of Copula-Participle Combinations (Periphrastics) by Stephen H. Levinsohn
• Linguistic Investigations
  • The Historical Present in NT Greek: An Exercise in Interpreting Matthew by Elizabeth Robar
  • Function of the ε-Augment in Hellenistic Greek by Peter Gentry
  • Typology, Polysemy, and Prototypes: Situating Non-Past Aorist Indicatives by Christopher J. Fresch
  • Perfect Greek Morphology and Pedagogy: Their Contribution to Understanding the Greek Perfect by Randall Buth
  • The Semantics of the Perfect in the Greek New Testament by Robert Crellin
  • The Discourse Function of the Greek Perfect by Steven E. Runge
  • Greek Prohibitions by Michael Aubrey
  • Tense and Aspect After the New Testament by Amalia Moser
  • Motivated Categories, Middle Voice, and Passive Morphology by Rachel Aubrey
  • Conclusions and Open Issues by Geoffrey Horrocks