Let God Speak

Two new Greek video tutorial have been added in the “Greek” section.  The first tutorial aids in understanding basic English/Greek grammar and sentence components.  The second tutorial is a song with video designed to help you learn the flexion of the Greek article, based on the format used in Ward Powers’ Learn to Read the Greek New Testament.

To view these new tutorials go to Greek>Tutorials>Powers Tutorials.  The name of the first tutorial is “BasicGrammar_Diagramming.”The name of the second tutorial is “GreekArticleSong_PowersVersion.”

I’ve added several new tutorials for use with Ward Powers’ Learn to Read the Greek New Testament.  These new tutorials all go with Lesson 1.

Click on ‘Greek’ > ‘Tutorials’ > ‘Powers’.  Use these to learn the Greek alphabet, how to pronounce Greek words, and to get started reading the Greek New Testament.

It is crucial for the Greek student to move beyond a surface level understanding of the language.  Language communicates much of what it communicates at a level much broader than the word, phrase or even clause level.  It also communicates much more than just the grammar and syntax of the word, phrase, or clause.

When studying and analyzing Greek, we must learn to broaden our perspective.  For example, a genitive absolute may function on the larger discourse level to introduce a new pericope.  The “Historic Present” may do the same.  Communicating more than vividness, the HP may introduce a new pericope that calls attention to a previously introduced character in the narrative. 

Conjunctions may function on the discourse level to introduce a subsection of a pericope.  They may also highlight an action, event, or character in the narrative.  Verb tense often functions on a larger discourse level to highlight certain actions, events, or states, communicating much more than merely perfective or imperfective aspect.

If this way of approaching biblical Greek is new or unfamiliar to you, I encourage you to investigate this issue further.  Here are a couple of good places to start:

“A Discourse Analysis of Matthew’s Nativity Narrative,” by William Varner, in Tyndale Bulletin 58.2 (2007) 209-228.  Here is a link that will take you to this issue of the Tyndale Bulletin – http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/index.php?page=frame&add=http://www.tyndalehouse.com/tynbul/tb58-2.htm

The Book of James–A New Perspective:  A Linguistic Commentary Applying Discourse Analysis, by William Varner, Kress Biblical Resources, 2011.  Here is a link to Amazon where you can purchase the book:  http://www.amazon.com/Book-James—New-Perspective-Linguistic/dp/1934952125/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1309801624&sr=1-1

There are many other excellent resourses available to help you move beyond the surface level of Greek grammar and syntax, but these will help get you started.  The first is freely available online.  The other is worth purchasing because it deals with an entire book of the New Testament — one that is notoriously difficult to analyze and structure.

New and better Hebrew tutorials are available covering the vocabulary for A Modern Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, by Garrett and DeRouchie, chapters 1-5.  I created these tutorials using visual images associated with each word to aid in learning.  You can access these visual vocabulary tutorials in the Hebrew Tutorial section of this website.  They have the title MGBH_VisualVocabulary + the chapter number and my name.  I’ll add more, Lord willing, as I am able.  May God bless you in your study.

I added a new beginning Hebrew tutorial.  This tutorial covers the grammar/concepts in Lesson Four of Garrett and DeRouchie’s text, A Moder Grammar for Biblical Hebrew.  Go to ‘Hebrew’ > ‘Tutorials’. 

I hope you find it helpful.

I’ve added two new Greek tutorials covering Stanley Porter’s Fundamentals of New Testament Greek, chapter three.  One covers the vocabulary in chapter three, and the other covers the grammatical concepts.  I encourage you to purchase a copy of this textbook and use the tutorials to begin learning how to read the Greek New Testament.

I have done a major revision to my Greek Verbal Aspect Chart, with the assistance of one of my students, Michael Elliott.  Click on ‘Greek’ > ‘Teaching and Learning Tools’.  I hope you find it helpful.  I welcome any suggestions for improvement.

For many years, the traditional view of deponent middle verbs as “middle in form, but active in meaning” has been entirely unsatisfactory to me.  It just did not ring true. 

In recent years I have moved more toward the idea that depondent middle verbs have only middle forms for a reason.  The middle voice conveys something significant that ancient Greeks were trying to tell us, but we were not listening.

To oversimplify, it seems to me that the ancient Greek middle voice spotlights the subject, and probably does so because there is something about the nature of the action requiring a more intimate involvement of the subject in that action — hence the choice of the middle voice.

To my delight, I found an article today with a title that caught my attention and may support my thinking about the middle voice in ancient Greek.  The article is titled, “Setting Aside ‘Deponency’:  Rediscovering the Greek Middle Voice in New Testament Studies.”  The author is Jonathan T. Pennington, and the article is in a book called The Linguist as Pedagogue:  Trends in the Teaching of Linguistic Analysis of the Greek New Testament.  This book is edited by Stanley E. Porter and Matthew Brook O’Donnell.  The book is published by Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2009, and is part of the New Testament Monograph series.

The above article references another article of which I was unaware, located in Appendix 2 of Analytical Lexicon of the Greek New Testament, by Barbara Friberg, Timothy Frigerb, and Neva F. Miller (eds).  The article in this book by Neval Miller is called “A Theory of Deponent Verbs.”  This book is published by Baker, 2000. 

I’ll write more as I investigate further into the middle voice.

I’ve added two new beginning Greek tutorials covering nouns and adjectives.  These are designed to go with chapter 2 in Fundamentals of New Testament Greek, by Porter, Reed, and O’Donnell.  Click on ‘Greek’, then ‘Tutorials’, and then ‘Porter Tutorials’.

I also updated a chart covering a literary device used in New Testament letters which I call a Theologion (a saying or statement about God).   This is a literary device first identified by my good friend, Dale Hartman.  You’ll find it by clicking on ‘Greek’, ‘Tutorials’, and then ‘Intermediate Greek Tutorials’.  It is also located under ‘Articles’, ‘My Articles’, ‘Greek’.  I hope you find these tools to be useful in your quest to know and serve God.

I recently added new Greek and Hebrew tutorials to my website.  The Greek tutorials covering chapter two of Porter’s Fundamentals of New Testament Greek are complete (five in all).  Additionally, I added two Hebrew tutorials covering Lesson 3 in Garrett and DeRouchie’s A Modern Grammar for Biblical Hebrew.  One tutorial covers vocabulary, and the other the grammar in Lesson 3.  When Garrett provides his own audio, I incorporate that into the tutorial. 

I strongly encourage you to purchase these fine textbooks, especially if you intend to work through either one with the tutorials I am creating.  God’s blessing upon any and all of you who seek to learn the biblical languages in order to come to a better knowledge of God and his will.