Dethroning Grammar for Mastering Greek: A Rejoinder

by Vinh T. Nguyen

In his recent post Four Reasons to Master Koine (and to Leave Attic Alone), Tavis Bohlinger made a plea to specifically focus on Koine in order to master “this particular type of Greek as thoroughly as possible.” This post continues a collegial dialogue about studying Greek which includes an article from Shawn Wilhite on the importance of reading background texts of the New Testament.

Since Koine Greek did not happen in a vacuum, how can one master the language (let alone do it as thoroughly as possible) by neglecting the period from which it developed—a period classified as the highest point of the Greek language? During the Hellenistic period (332–63BC), Attic Greek became Koine Greek so that all people could communicate. This is the period from which the Greek of the New Testament was written—a period where the language would undergo many changes1—and would greatly affect how Greek would come to be studied and taught.

As I write this post, I find myself transported back in time to my first ever Greek course during my undergraduate studies. The professor, full of energy and enthusiasm, entered class and proceeded to scribble on the dry erase board (though forever etching into my mind) the following formula: Knowledge + Practice = Skill. He then said something to the effect of, “we all have knowledge, some more than others and will require less practice while others require more practice, to develop this skill. The lightbulb comes on at different times for different folks.”

I wanted to believe that I had a place amongst the former group who required “less practice,” and whose filament in this professor’s metaphorical lightbulb would quickly shine brightly for all to see. After receiving the marks from my first Greek exam, the harsh reality set in that I might be in the latter group. Admittedly, I still feel the sting of that day, but I am grateful for it because my academic career, even up until the present, is spent living amongst the group that realizes the importance of “practice, practice, practice.”

While this post is primarily focused on mastering Greek in relation to Greek grammars, let me first say that I have yet to meet a Greek professor who claims to have mastered Greek in such a definitive way that they have no further questions about the language. There is a distinct difference between knowing Greek grammar and syntax and understanding Greek as a language which I hope to demonstrate further below. Mastering Greek takes a lifetime of devoted study and practice and even then, you will still sense that you need more time. Frederick Danker is said to have worked 12 hours a day, six days a week, for ten years on just revising the BDAG lexicon. When asked in an interview about whether this was true, he simply replied “Well, we did take vacations.”

We can’t all be Danker, nor should we try to be (such commitment is unrealistic for most); however, this serves to demonstrate the hard work that is necessary for understanding or “mastering” Greek.

Dethroning Grammar as king

Any student who has studied Greek beyond undergrad is likely to have encountered several different Greek grammars. Does the Greek grammar you study from really matter? Will it have an impact on the quality of your exegesis, research, or your preaching? I would suggest that these are very important but often neglected questions. One needs to do little more than pick up a modern commentary that comments on the Greek text to realize that not many (including seasoned scholars) have given much consideration to this question. The short answer is, yes. The resources you avail yourself to will impact your research, your exegesis, and your preaching.

The reality is that every Greek student has to start somewhere and, for most of us, that starting place is up to the discretion of our undergraduate or seminary professors and the textbooks they select.

While there are many grammars available on the market today, not all of them approach the language the same way nor are they equal in quality. Every Greek grammar has a time and a place in history. Understanding the time and place of the grammar you choose to use is just as significant for learning the language as what is contained inside.

I am well aware that learning Greek early on is, in many ways, a mechanical act (i.e., memorizing charts, paradigms, principal parts, etc.). You are overwhelmed with the amount of information you have to memorize for your next quiz or exam. All you’re trying to do is establish some kind of foundation to get you by, so you can build on it at a later time. I empathize with you because I have been there myself. Let me explain why I think understanding the time and place of the grammar you use is critical to both the foundation you establish for learning Greek and your subsequent understanding of the language.

In seminary, I had the privilege to serve as a teaching assistant to one of the Greek professor on campus. In our last year together, the two of us spent countless hours on our own and together in the office reading, researching, and picking each other’s brains about the Greek language (checking out every book available in the library on the topic and even requesting them to order more!). There were times where we literally went back to the drawing board (dry erase board) to challenge our understanding of Greek, so in many ways it felt more like starting over (I hope this encourages some readers to not be afraid to have meaningful conversations with your professors and mentors and to ask the hard questions). This wasn’t a matter of building on a previous foundation more than it was pouring a new one. This goes back to my earlier distinction about knowing grammar and syntax and understanding the Greek language which takes us back to the question concerning what grammar to use or learn from—a question often asked by many students who want to go deeper in their Greek studies.

Greek grammar for the most part can be divided into three major periods. Much more can be said about each period, but I’ll just mention a few salient points that impacted Greek grammars.

The Rationalist Period (18th–19th century)

In many ways, this period was concerned with making logical and rational sense of the Greek language. This is the period where the ideas of “traditionalist grammar” first appeared. Some of these ideas include relying on Latin rules which were very important and heavily used; viewing written language as more important than spoken language; and the desire to study some regularized form of the language (Attic Greek was seen as the standard). Georg Winer was the first to write a major NT grammar during this time which followed the rationalist principles of his day. Another major grammar that appeared was Blass and Debrunner’s translated by Funk (BDF) which functioned to note the places where the Greek of the NT departed from Classical Greek. Thus, Hellenistic Greek was viewed as some deficient form of Classical Greek.

One other major movement during this period was the rendering of an aspectual language into a tensed language. This is significant because something is always sacrificed in such an exchange. Either you sacrifice the aspect of the original language or you sacrifice the tense of the receptor language (it’s the main issue of rendering a non-configurational language into a configurational language). You can begin to see how some of the concerns of this period impacted the grammars that were developed.

The Comparative-Philology Period (1860–1916)

One of the major goals of the comparative-philology period was discovering how particular languages were connected to each other. This period was highly concerned with diachronic study (studying how languages were connected to each other and changed throughout time). If certain languages had so many similarities, what happened that caused all the major changes or deviations? Thus, major language families were developed during this time (e.g., Indo-European or Proto-Indo-European Languages: Celtic languages, Italic languages, Greek languages, Germanic languages, Balto-Slavic languages, Armenian language, Indo-Iranian languages to name a few). The massive grammar from A.T. Roberson is indicative of this time period. Regarding the accusative case, for example, you will notice Robertson talking about how the accusative case is compared with Latin’s accusative case or Sanskrit’s accusative case rather than seeing how each case was related to other cases within its own system synchronically.

The Modern-Linguistic Period (1916–Present)

The modern linguistic period is typically identified with synchronic study (how a language is studied at a particular point in time) and is perhaps of greatest interest to you as a reader since the grammar you are working with is likely from this period. This period, for better or worse, has seen the largest production of Greek grammars and not all are of equal quality. There are probably several different factors for the myriad of grammars being produced, but one prevailing factor is the inclusion of modern research and linguistic insights not available in previous grammars. If you do a comparative study of grammars that have been produced within the last decade, you will notice some major changes in how the Greek verb is understood—several which are reflective of different time periods.

I have selected three grammars to demonstrate my point (specifically these three because they were the requirement at the institutions where I’ve studied): 1) Bill Mounce’s Basics of Biblical Greek; 2) Gerald Steven’s New Testament Greek Primer; and 3) Stanley Porter, Jeffrey Reed, and Matthew O’Donnell’s Fundamentals of New Testament Greek.

The first two grammars view the Greek verb temporally (often referring to tense as it relates to time), albeit in different ways, while the third grammar views the verb aspectually. Mounce’s grammar is more reflective of the modern-philological period where Aktionsart categories were developed and prevalent. The aorist is not a once-for-all type of action (punctiliar or historical tense). Steven’s grammar, on the other hand, is more reflective of the rational period and views the aorist an undefined action that is past time in the indicative (historical tense). Porter/Reed/O’Donnell’s grammar is reflective of the modern-linguistic period and views the Greek verb to be atemporal, encoding aspect only (Rodney Decker’s Reading Koine Greek is similar in this regard).

In Tavis Bohlinger’s original post, he posited that “Grammar is King.” He recommended choosing a book of the New Testament, then starting with Wallace or Siebenthal’s grammar, and taking advantage of other available tools to work through the text. Then repeat the process with a different grammar and you’ll be mastering Greek.
I have attempted to demonstrate above a few reasons why such an approach is not conducive for mastering the language and why grammar ought to be “dethroned as King.” Each grammar has a time and a place from which it came or reflects. Different times and places held different understandings for the Greek language (verbs just being one example). The same thing can be said for syntax grammars and lexicons.

Impact on Exegesis

If solid exegesis is one of your goals for learning and mastering Greek, then understanding the language and not just the grammar should be of utmost importance. Just selecting a few works in Koine (grammars, lexicons, syntax books, etc.) without knowing their approach to Greek is certainly not going to render the best exegesis. If your starting point isn’t grounded, can you expect your conclusions to be? By repeating the process with a different grammar each time, you will inevitably end up with different exegetical results because each Greek grammar is not doing the same thing.

In fact, they are often conflicting in the information they convey so you can expect conflicting results. You might have sensed an internal conflict or even some confusion during your own studies if you’ve ever taken classes where you were introduced to a new grammar (the shift from the rationalist period’s temporal view of the verb to the historical-philological Aktionsart view is challenging enough, let alone shifting to an atemporal aspect view). The problem concerning exegesis can be seen in many modern commentaries where the primary grammars used are often conflicting grammars which leads to confused exegesis (but that’s a topic for another day).

Four Insights for Selecting the Right Grammar:

  1. Be aware of the time and place of the grammar. While there currently isn’t any simple guide that places each grammar within its proper period, paying attention to how verbs are treated is a good starting point. Does the grammar use temporal language (if so, does it use Aktionsart categories or not) or does it use aspectual language? Hopefully my brief explanations above offer a little help as well.
  1. Be aware of the latest insights and research in Greek studies. While there are better ways to spend your time than entering into endless debates about Greek on social media, use resources such as Nerdy Language Majors, New Testament Greek Study, The Logos Academic Blog, etc. as an avenue to see what is currently being discussed. This will help you select grammars that include the latest insights and research.
  1. Start working through important monographs on Greek. There is no shortage of important monographs that you can begin working through to gain a better grasp of the Greek language. Yes, this will take a little bit more time, but it is more than doable if you manage your time wisely. The effort will be worth it. See Wilhite’s post for some starting points on how to structure your study time. The insights you gain from the focused work of monographs will help you tremendously in determining the value of the Greek grammars you encounter.
  1. Don’t be afraid to challenge yourself and your previous understandings. I’ve always thought that learning Greek grammar from a variety of grammars, coupled with a few syntax books from Greek exegesis courses, and a couple helpful lexicons would make me a decent Greek scholar and exegete. After all, isn’t this how many of us are taught to do exegesis (gather all of your sources and see what they have to say)? Changing your position in the learning process takes a lot of humility. Don’t be afraid to challenge the grammars you’ve learned from and to select better grammars as your knowledge grows from studying Greek as a language and not as a grammar.

So, do you wish to be a dilettante, or an expert? The true expert will not just read through Greek grammars without discretion. Choose wisely, know the background and history of Greek language study, and pursue informed expertise in your journey to mastery of Koine.

Learning Greek isn’t a burden, it is a privilege. One that many around the world wish they had the opportunity to do. May we continue to be faith exegetes, researchers, and preachers in devoting our efforts to understanding the language of the New Testament.


Vinh Nguyen is a New Testament PhD student at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario Canada. He also holds an M.A. in Biblical Languages from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and a B.A. in Biblical Studies and Christian Ministry from Ouachita Baptist University.


For more on Greek Grammars and their functionality in Logos Bible Software, watch the video below by the Logos Pro Team:

  1. Dipthongs shifting to monothongs, itacisms, consonant changes, regularization of the verbal system with less Mi verbs and more omega verbs, phonological changes, decrease of hypotaxis and increase of parataxis regarding syntax, and the aspectual system underwent a change to temporal.
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Tavis Bohlinger

Dr. Tavis Bohlinger is Editor-in-Chief of the Logos Academic Blog and Creative Director at Reformation Heritage Books. He holds a PhD from Durham University and writes across multiple genres, including academia, poetry, and screenwriting. He lives in Grand Rapids with his wife and three children.

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13 comments
    • Andrew,

      For some reason, the post keeps shifting my reply down toward the bottom. I listed some bibliographic information for you.

      Blessings!

    • Matthew,

      Thanks for reading the blog. I am not quite sure I understand the question. Can you clarify? From what I understand, grammatical forms don’t have much to do with teaching rhetoric. I might be misunderstanding the question, so if you could elaborate or clarify a bit, maybe I can give a better answer or point you toward the resource you are seeking.

      Blessings!

  • I appreciate your blog Vinh. A friend in the biblical studies made me aware of certain biblical scholars contending for a theological reading of the text. If I understand my friend correctly, they postulate that a theological reading the text supersedes the grammatical understanding, because we all bring our presuppositions to the text (even the biblical writers did this). If that is true, what you have written has little value to interpreting a passage; for one’s theological presuppositions takes president. What are you thoughts on this?

    • Emmanuel,

      I appreciate this question. When it comes to Greek (or Hebrew), I think it’s important to be careful about making the language of the NT too theological as though it was some sort of Holy Spirit Greek that wasn’t a larger part of everyday life. James Barr’ seminal work, The Semantics of Biblical Language (1961), was a major corrective for this. He pretty much bankrupted the TDNT lexicon (Theological Dictionary of New Testament) which tried to make every word in the NT a theological one. There are plenty of words that were just common everyday words that didn’t carry theological significance. Numerous exegetical fallacies are committed when too much theological import happens (see Carson’s Exegetical Fallacies). That being said, we all have theological presuppositions (and non-theological one’s) that we bring to the text. I am inclined to disagree with a theological reading but also with just a pure grammatical reading. The grammatical forms by themselves aren’t helpful for interpretation because it negates how they function in context. It’s dangerous to ignore the language of the text for a theological reading. So, I would argue against a theological reading superseding grammatical understanding but keeping in mind that grammar is the starting point of language–not the end (understanding the language and how it functions in its context is important–I think). I just wrote a review on a recent commentary in the NIGTC series that commits many fallacies by handling the text theologically (mostly because folks know about James Barr’s work and still choose to ignore it). There was a Biblical Theology movement that influenced much of this.

      I appreciate the comment and hope it provided what you were seeking. They are my thoughts about it (but also many others). Many Blessings, brother! I’d be happy to clarify any further points if I didn’t understand the question correctly.

  • Hey Andrew,

    Thanks for the question. The most discussed topic in recent years has been on the Greek Verb. The three major monographs on that are:

    Porter, Stanley E. Verbal aspect in the Greek of the New Testament, with Reference to Tense and Mood. Studies in Biblical Greek 1. New York: Peter Lang, 2003.

    Fanning, Buist M. Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek. Oxford Theological Monographs: Oxford University Press, 1990.

    Campbell, Constantine R. Verbal Aspect, the Indicative mood, and Narrative: Soundings in the Greek of the New Testament. Studies in Biblical Greek v. 13. New York: Peter Lang, 2007.

    Campbell, Constantine R. Verbal aspect and Non-indicative Verbs Further Soundings in the Greek of the New Testament. New York: Peter Lang, 2008.

    (Porter, Fanning, and Campbell are the three main voices on the topic).

    Decker, Rodney J. Temporal Deixis of the Greek Verb in the Gospel of Mark with Reference to Verbal Aspect. Studies in Biblical Greek vol. 10. New York: Peter Lang, 2001.

    *Decker’s is quite an enjoyable read and a little less complex than the first three.

    McKay, K. L. A New Syntax of the Verb in New Testament Greek: An Aspectual Approach. Studies in Biblical Greek vol. 5. New York: Peter Lang, 1994.

    Huffman, Douglas S. Verbal Aspect Theory and the Prohibitions in the Greek New Testament. Studies in Biblical Greek Vol. 16. New York: Peter Lang, 2014.

    Porter, Stanley E. Studies in the Greek New Testament: Theory and Practice. Studies in Biblical Greek vol. 6. New York: Peter Lang, 1996.

    * You might also enjoy this one because it’s covers more topics on Greek that puts some of the theory to practice.

    If you want a more an introduction to the VA conversation that is a bit more manageable than the monographs, these are helpful (though they aren’t monographs–they address them).

    Porter, Stanley E., et al., eds. Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics: Open Questions in Current Research. Journal for the Study of the New Testament 80. Sheffield, England: JSOT Press, 1993.

    Some other helpful works including edited volumes and introductory texts:

    Porter, Stanley E., and Andrew W. Pitts, eds. The language of the New Testament: Context, History, and Development. Linguistic Biblical Studies v. 6. Leiden ; Boston: Brill, 2013.

    Porter, Stanley E. Linguistic Analysis of the Greek New Testament: Studies in Tools, Methods, and Practice. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2015.

    Campbell, Constantine R. Advances in the Study of Greek: New Insights for Reading the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015.

    ———. Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek. Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan, 2008.

    I hope some of these are of help. Within Greek studies, some of the ones listed are arguably the most important monographs on the Greek language (especially the VA conversation). Some of the edited volumes offer helpful background information as well.

    Happy reading! Feel free to email me or post additional comments if you have any other questions.

    • Thank you for all of that!

      Quick follow-up: Have you read the essays in The Greek Verb Revisited by Steven E. Runge and Christopher J. Fresch? If so, what are your thoughts on it?

  • Andrew,

    I have read nearly all of those essays. In fact, I’ve either read or sat through some of those contributions in person. I am not sure the book in its entirety accomplished what the authors were expecting. In fact, when I attended the review of the book at last year’s SBL meeting in Boston, it became clear that the book wasn’t well received (even by some who originally endorsed it! That was strange).

    Let me make some general overall comments and then address those two specific essays. I, for one, am not sure how the title fits the book (I am aware that this is also Stan’s argument but along different lines). Stan takes issue with the sub-title, in that, he is not sure how a book of this sort offers “A fresh approach” for biblical exegesis since the book offers “approaches.” I, on the other hand, take issue with the primary title (which Stan might as well but I’m not sure). I was hoping that by “revisited” the book would be offering some new insights. It doesn’t. It simply “revisits” old problems that many are already aware of which seems to contradict “fresh approaches.” In fact, while Con Campbell initially endorsed this book, he said during the review of the book (something to the effect of) it being “old stuff dressed up in new linguistic garb.” That’s essentially true. I’m not sure he thoroughly read it (maybe scoped it) before endorsing it–at least that’s what the review session seemed to indicate. Part of the problem (and why I also left it off the bibliography I provided) is that they wrote a book on a major topic without including the three major voices of the conversation (Porter, Fanning, Campbell) with Campbell being a much later voice. If you look at the author index and see how heavily Stan Porter is cited, it seems more like a book targeted at him more than anything else (something Stan pointed out during the conference but also noticeable if you follow Steve’s blog–which seems dedicated to being against Stan Porter).

    Chris Fresch’s essay didn’t really add anything to the conversation in my opinion. Much of his contribution was rehashing old material that most are already aware of. I’m not sure how his typology section accomplishes anything in the end. He draws his conclusions off of how things “typically” (a word he uses often–I guess to be modest in the conclusions drawn) appear. But all that does it puts the conversation back to why those original monographs were written in the first place! The issue with considering Greek verbs +PAST or any temporal implicature is that you will always run into many more exceptions than just viewing it aspectually. He thinks to view the language only as aspectual push the pendulum too far the opposite way, but his conclusions only offer more instability than they do stability. So, what then does that actually accomplish? How does that offer fresh insights for biblical exegesis (a part of the title that never gets integrated into the individual essay in any real way, unfortunately)? In fact, it will only perpetuate confused exegesis in my opinion.

    As far as Steve’s essay goes, I think it’s indicative of the discourse school that he follows (which he never openly states or clarifies for people) That is, it seems as though he speaks of discourse as if it’s only one thing or only has one perspective. There are at least five different schools of thought on discourse analysis of which Runge subscribes to the SIL school following Stephen Levinsohn. Again, similar to his blog posts (which I’ve read and analyzed), the essay seems to be a treatise against Porter more than anything else. While I do appreciate that this essay actually provides some exegesis to demonstrate its points, it seems (at least to me) that Runge’s view of the perfect in discourse is one that just has a different aim. That is, on the most general level, he attributes different functions for the perfect across different genres–I think. It seems to be less about the how it functions within the language system and more about how it functions in specific contexts. He is right that the perfect tense-form is the most discussed within verbal aspect studies. There is an edited volume coming out soon called “The Perfect Storm” which originated from a session at SBL involving Porter, Fanning, and Campbell. The last we checked with D.A. Carson, he informed us that it was delayed but now finished and headed to be printed.

    At least, those are some of my preliminary thoughts on their essays without doing a full review of them. I wish more would have been addressed during the panel discussion for the book, but the entire event was kind of unorganized and strange in my opinion.

    I hope this helps! Again, these are just my thoughts and I’m always okay with pushback on them.

  • Several comments in no particular order.
    1. I have lived in Greece and speak demotiki. When I listen to audio recordings of koine, it’s not hard to get the drift or indeed understand familiar texts (e.g. gospels). Not so 5th century Attic, it’s too different.
    2. Related to above, language is ultimately speech, not writing. Listening and speaking, grammar and analysis are done in totally different parts of the brain. I learnt and teach grammar but on its own, it is not enough.
    3. Energy put into mastering Attic might be better spent gaining fluency and familiarity in koine; the novels like Chariton are a good place to start. The study of Milton, Chaucer and Shakespeare has its place, but is hardly the wisest use of time for the average foreigner wishing to master contemporary English.

    • John,

      Thanks for the comment.

      It seems like you’re advocating for some middle ground? You seem to agree with both of us on different points. Concerning your first point, there is quite a big difference between Koine and demotiki. Most people who have studied Koine their entire careers struggle to have a conversation with local citizens when they visit Greece (vocabulary and syntax not being the only barriers). I do recognize the advantage you have with the language since you aren’t as far removed as say a Native English speaker. However, we are speaking about two completely different issues here. I suspect it’s not hard for you to “get the drift” of the gospels because, as you admit, they are familiar to you. I can say the same thing as a non-demotiki speaker when I listen to audio versions of Koine (though perhaps not as well as you, if someone reads me a section of the NT in Greek, my familiarity with the English text still allows me to “get the drift” of where that passage is in the text and what it says (what it means is something completely different). If Attic isn’t familiar to you, I wouldn’t expect you to be able to catch the drift of any passage. Also, Koine Greek in the study of the NT isn’t about comparing spoken vs. written language since all we have is the written text. It’s not a good comparison to make when it comes to arguing for how the language is best learned.

      I agree with the second half of your second point. It’s the gist of my argument that grammar is not enough. I’m not sure I understand the first part though. Since we are speaking about Koine Greek, we are dealing with a written text, not a spoken language. So I’m not sure how making a distinction between listening and speaking and grammar and analysis is relevant to the present conversation.

      I also would agree with not putting energy into “mastering” Attic in your third point. But, I am comparing written aspects of the language from that period with the period from which Koine developed. There are influences that are largely helpful for understanding Koine in its written form. I’m not sure how the second part of point three is relevant here either. The differences in that example are primarily ones concerning vocabulary and archaic language which are more matters of learning vocabulary (a small part of grammar).

      If I misunderstood what you were attempting to convey, please feel free to correct my understanding. Thanks for reading the post.

      Blessings!

Written by Tavis Bohlinger
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