Today I uploaded “Lesson 19: Semantic Roles and Voice, The Aorist Passive” to my Hellenisitic Greek grammar. I will add vocabulary exercises later. I also added a significant amount to the Topical Index.
Scope of a Hellenistic Greek Grammar III: Papyri
Since the papyri have been mentioned twice already in this discussion of the scope of a Hellenistic Greek Grammar, I thought I would offer a little of my own take on the issue.
The papyri are extremely valuable for documenting language change. They are not as helpful for documenting a particular point in the middle of that change. Their very variability offers great evidence for the shifts that were occurring in pronunciation during the Hellenistic period, for example, but they don’t help in understanding Luke’s discourse preferences.
Their importance, from a linguistic point of view, has been that they have given us a clearer picture of conversational or informal Greek in and around Egypt and have clarified to some extent what we might call business Greek or the language of commerce. These are legitimate concerns for a grammar of Hellenistic Greek, but are not necessarily crucial for understanding the biblical documents.
It is very hard to sort out all of the variation in the papyri, but they are nonetheless fascinating.
See also, “Scope of a Hellenistic Greek Grammar IV.”
Scope of a Hellenistic Greek Grammar II: Jewish and Early Christian Literature
The discussion on the documentary scope of a Hellenistic Greek Grammar has slowed a little, so I want to pull out one comment by Rick Brannan for further discussion. After citing O’Donnell’s proposed corpus, Rick proposes a few further works that I also think deserve serious attention.
He suggests two works from the Apostolic Fathers, and both fit the literary level and style of much of what is in the New Testament. He also suggests including Philo [of Alexandria], in addition to Josephus. Both of these authors were Jewish and each was bilingual (though not to the same degree), and because of this share certain features with several of the New Testament writers. Here’s what Rick Brannan had to say:
In Matthew Brook O’Donnell’s “Corpus Linguistics and the Greek of the New Testament”, he outlines a corpus of Hellenistic works to use for corpus linguistic purposes; there may be some insight. See pp. 164-165 of his book. It comes down to the NT, a few LXX books (Judges, 1 Macc, 2 Esdras) Hermas, Ignatius’ letters, Josephus’ Life, Philo’s On Moses. Then it gets interesting: Strabo’s Geography, Epictetus’ Dissertations, Polybius’ History, Plutarch’s Cato Minor, Arrian’s Anabasis, Diodorus Siculus’ Library of History, Cassius Dio’s Roman History, Apollodorus’ Library, and a generic “Selection of Documentary Papyri” and a generic “Selection of Inscriptions” (no further info on those last two). I think there should be more LXX, Apostolic Fathers (namely 1 Clement and Hermas, at least), Josephus and Philo, and that perhaps some of the early Greek OT Pseudepigrapha and NT Apocrypha too.
Are there other works from the Early Christian and Jewish communities that you think should be included in the documentary base for a serious grammar of Hellenistic Greek?
See also, “Scope of a Hellenistic Greek Grammar III: Papyrii.”
Navigation in My Introductory Grammar
I have completed my revisions of the navigation system in my introductory grammar of Hellenistic Greek. The 18 lessons currently available all have a navigation bar at the top and bottom as well as a link to the topical index at the bottom.
It will be quite some time before I am able to complete the grammar, but the lessons that are currently available are 100% free. No adds. No fees. Use them as you please. If you quote them, though, please include the URL in your citation.
Micheal Palmer’s Hellenistic Greek
One more day for Greek
I’m happy to have most of the day tomorrow to work on Greek. It’s beautiful outside, and even more beautiful now that it’s confirmed I have the day off tomorrow!
I hope to make some progress on my introductory grammar. I’ve been polishing the HTML for the past few days, fixing links, cleaning up the look of the pages, etc.
Scope of a Hellenistic Greek Grammar
We could speak about the scope of a grammar of an ancient language in several ways. We could talk about what issues belong in a beginning grammar, what in an intermediate, and what in an advanced or reference grammar. Perhaps I will write about that at a later time. The issue of scope that I have in mind now is the documentary scope. What documents should serve as the basis for the grammar. What documents should the grammar enable its users to read?
This is an important question for Hellenistic Greek in particular because the answer has seemed obvious for so long, but there is reason to question the traditional answer. The majority of grammars of Hellenistic Greek deal either exclusively with the New Testament or are limited to the early Christian Literature. While the traditional reference grammars give passing attention to the wider Hellenistic literature, beginning and intermediate grammars in the past fifty years have seldom ever referred to anything outside the New Testament.
The early Christian literature is, of course, extremely important, and is what the majority of students of Hellenistic Greek most want to read. But do we not risk misunderstanding by failing to examine a wider range of literature? Here are a few ways in which a wider range of literature could make understanding of the biblical texts more accurate:
I am attempting to move in the direction of including a broader range of Hellenistic literature in my own beginning grammar. While it is still heavily dominated by the early Christian literature, I am reading as much as possible outside that tradition to make sure that what I have to say in the grammar is actually true to a wider range of texts.
Here are some of the texts I have been reading:
- Epictetus, Discourses (ΑΡΡΙΑΝΟΥ ΤΩΝ ΕΠΙΚΤΗΤΟΥ ΔΙΑΤΡΙΒΩΝ)
Diodorus Siculus, Library of History (ΒΙΒΛΙΟΘΗΚΗΣ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΚΗΣ)
Chariton of Aphrodisias, The Story of Callirhoe (ΤΑ ΠΕΡΙ ΚΑΛΛΙΡΟΗΝ ΔΙΗΓΗΜΑΤΑ)
These texts represent a fairly wide range of styles and literary levels, though not as wide as it might appear at first glance. The Discourses of Epictetus, for example, were actually written by Arrian. Epictetus did not write down his own teachings. The relationship between him and the document that bears his name is similar in some respects (not identical) to the relationship between Jesus and his words as presented in the Gospels. Jesus did not write them. In fact, he may have spoken in Aramaic, and the Gospel writers had to translate what was remembered of his words. Arrian wrote from notes, violating the intention of his teacher who thought true philosophy should be oral, not written.
I would love to hear from you about what you see as the ideal documentary scope of a Hellenistic Greek Grammar.
See also, “Scope of a Hellenistic Greek Grammar II: Jewish and Early Christian Literature.”
Levinsohn's, "Toward a Unified Description of οὗτος and ἐκεῖνος”
Steve Runge notified me a few days ago that Levinsohn’s paper, “Towards a Unified Linguistic Description of οὗτος and ἐκεῖνος,” is now out in print. You can find it in The Linguist as Pedagogue, a volume from Sheffield, edited by Porter and O’Donnell, 2009. I have not seen the volume, but Steve assures me that it contains a number of good papers, including Pennington’s chapter on deponency.
Thanks Steve.
More Additions to the Bibliography
Here are two more books that I have recently added to my Greek Linguistics bibliography at Greek-Language.com:
Runge, Steven E. Discourse Grammar of the Greek New Testament: A Practical Introduction for Teaching and Exegesis. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2009. Price and purchase information
Danove, Paul. Grammatical and Exegetical Study of New Testament Verbs of Transference: A Case Frame Guide to Interpretation and Translation (Library of New Testament Studies). T & T Clark International, August 18, 2009. Price and purchase information
Additions to Bibliography
I added two items to my Comprehensive Bibliography of Hellenistic Greek Linguistics today. Both address the use of Greek demonstratives. The paper by Runge is available online (as a PDF download).
Levinsohn, Stephen H. “Towards a Unified Linguistic Description of οὗτος and ἐκεῖνος.” Paper presented at Biblical Greek and Linguistics Section of the SBL Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA. 2003.
Runge, S. E. “The Exegetical Significance of Cataphoric Pronouns in Luke’s Gospel.” Paper presented at the ETS Northwest Regional Meeting, Salem, OR. 2007.
http://www.logos.com/media/academic/runge/cataphoric_pronouns.pdf
Happy New Year / Ευτυχισμένο το Νέο Έτος
Happy New Year! I’ve included the Modern Greek phrase for Happy New Year, but I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a similar phrase in an Ancient Greek text. If you have, post it here as a comment!