I just picked up Robertson’s Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research for a couple bucks at a thrift store. I’m a beginning/intermediate reader of NT Greek. Maybe someone here could offer a take on a couple questions.
Is any part of the book under academic scrutiny? (I bought most volumes of Kittel’s TDNT at the same store, and finding criticism of that scholarship is very easy)
As I stumble across unknown NT grammar, I have been able to learn using commentaries and Smyth’s grammar. Is it worthwhile to begin turning to Robertson before Smyth for NT Greek? (I’ll find this out firsthand in the upcoming days and weeks, no doubt)
In the book’s 1500 pages, is there any section particularly weighty or useful to intermediate readers (I’ll probably begin looking through the pages on Word Formation later tonight).
Any respectable NT Greek reference book is worth picking up for the price of a latte.
Intermediate is a very broad category. Many years ago Robertson was assigned reading in the grammar course which followed the nine hour non-credit summer crash course called “baby” greek which was required before you could enroll as an MDiv student. Dana and Mantey was also assigned because Robertson was understood to be too much for students in the first year. I don’t know if anyone still use these texts in classroom. I doubt it.
Robertson is a reference work not a textbook. His approach is very different from most Intermediate NT Grammars. When your looking for a quick answer to a very specific question you end up having to read five to ten pages of dense 19th century philology written in style that is certain to drive a linguist up the wall. I read Robertson but I have to translated everything he says into a linguistic framework which isn’t easy. Robertson was pre-Saussure and I am post-Chomsky.
The question “is there a good Intermediate NT Grammar” is discussed endlessly on b-greek. I don’t have much to say about it having little knowledge of what sort of presentation would be suitable for students of the 21st century. A scholar friend of mine from N. Ireland has put the following book on order with intention of using it in the classroom. It might be good idea to look at it before you layout any cash.
Going Deeper with New Testament Greek
An Intermediate Study of the Grammar and Syntax of the New Testament
Kostenberger, Andreas J. (Author) , Merkle, Benjamin L. (Author) , Plummer, Robert L. (Author)
thanks for reply CS. It was the price of half a latte . I started Greek only after certain thrift store finds…a pocket edition Nestle-Aland NT ($1.50) and, days later, an 8 volume box of Platon’s Werke ($10, dual language Greek/German in the Schleiermacher translation). (I took an intensive Latin course in uni years previous to the finds, and am rarely frightened off because a high expectation for students)
“Intermediate” is a broad term. A little more description: I’ve spent about 2 years on Biblical Greek–about 10 weeks working through Croy’s Biblical Greek, followed by endless reading–LXX, NT, Didache. Constant vocab memorization. And (very) slowly going through Hansen&Quinn and Mastronarde textbooks–I’m not in a rush.
Every couple days (sometimes daily), I will want or need a commentary. When commentator describes (new-to-me) grammar, I look in Smyth for clarification, and make flashcards as necessary. This combo has worked well in what I consider a “beginning-intermediate” stage of self-learning. I had not considered turning to Smyth a “quick solution”–but now I see it is when compared to Robertson! In the first year after finishing Croy, I was periodically frustrated with no “intermediate” textbook. But reading, rereading, using commentaries and a grammar, using this site to somewhat guide my reading…at this point, I’m not convinced there’s a need.
Thank you for the Dana and Mantey reference, I’ll flip through a PDF this afternoon. At closer to 400 pages, it may be a better (quick) supplement to the NT than Smyth or Robertson.
“Intermediate” is a broad term. A little more description: I’ve spent about 2 years on Biblical Greek–about 10 weeks working through Croy’s Biblical Greek, followed by endless reading–LXX, NT, Didache. Constant vocab memorization. And (very) slowly going through Hansen&Quinn and Mastronarde textbooks–I’m not in a rush.
akhnaten,
That sounds like a very substantial launch. Dana and Mantey is sort of commentary on A. T. Roberson. They constantly refer to him. My mt climbing friend who did some peaks[1] with me the year I graduated from seminary two years after he graduated from Dallas, has a very low view of Dana and Mantey. I don’t agree with him. I think the southern baptists in mid-century understood their student’s capabilities, thus Dana and Mantey was popular in mid-century bible belt schools. It is out of date. But you have to be able to read stuff from that framework if your going to use any commentaries published in the 20th century or earlier. So you might as well get familiar with how they did things back then because the secondary literature is full that method of exegesis. Exegetical commentaries like that are still being published (e.g, 2Cor M. J. Harris, NIGTC 2005).
I haven’t seen any serious departures from NT Greek Exegesis “standard theory” taking the form of an Intermediate Grammar. To get into contemporary linguistics you need to read monographs many of which can be downloaded in .pdf format. There is no hurry about getting into monographs. A good grasp on “standard theory” is a platform from which you can launch into more esoteric stuff.
note: “standard theory” is not a reference to early-Chomsky.
[1] Little Tahoma, St Helens (pre-1980), Mt Constance (Olympics) , Mt Rainier, … bunch of little stuff.
Markos. page 426 on Paratactic Sentences? Thank you for the recommendation.
I owe you an immense amount of gratitude for the graded readings, particularly of Jonah and Revelations. Any textkit beginner in Biblical Greek not using that resource is doing him or herself a disservice, IMO. I remember very well how thrilled I was reading this simplified Greek when I was going through Croy and needing (or at least craving) more Greek reading.
CSB, if you have any better suggestions for an intermediate reader than primary source + reference grammar, I’m all ears. i’ve found i’m more comfortable with scholarship from the 1970s (moreland&fleischer, hanson&wilson), when it seems a little more was expected from students than the 90s/2000s. i did read a monograph on prepositions that was suggested by someone on textkit that has helped me. i’ve seen monographs on particles and other subjects, but most of them assume more familiarity with Attic Greek.
I’ll try the Dana and Motley before turning to Smyth over the next month or so and give some feedback. Smyth has been very useful given the (relative) clarity of language and labeled divisions on grammar. I thought this was a rather cumbersome way to keep learning–until seeing this brick of a book by Robertson. But it would be nice for some NT examples and NT vocabulary in the examples. I hope a transition to D&M may provide that.
As far as NT “exegesis”…I am extremely skeptical of my “interpretation” of religious texts at this point, and am concerning myself with syntax and grammatical issues (and the lifelong acquisition of vocab). So the commentaries I’ve used are commentaries on the Greek grammar more than interpretation (Culy on Johannine epistles). I was raised a Christian Scientist and though I consider myself an agnostic, it has actually proven pretty difficult–perhaps impossible!–for me to interpret Christian texts outside this framework. I have read a fair amount of philosophy and German hermeneutics (mainly Schleiermacher and Peter Szondi with a lil’ Gadamer all in translation–to my knowledge, no Baptists, Southern or otherwise). I have used Milton S. Terry’s Biblical Hermeneutics: A Treatise on the Interpretation of the Old and New Testament and Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament to guide interpretation outside of Christian Science–but these resources are a result of a thrift store acquisitions as much as anything else.
(i am also poster “leninbert” or “philipglass” on this forum (i’ve forgotten my username/pw). I read 1 John with Vlachos and Wilson’s workbook when I was nearing the end of Croy. I am extremely indebted to this site and its users for guiding me on what texts to start with (ie, myabe don’t jump into Luke, Acts or Peter’s epistles), for the guided readers, and a willingness to lend a hand. Not to mention re-affirming that auto-didactic learning and (somewhat) independent study of Greek is possible. My sincere thanks.)
The aim of this grammar is to introduce the student to the structure of the Greek language in the briefest possible time. Notice that structure and Greek language are being emphasized. It is the language itself and not a grammar about that language that the student who wishes to learn to read Greek needs to confront. For that reason, the grammar itself is suppressed wherever possible. And, if modern linguistics is correct in its fundamental affirmations, the one needful thing in learning a new language is familiarity with its grammatical structure. Such familiarity need not be explicit; the learner needs to “know” the structure and structure signals only in the sense that he is able, immediately and without deliberation, to respond to them.
And yes this is one and the same Robert W Funk of The Jesus Seminar and the translator of Blass Debrunner Funk (BDF). I have been told by non-linguists that Funk was a structuralist. I have not spent much time in BEGINNING-INTERMEDIATE Funk so I can’t evaluate his linguistic framework.
. I started Greek only after certain thrift store finds…a pocket edition Nestle-Aland NT ($1.50) and, days later, an 8 volume box of Platon’s Werke ($10, dual language Greek/German in the Schleiermacher translation). (I took an intensive Latin course in uni years previous to the finds, and am rarely frightened off because a high expectation for students)