Book Reviews
survey of these various aspects of ecclesiology as well as the discussion of the
numerous questions and challenges still being raised.
It is difficult to summarize and critique a volume of this kind given the
diversity of topics and authors. But one common thread easily emerges out
of the summaries and reviews of the various denominational ecclesiologies,
major theologians, and contemporary movements of the twentieth century it
presents. Modern ecclesiologies have moved away from primarily discussing
issues of form, governance, and authority, to emphasize the nature of the
church as the people of God and the community of believers in Jesus Christ
as Savior and Lord, commissioned to witness in the power of the Holy Spirit
to the world of the gracious and saving love of God. While an ecumenical
consensus on the doctrine of the church and its multitude of questions and
concerns is far from being reached, this emphasis on the church as a commu-
nity is perhaps one of its greatest and most helpful achievements.
Andrews University D F
Black, David Alan, and Benjamin L. Merkle, eds. Linguistics and New Testa-
ment Greek: Key Issues in the Current Debate. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Academic, 2020. xi + 276 pp. Softcover. USD 29.99.
Scholars working in the field of biblical exegesis have at times struggled to
incorporate current linguistic theories into their use of biblical languages.
To begin addressing this lacuna, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
held a symposium about it on April 26–27 of 2019. The title of the meeting
became the title of the current book, since the papers delivered at the confer-
ence have now been collected, with a preface and postscript offered by the
editors. The volume is concluded with a glossary, biographies of the contribu-
tors, and an index. With this volume, David Black writes, “students of Greek
[will] think more linguistically about the language they are studying” (3).
Each essay represents a summary of a way in which linguistic theory can affect
the teaching and interpretation of New Testament Greek.
In chapter 1 Stanley Porter introduces the reader to various linguistic
schools. He divides the schools into “traditional,” “formal,” “cognitive,” and
“functional.” The reader will not grasp all of the nuances of each linguistic
school based solely on this chapter. The explanation for Systemic Functional
Linguistics—perhaps the most important school for future study on Koine
Greek—comprises a single paragraph. This dearth of explanation is mitigated
somewhat by numerous references to New Testament studies that make use
of the various linguistic schools. The next three chapters focus on the Greek
verb. In chapter 2, Constantine Campbell discusses advances in understand-
ing the Greek verbal aspect, including the question of whether temporality
is encoded in tense morphology. Michael Aubrey follows with a discussion
Andrews University Seminary Studies 58 (Fall 2020)
about the form of the Greek perfect tense. Both of these chapters are distilled
from their authors’ research emphases. Campbell wrote on the verbal aspect
for his doctoral dissertation at Macquarie University, a dissertation that was
subsequently published by Peter Lang. Aubrey’s interest in the perfect tense
stems from his Master’s thesis, completed at Trinity Western University. In
chapter 4, Jonathan Pennington writes on the middle voice and its implication
in exegesis. He argues that a proper understanding of middle-voice semantics
will eliminate the need to speak of certain Greek verbs as “deponent.” More
specifically, he suggests Greek middle morphology decreases the transitivity of
the verb and marks the verb for subject-affectedness. Of these two proposals,
the latter is more convincing. In the New Testament, examples abound of
intransitive active verbs and transitive middle verbs. In the case where middle
forms are chosen in lieu of active ones, it is often difficult to see how a loss of
transitivity could be the deciding factor in choosing one form over another.
On the other hand, subject-affectedness is likely the key to understanding
the Greek middle. It is instructive that when Pennington offers examples of
exegesis, his two texts (Jas 4:2–3; Mark 6:22–25) illustrate the middle form’s
emphasis on subject-affectedness, but not loss of transitivity.
The following two chapters deal with the promising field of discourse
analysis. In chapter 5, Stephen Levinsohn introduces the topic by applying
discourse analysis to Galatians. Beginning with large thematic boundaries
and moving to smaller functional markers, Levinsohn demonstrates well how
functional grammar and discourse analysis can be applied to New Testament
books from both a macro- and micro-perspective. In chapter 6, Steven Runge
applies the methodology of discourse analysis more specifically to word,
phrase, and clause ordering. Runge expands on concepts found in his Discourse
Grammar of the Greek New Testament (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2010), a
volume that has already become a standard in its field. Runge includes several
helpful examples from the Gospel of John to illustrate how emphasis can be
deduced from the order of constituents in one or more clauses.
The final five chapters focus on issues of language acquisition and
pedagogy. In chapter 7, T. Michael Halcomb charts the trajectory of language
pedagogy from the Renaissance to the twenty-first century. He is especially
inclined toward “Living Language” approaches to teaching, as exemplified
by the “Lingua Latina” series. In a passionate conclusion, Halcomb calls on
Greek teachers to be willing to rethink their methods to accommodate a
changing world. On the importance of learning Greek through pronuncia-
tion, Randall Buth makes the case in chapter 8 that oral language learning has
more to do with reading comprehension than had previously been thought.
He follows this argument with a demonstration of how scholars can come
to a reasonable approximation of the spoken Koine Greek dialect through
spelling variations attested in ancient letters, manuscripts, and inscriptions.
His suggestions fall between Modern and Erasmian pronunciation systems,
Book Reviews
which is sure to make educators on both sides of the debate uncomfortable.
Thomas Hudgins’s chapter (9) on “Electronic Tools and New Testament
Greek” describes numerous resources available online covering the topics of
language acquisition, textual criticism, lexical analysis, and syntactic analysis.
He admits that “a chapter on electronic tools and New Testament Greek is
almost futile” due to the ever-changing nature of technology and resource
access (195). Nevertheless, his chapter will be useful for at least the near
future. Chapter 10, by Robert Plummer, is a short imaginative exposition of
what an “ideal beginning Greek grammar” would look like. For those who
do not see themselves embarking on the task of creating such a grammar,
Plummer also includes resources to supplement the teaching of beginning
Greek. The last chapter, by Nicholas Ellis, lays out how linguistic theory has
affected biblical exegesis over the last hundred years, with some significant
overlap with the history told by Porter (ch 1). Ellis, however, focuses more on
lexical studies. He concludes with a few notes on how linguistic theory can
continue impacting biblical exegesis. Following these essays, editor Benjamin
Merkle offers a postscript, in which he asks “Where do we go from here?”
(247). Summarizing much of what was discussed in the book, Merkle spends
special attention on the studies on verbs.
Linguistics and New Testament Greek represents a promising trend in the
biblical scholarship of incorporating broader linguistic theory into exegesis
and pedagogy. Rather than viewing biblical Greek as a code that needs to be
cracked, the contributors to this volume encourage the reader to view Koine
Greek as a language spoken by real people. Insights gained from modern
languages can thus assist us in understanding what the biblical authors were
communicating long ago. The topics covered in this volume are by no means
simple nor settled. The book should be viewed as a starting point toward
further research since most chapters leave the reader with more questions than
answers. The authors give helpful references that will assist the reader to dig
deeper into a chosen topic. Linguistic theory has come a long way since the
hay-days of Noam Chomsky. Best practices in second-language acquisition
have developed greatly from the rote memorization of previous centuries.
Such a jumping-off point is needed, given the weight of tradition that hangs
upon Greek exegesis and pedagogy. Change does not come easy, but Linguistics
and New Testament Greek offers reasons to challenge long-held assumptions
regarding the teaching and use of Koine Greek in biblical studies. Teachers
of the Greek New Testament would do well to accept some of its proposals.
Dallas, Texas J A. C
