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The Biblical Greek Mailing List

This page describes the B-Greek mailing list, which has been replaced by the B-Greek Forum. You can still read the archives of the mailing list here. Links that once allowed people to subscribe to the mailing list have been replaced with links to the forum.

B-Greek is a mailing list for scholars and students of Biblical Greek. Our main focus is upon understanding the Greek text of the Bible. Discussion topics include scholarly study of the Greek Bible and related Jewish and Christian Greek texts, tools for beginning and advanced students of Biblical Greek such as textbooks, reference works, bibliography and research tools, and linguistic topics such as morphology, lexicography, syntax,and discourse analysis.

B-Greek was established in 1992 by David Marotta at the Center for Christian Study, an independent Christian ministry at the University of Virginia. In 1998 the list changed its venue to metalab at UNC-Chapel Hill after David asked to step down as list owner. We are grateful to David for his vision of a forum where the Greek text and language of the Bible are probed in ongoing conversation by an eclectic group of beginning students and veteran teachers, lay persons and clergy, conservatives and liberals, earnest inquirers and academic scholars — equally committed to probing the Biblical text in the original Koine, and jointly exploring the mysteries and probabilities of Biblical Greek morphology and syntax.

Anyone interested in New Testament Studies is invited to subscribe, but list-members will be assumed to have at least a working knowledge of Biblical Greek. While "lurkers" are welcome to receive and read list correspondence, posts to the list are expected to pose questions about Biblical Greek, not general questions or opinions about doctrine or the meaning of the English text. Even basic questions are welcome, provided they are really about the meaning of the Greek text. This is not a general discussion list for Biblical matters. While one need not be a Greek scholar to subscribe, one should at least be taking the first serious steps in the study of Biblical Greek.

To subscribe or browse B-Greek postings, use these links:

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Topics Discussed

B-Greek focuses on the Greek language of the Bible, Greek texts, and resources helpful for understanding the text and language of the Bible. It is not a forum for general Bible issues, except insofar as they may bear specifically upon interpretation of a particular Greek text, Neither is it a forum general or specific hermeneutical or theological issues.

Some topics ordinarily discussed on B-Greek are:

Questions about Greek textual variants bearing on the interpretation of a particular passage may be appropriate (but not general discussion of textual criticism itself — for which there is a special list of its own; if you are interested, you can find more information at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/textualcriticism/.

 

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Reading and responding to messages

Reading messages is simple - they arrive as e-mail messages, and you read them with your e-mail program. However, most e-mail programs can't handle Greek characters, so we use capital ASCII characters instead. For instance, you might receive a message that contains a Greek phrase that looks like this: EN ARCH HN hO LOGOS, KAI hO LOGOS HN PROS TON QEON, KAI QEOS HN hO LOGOS. To convert this to Greek letters, use the following key:

There are two good reasons for using capitals: it makes it easier to spot the Greek in a text, and it allows us to use lowercase 'h' for rough breathing. However, you can also use lowercase, especially if you use quotes or separate paragraphs to separate the Greek from your English text. This is just one way to transliterate Greek, and members of this list use several different schemes, but we always manage to figure out what is meant. If you want a more detailed description of transliteration schemes used in B-Greek, read Transliterating Greek in messages sent to B-Greek.

Creating messages or responding to messages is just like sending e-mail, except that you should always send it to b-greek@lists.ibiblio.org. If you are replying to a message, make sure that the message is sent to b-greek@lists.ibiblio.org in either the To: field or the Cc: field. You may also want to send your reply to the person who posted the original message. If you are not changing the subject, please don't change the subject line - our archives use the subject line to organize messages, and keeping the same subject line makes it easier to find in the archives.

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Netiquette

The B-Greek list has generally been characterized by respect, and has had remarkably few flames. And we like it that way! It makes B-Greek a pleasant place to hang around, and it promotes useful, interesting discussion. These guidelines are intended to help explain the behavior we expect on the list:

 

 

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B-Greek people

The B-Greek list is run by a small staff of Greek scholars and computer folk. This section lists only a few of these people - the co-chairs, who are responsible for overseeing the content, and the list-owner, who keeps the software running:

The co-chairs were selected for their academic credentials, skill in Greek, and interpersonal skills. They keep B-Greek interesting, accurate, and friendly. The list owner is a wannabee Greek scholar and a genuine computer nerd. He likes to hang out on B-Greek, and they let him as long as he keeps the software running.

Of course, this page doesn't even mention the most important B-Greek people - the people who participate in B-Greek. The best way to get in touch with these people is to join B-Greek!

 

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