Smyth's grammar

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Aug 21 07:54:06 EDT 2002


At 11:28 AM -0400 8/20/02, Paul Toseland wrote:
>on 8/19/02 10:16 AM, Anh Michael wrote:
>
>> They explained that he does not have all those
>>theological presuppositions > that NT Greek
>>Grammars contain.
>
>To which Clay replied,
>
>>The only grammars I know of that get embroiled
>>in theology, apologetics and so forth are also
>>books that fail on the strictly linguistic level.
>
>I too would not wish to accuse the major NT
>grammars of being diverted by theological or
>apologetic concerns. But it seems to me that the
>NT is not the ideal corpus of texts upon which to
>base a grammar. If one is to support a grammatical
>abstraction by means of a given text, the meaning
>of that text, so far as it bears upon the point
>at issue, must be clear not only to the grammarian,
>but also to his target audience. While in many
>cases there will be no problem, particularly in
>narrative, the NT texts are highly complex and
>sophisticated. They make extenisve use of
>intertextual effects (allusions to and echoes of
>the OT and other literature; though mostly prose,
>they are often highly poetic; they are all
>rhetorical pieces, and use rheotorical devices
>such as ambiguity to great effect; and they use
>structural devices such as chiasmus pretty
>extensively. All this makes them difficut,
>sometimes, to understand.
>
>I really like Smyth; like ATR, it is readable and
>Inherently interesting and enjoyable. But I am
>Concerned that it is a classical, not a Hellenistic
>Grammar; I am often unsure whether some of the
>Rules he elicits were still normative in the first
>century. Can someone reassure me?

I don't really disagree with anything you have said here, Paul. You very
nicely characterize the literary range and depth of the GNT corpus by way
of indicating what must be accounted for in an adequate grammar to be used
by students of that corpus. I appreciate your comments on both Smyth and
ATR. What I have always appreciated most about ATR is that he understood
the history of ancient Greek, not just NT Koine Greek, as well as any
scholar of his era and made use of that broader understanding of the
language to elucidate what is distinctive in the grammatical usage of the
GNT. Smyth, on the other hand, focuses almost exclusively upon Attic Greek
grammar, although he makes distinctions, where appropriate, between
Homeric, Attic, and other-than-Attic dialect usage. BDF is a NT descriptive
grammar intended to be used by students who have previously learned or had
a good exposure to classical Attic Greek and it is considerably less
helpful to students who want to use it but who have NOT had that prior
exposure to classical Attic. Other NT Greek grammars in common use today
are weaker, in my opinion anyway, for NOT relating NT Greek grammatical
analysis to historical Greek grammatical usage: this would be one of my
chief complaints about Wallace's GGBB, although in many respects I think it
is an excellent and useful book. What I am really looking forward to and
hope to live long enough yet to see in print is the new Hellenistic Greek
Grammar currently in preparation under the chairmanship of Darryl Schmidt
and sponsored by the Westar Institute; this is an enterprise promoted by
Robert Funk, the original English translator of the Blass-Debrunner German
classic NT Greek grammar that we designate as BDF (Blass-Debrunner-Funk). I
am hoping that this Hellenistic Grammar, when it appears, will encompass a
much broader range of Hellenistic literature than the NT and patristic
writers alone and will therefore better relate NT Greek usage to the Greek
usage of non-Biblical authors of the era.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months:: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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