[B-Greek] BDF Revision

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at ioa.com
Thu Aug 18 15:25:21 EDT 2005


For what it's worth, I'll simply include here something from  
correspondence on this matter here last May; this process of revision  
of BDF by a committee of eight is identical with a new Hellenistic  
Greek Grammar sponsored (in some fashion)  by Westar Institute and  
under preparation from a committee headed up by Darryl Schmidt.

Here's what Micheal Palmer, who is (was?) a member of that editorial  
committee, wrote me about it in December of 1993:

"The BDF project is defunct, at least for the time being. Schmidt will
retire from the department chair position at TCU at the end of this  
year,
and he recently suggested to me that we may pick the project up again  
after
that point, but I not terribly confident that it will happen. The  
project
died because after about ten years, Schmidt and I were the only two
committee members producing anything. At the final meeting I was the  
only
one that showed up with a paper to present. This was in part because
University of Chicago Press had dragged its feet about issuing  
contracts,
and the rest of the committee simply moved the project to the bottom of
their priority lists. I understand that reaction because I too had many
other things I could have been doing that would have been more  
productive
for my career. I had such high hopes that we would finish the grammar,
though, that I stuck with it far too long."

Speaking for myself only, I don't expect to see it in my lifetime. My  
guess is that those
competent to work on it are relatively few in numbers and that both  
funding
and dynamic organizational skills would be needed to get it off the  
ground,
and then it would take considerable time. It's a sad fact.


> From: "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
> Date: May 27, 2005 10:31:14 PM EDT
> To: Bryan Cox <b_coxus at yahoo.com>
> Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Blass-Debrunner-Funk revision?
>
>
> On Friday, May 27, 2005, at 10:28PM, Bryan Cox <b_coxus at yahoo.com>  
> wrote:
>
>
>> Dr. Daniel Wallace states the following in an
>> amazon.com review of the Blass-Debrunner-Funk Greek
>> Grammar (dated June 26, 2000):  "BDF is still the
>> standard Greek grammar of the New Testament even after
>> four decades. It is in the process of being revised
>> (by a revision committee of eight members), but the
>> revision will take several more years to complete. We
>> felt it needed revision because BDF presupposes that
>> the average reader has had much exposure to classical
>> Greek prior to working in the New Testament."
>> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0226271102/ 
>> qid=1117242828/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/104-0472342-8276767? 
>> v=glance&s=books&n=507846
>>
>> Does anyone know how far along this revision is after
>> 5 years?
>>
>
> I think the project is in limbo at this time; we've discussed it  
> from time to time, but the
> last account that I received is that the project came to a  
> standstill and its resumption is
> questionable for the present and near future.
>
> Carl W. Conrad

On Aug 18, 2005, at 1:10 PM, Peter Hamm wrote:

> At some point I thought I read (I thought it was even on this  
> forum) that
> the that Daniel Wallace is on the committee that is doing the BDF  
> revision.
> Can anyone confirm that? I did some googling and couldn't find  
> confirmation.
>
> Peter Hamm
> DuBois, PA
>
> On 8/18/05 12:00 PM, "b-greek-request at lists.ibiblio.org"
> <b-greek-request at lists.ibiblio.org> wrote:
>
>> I went out on amazon to check BDF and there is a 5-star review by  
>> one Daniel
>> Wallace (that 30/30 people found useful).
>> Written in June 2000, Wallace informs that the book is about to  
>> undergo
>> major revisions because (amongst other reasons) it "presupposes  
>> that the
>> average reader has had much exposure to classical Greek prior to  
>> working in
>> the New Testament."
>> These revisions were expected to take several years.


Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/




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