[B-Greek] Is understanding Greek verbal aspect crucial for understanding the Greek of the New Testament?

nikolaos kadamou ntgreekreader at gmail.com
Mon Nov 22 07:01:39 EST 2010


As a native Greek this period I read all Greek Grammars up to the 15 c. A.D.
I did not see the concept of ASPECT in any of them, and I think I understand
NT and Greek Literature.

On Sun, Nov 21, 2010 at 11:17 PM, Leonard Jayawardena <leonardj at live.com>wrote:

>
> I finished reading Constantine R. Campbell's "Basics of Verbal Aspect in
> Biblical Greek" a few days ago. One of the endorsements of the book that
> appears on the back cover is by Stanley E. Porter:
>
> Quote
>
> Campbell and I agree on at least one major point regarding verbal
> aspect--understanding Greek verbal aspect is crucial for understanding the
> Greek of the New Testament. For too long such knowledge has been woefully
> lacking among commentators and other students. One cannot exegete the text
> responsibly without applying an accurate understanding of Greek verbal
> aspect. ...
>
> Unquote
>
>
> LJ: This is the first book I have read on this subject--I have also read
> some chapters from Porter's "Idioms of the Greek New Testament," in which he
> touches on verbal aspect--so I am not sure whether I am qualified to express
> an opinion on it yet, but the impression I have got is that there still so
> much substantial disagreement among those who work in this area that the
> value of verbal aspect, at least in its present state of development, to the
> exegesis of the Greek New Testament seems questionable. At any rate the
> claim that "[o]ne cannot exegete the text responsibly without applying an
> accurate understanding of Greek verbal aspect" seems to be an overstatement.
> Whose verbal aspect? Porter's or Campbell's or any other's? Even Porter's
> statement that "Campbell and I agree on at least one major point regarding
> verbal aspect--understanding Greek verbal aspect is crucial for
> understanding the Greek of the New Testament" seems to imply that basically
> the only major area of agr
>  eement between Porter and Campbell is that "understanding Greek verbal
> aspect is crucial for understanding the Greek of the New Testament"!
>
> There are many good translations of the NT available and the agreement
> between them far exceeds the differences. There are many verses in which the
> translations differ in the way they render them. Some of these are
> doctrinally important verses, but differences in understanding verbal aspect
> between translators are not the reason for these differences.
>
> I am not saying that the study of verbal aspect is not important. Any
> study, even if its contribution to exegesis of a Greek text is minimal, is
> profitable, but is there really any basis to the claim "that understanding
> Greek verbal aspect is crucial for understanding the Greek of the New
> Testament"?
>
>
> Leonard Jayawardena
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