[B-Greek] An Accessible Brief Introduction to Greek Verbal Aspect

davidabooth at comcast.net davidabooth at comcast.net
Thu May 19 17:44:45 EDT 2011


Brian, 


My experience with two seminaries has been that students either rush (or are pushed) into discussing things like the Porter-Fanning debate long before they are actually able to read the New Testament. This is not helpful. With that in mind, for many students the best introduction to Porter's views is to simply avoid the topic altogether. 


If you insist on introducing students to this topic, you should consider sending them to Steven Runge's excellent website where he has a section of articles on Porter dealing with both prominence and aspect: http://www.ntdiscourse.org/on-porter-prominence-and-aspect/ With appropriate caveats about the unsettled nature of the debate (and his treatment of the perfect/imperfect), Constantine Campbell's little book Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek can also serve as a useful introduction to the topic. If you think that this would be the last rather than the first book that your students are going to read on the topic - then I would encourage you to avoid the topic altogether. 


Best wishes, 


David 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brian Abasciano" <bvabasciano at gmail.com> 
To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org 
Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2011 3:48:52 PM 
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] An Accessible Brief Introduction to Greek Verbal Aspect 

Randall, 

It's not a question at this point about recommending something for the best 
understanding of Greek grammar, but for a basic, accessible introduction to 
the aspect only/Porterite view. At some point, students should know about 
the debate and what the Porter camp advocates. So the question is whether 
the article would serve the purpose well of introducing the student to that 
view (which would include the way those with the view frame the issues). If 
one wants to understand a view, often doesn't one want to hear from 
advocates of that view? Appropriate caveats could be made by an instructor. 
What would you recommend for an accessible introduction to the "aspect 
only"/Porter view? I know Ted Dekker has some introductory level stuff, 
including a summary of Porter's Verbal Aspect in the Greek of the NT and a 
revision of Mounce's chapter in his grammar introducing Greek verbs. 

Brian Abasciano 

Date: Mon, 16 May 2011 23:56:28 +0300 
From: Randall Buth <randallbuth at gmail.com> 
Subject: [B-Greek] An Accessible Brief Introduction to Greek Verbal 
Aspect 
To: B Greek <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org> 
Message-ID: <BANLkTik6E1YHYTPrdorGCjrvAXTnpQVJdw at mail.gmail.com> 
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 

<The original article referenced has been lost sight of in the discussion. 
That's ok, but I asked some questions of Randall somewhat early on, and I am 
still wondering about his opinion as well as that of others about the value 
of the article for introducing the basic "aspect only" perspective (for lack 
of a better summary term) of verbal aspect. More specifically, is it not a 
good recommendation for an accessible introduction to the aspect 
only/Porterite view of the issues (to which, again, I do no ascribe), 
including its view of the debate itself and how it is to be framed?< 

Brian, you can recommend whatever you like. 

I cannot in good conscience recommend that paper because it is bad 
linguistics and bad Greek, and it does not introduce itself to the student 
as either. 
It does not point out what is weak or misleading, but implies that 
its descriptions are good that the general approach is an improvement. 

????? ?????? Your mileage may differ. 

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