A continuation from the previous post of books I read during 2009.

Greek & Greek Linguistics:

Discourse Grammar of the Greek New Testament: A Practical Introduction for Teaching and Exegesis by Steve Runge

Between November 2008 & May 2009, I read this book three times. I cannot speak more highly of it. Steve deals with a huge variety of grammatical issues that have historically been problematic for traditional grammar in a way that affirms and reconciles a variety of conflicting claims in a accessible, but linguistically rigorous fashion.

The Noun Phrase in Ancient Greek (Amsterdam Studies in Classical Philology)by Bakker

I’ll be reviewing this book relatively soon. Part II is stronger than Part I, but both are excellent. The use of both Lambrecht & (Simon) Dik together is a little confusing at times in Part I.

A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagintby Muraoka

Lexicographically, Muraoka easily (and brilliantly) surpasses LEH, but in terms of bibliography, both lexicons are still needed. Now, if only we could get a Hellenistic Greek Lexicon that isn’t based on a limited and arbitrary corpus. I mean covering the LXX, Josephus, the NT, the Papyri, Apostolic Fathers, Philo, Epictetus, Strabo, etc.

Word Order in Ancient Greek: A Pragmatic Account of Word Order Variation in Herodotus (Amsterdam Studies in Classical Philology , No 5)by Dik

Word Order in Greek Tragic Dialogue by Dik

I love both of Helma Dik’s books. Her second book really advances the discussion.

Articular Infinitives in the Greek of the New Testament: On the Exegetical Benefit of Grammatical Precision (New Testament Monographs)by Burk

A detailed discussion the thesis is fine, but Burk’s discussion of case is inadequate and involves some misunderstanding of the broader literature.

Grammatical and Exegetical Study of New Testament Verbs of Transference: A Case Frame Guide to Interpretation and Translation (Library of New Testament Studies)by Danove

There’s a review of this book in process. I’ve been writing the review on and off for the past two months. All I can say is Quality. I do fear, though, that his work won’t receive the praise it deserves from the general NT crowd.

Semantics of New Testament Greekby Louw

An older book. This is more a basic introduction to semantics than anything else. I was disappointed I had hoped there would be more discussion of Greek semantics, but there wasn’t. For what it is as an introduction, it’s pretty good.

Conditions and Conditionals: An Investigation of Ancient Greek (Amsterdam Studies in Classical Philology ; V. 3)by Wakker

Wakker covers just about every thing imaginable related to conditional clauses, from their internal make up, semantics, as well as ordering within their matrix clause. This is a beautiful book.

The Middle Voice in Ancient Greek: A Study of Polysemy (Amsterdam Studies in Classical Philology)by Allan (Amazon is wrong in the spelling of his name)

Allan will, hopefully, change how voice is taught in both Classical and Hellenstic Greek. It hasn’t happened yet, even though it’s been seven years. Hopefully it will happen soon.

Granville Sharp’s Canon and Its Kin: Semantics and Significance (Studies in Biblical Greek)by Wallace

Wallace was probably the most enjoyable read in grammar this year. This book is just downright well written. And the content is great too.

The Word Order of the Gospel of Luke: Its Foregrounded Messages (Library of New Testament Studies)by Kwong

Don’t bother.

Ancient Greek Scholarship: A Guide to Finding, Reading, and Understanding Scholia, Commentaries, Lexica, and Grammatical Treatises: From Their Beginnings … Association Classical Resources Series)by Dickey

Helpful guide for ancient scholarship on Ancient Greek.

Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar 3rd Edition by Mounce

My third forthcoming review book (thank you, Zondervan). I’ve been through it already. When it comes down to it, I’m disappointed that more hasn’t changed – particularly with voice and aspect, but several other things too. That isn’t to say that the grammar isn’t good. It’s just that I had hoped for more than was delivered in terms of building on recent scholarship. With that said, I like the addition of language learning power tools added in the margins: very fun.

Grammar of New Testament Greek. translated by Henry St. John Thackery by Blass (1898 edition)

An oldie, but a goodie. There’s a good amount of important information in here that you won’t find by reading through the 1961 translation by Funk (BDF).