A few Greek book reviews have been published this month: two from Bryn Mawr Classical Review and one on Brent Niedergall’s blog. I’m sure there are more that I have missed, though. If you have seen any other recent reviews, drop a note and I’ll make sure they get publicized.

BMCR:

Rosenmeyer, Patricia A. 2018. The Language of Ruins: Greek and Latin Inscriptions on the Memnon Colossus (Amazon). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rosenmeyer should be commended for breathing life into all the Greek and Latin inscriptions on the colossus. I hope her book also inspires her readers to resuscitate other Memnons, both in Thebes and beyond.

Reviewed by Felipe Rojas, Brown University

Huebner, Sabine R. 2019. Papyri and the Social World of the New Testament (Amazon). Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press.

Huebner brings an impressive array of sources together to recontextualize several figures and passages from the gospels from different angles. Yet, the book remains very readable. The 27 color images and 8 well-labelled maps nicely enhance the text. Despite the title of the book, Huebner for the most part limits her discussion to the gospels (the book might more accurately be called Papyri and the Social World of Jesus), and this leaves the door open for future studies taking a similar approach to the more urban settings of other New Testament texts, like the Pauline letters. Given the fruitful results of Huebner’s work on display here, I hope such future studies appear sooner rather than later.

Reviewed by Brent Nongbri

Brent Niedergall’s blog

Heinrich von Siebenthal. 2019. Ancient Greek Grammar for the Study of the New Testament (Amazon). New York: Peter Lang.

AGG reflects modern scholarship. It’s easier to read. Examples from Greek are presented in full with English translations as opposed to BDF, which abbreviates and does not provide translations. It’s still a fairly technical book, but it’s also understandable. So when you want to know why something is the way it is, AGG is the gold standard. This is the definitive resource for your grammatical questions.

Reviewed by Brent Nidergall