This was another strange year. I’m not sure any of us felt particularly productive in terms of contributions here this year. Yet, we ended with more than 25, 000 words and the highest views in the history of Koine-Greek.com. That so many of you continue to find our efforts engaging and worth your time gives us great encouragement, especially as we look to 2023.

As we bring the year to a close, I wanted to highlight the most read essays/posts/articles of the year. Some were written this year. Others have simple become mainstays of the site that continue to attract the interest of our online readers. Maybe there’s something here that you missed this year! Either way, here are the top #10 pieces from the year. Enjoy!

#1: Obscenity in Paul? The Question of σκύβαλον

Despite being 4yrs old, the Obscenity in Paul series continues to dominate because Google’s algorithm got a hold of it in 2020. It was 4% of our views. We’re not complaining. Fun fact: obscenity really isn’t a particularly useful category. And σκύβαλον certainly doesn’t mean trash.

#2: A brief guide to aspect in Greek: Part I, The basics

#2 is Part I of the Brief Guide to Aspect. We’re really pleased with how this series went and we continue to get comments and feedback and appreciate for it. We’re working on more like it, participles are next, probably in January!

#3: Paul the Paraphraser or Paul the Septuagint-Quoter?

#3 is another oldie/goodie with Dr Chris Fresch’s essay on Paul’s use of the LXX. It was originally written at the now defunct Old School Script blog, but we’re so glad to host it here. Chris illustrates how divergences between the Hebrew text and Paul’s quotations are readily explainable in the context of the Old Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible. Quality stuff.

#4: Oxford Comma Memes: Evidence Against the Oxford Comma?

#4 is one of the very few non-biblical language pieces: our essay, effectively, on why memes aren’t arguments, vis-à-vis the Oxford Comma. Jokes are fun, they might even teach well (they often do!), but they aren’t useful to making a substantive case for a particular grammatical position.

#5: A linguistics reading list

#5 Finally something we wrote this year! Looking to start reading in linguistics? We’ve got suggestions about where to start! Rachel & Mike Aubrey worked hard to get this list organized to help every get started in linguistics.

#6: A brief guide to aspect, part II: The Debates

#6 is Part II of the Brief Guide to Aspect series! Here we survey the debates and contrived controversies around the Greek verb with tense and aspect. Oof. We try to be charitable, but also firm in our position.

#7: Literal translation as tradition, not theory

#7 Finally, another from 2022! Liternalness isn’t an inherently natural concept. It is contrived and is wholly dependent upon there being an existing translation tradition. We were pleased with the excellent feedback on this one. How we think about glosses in our grammars, vocab books, and translations are feed into each other. This has important implications for how we think about what constitutes a good translation.

#8: Predicative and Attributive Adjectives

#8 For some reason an ancient essay—nearly 15 years old, written in response to a blog that no longer exists received ~1000 views this year. It presents a possible phrase structure analysis of the attributive and predicative positions of adjectives, back when Mike Aubrey was first starting linguistics in grad school.

#9: You don’t need to trust your grammar

This one says it in the title: you don’t need to trust your grammar. Go and test something for yourself! Go discover something for yourself! In a world where we have massive amounts of information, research tools, and larger, annotated Ancient Greek corpora, there’s no reason to simply take a grammar at its word. Test it. Learn something by practice.

#10: A brief guide to aspect in Greek: Part III, The perfect

And finally: we complete the set: Part 3 in our Brief Guide to Aspect series, giving an accessible introduction to the syntax and semantics of the Greek perfect. This essay wraps up the series (though we still need to talk about tense at some point!) We’re glad to see the majority of people who read part one also read through to the end of the series this year. We hope it will continue to be of benefit to teachers and students.