Porter's Linguistic Analysis of the Greek New Testament

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Porter's Linguistic Analysis of the Greek New Testament

Post by Ken M. Penner »

Any comments on Porter's book to be published next year? The table of contents can be viewed at http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/l ... ent/353220
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Re: Porter's Linguistic Analysis of the Greek New Testament

Post by Stephen Carlson »

I don't know anything about it--not even if the chapters were previously published. Here are the contents:
Porter, Contents wrote:Introduction
Part 1: Texts and Tools for Analysis
1. Who Owns the Greek New Testament? Issues that Promote and Hinder Further Study
2. Analyzing the Computer Needs of New Testament Greek Exegetes
3. "On the Shoulders of Giants"--The Expansion and Application of the Louw-Nida Lexicon
4. The Blessings and Curses of Producing a Lexicon
Part 2: Approaching Analysis
5. Linguistics and Biblical Interpretation
6. A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Exegesis
7. Sociolinguistics and New Testament Study
8. Discourse Analysis: Introduction and Core Concepts
9. The Ideational Metafunction and Register
10. Time and Aspect in New Testament Greek: A Response to K. L. McKay
11. Three Arguments Regarding Aspect and Temporality: A Response to Buist Fanning, with an Excursus on Aspectually Vague Verbs
12. The Perfect Tense-Form and Stative Aspect: The Meaning of the Greek Perfect Tense-Form in the Greek Verbal System
Part 3: Doing Analysis
13. A Register Analysis of Mark 13
14. The Grammar of Obedience: Matthew 28:19-20
15. Verbal Aspect and Synoptic Relations
16. Study of John's Gospel: New Directions or the Same Old Paths?
17. Method and Means of Analysis of the Opponents in the Pauline Letters
18. 1 Timothy 2:8: Holy Hands or Holy Raising?
19. Greek Word Order: Is It Still an Unexplored Area?
20. Proper Nouns in the New Testament
21. Hyponymy and the Trinity
Indexes
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Re: Porter's Linguistic Analysis of the Greek New Testament

Post by MAubrey »

Struggling to decide just how much I should give Porter the benefit of the doubt here.
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Re: Porter's Linguistic Analysis of the Greek New Testament

Post by MAubrey »

In related news:

Going Deeper with New Testament Greek: An Intermediate Study of the Grammar and Syntax of the New Testament
by Andreas J. Köstenberger (Author), Benjamin L Merkle (Author), Robert L. Plummer

http://www.amazon.com/Going-Deeper-New- ... 433679086/

Again: I'm disinclined to give this volume the benefit of the doubt.
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Re: Porter's Linguistic Analysis of the Greek New Testament

Post by Stephen Hughes »

MAubrey wrote:Struggling to decide just how much I should give Porter the benefit of the doubt here.
Mike, what's this mean?

Is Porter somebody whose benefit is generally doubted?
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
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Re: Porter's Linguistic Analysis of the Greek New Testament

Post by RandallButh »

Stephen Hughes wrote:
MAubrey wrote:Struggling to decide just how much I should give Porter the benefit of the doubt here.
Mike, what's this mean?

Is Porter somebody whose benefit is generally doubted?
Yes.
Unfortunately, explaining the simple answer becomes convoluted.

Stanley is a prolific writer and a good English mind, but the doubts are legitimate about whether data going thru his linguistic grids comes out as either Greek or general linguistics. One may argue in defense that the field of NT studies will eventually end up stronger by learning why 'time-less Greek indicatives' are not and were not Greek and how various pragmatic structures in the language really work. In other words, as NT linguistic studies mature they will need to reject Porter's models on discourse, prominence, and tense. My reading is that Aubrey's question was asking how much time should students spend on trying to understand why something doesn't work the way it is argued to work? There will also be other items of value in the volume that are not related to foundations of Greek itself. But at some point a person has to recognize that the 'aspect-only' approach to Greek is wrong and needs to be labelled as such.

A rule of thumb is to invest more in Greek as Greek rather than in secondary literature about Greek. That probably accounts for some of the broad differences between classical Greek studies and NT Greek studies. Classical Greek studies have had their fads, but they are not following along an 'aspect-only' system as apparently occurs in some NT quarters.
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Re: Porter's Linguistic Analysis of the Greek New Testament

Post by Stephen Carlson »

MAubrey wrote:Going Deeper with New Testament Greek: An Intermediate Study of the Grammar and Syntax of the New Testament
by Andreas J. Köstenberger (Author), Benjamin L Merkle (Author), Robert L. Plummer

http://www.amazon.com/Going-Deeper-New- ... 433679086/
Another intermediate grammar/syntax. I didn't know there is such a demand for them.
MAubrey wrote:Again: I'm disinclined to give this volume the benefit of the doubt.
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Re: Porter's Linguistic Analysis of the Greek New Testament

Post by MAubrey »

Stephen Hughes wrote:
MAubrey wrote:Struggling to decide just how much I should give Porter the benefit of the doubt here.
Mike, what's this mean?

Is Porter somebody whose benefit is generally doubted?
Randall has said it better than I ever could.
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Re: Porter's Linguistic Analysis of the Greek New Testament

Post by Stephen Hughes »

MAubrey wrote:Randall has said it better than I ever could.
Rather than me first reading Porter on Porter, do you have a (non-interpretative) summary of Porter on your Enefesw forum? Or know of someone who has prepared cram-notes style summaries on their forum?
Last edited by Stephen Hughes on July 30th, 2014, 10:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Porter's Linguistic Analysis of the Greek New Testament

Post by Ken M. Penner »

Stephen Hughes wrote:Rather than me first reading Porter on Porter,do you have a (non-interpretative) summary of Porter on your Enefesw forum? Or know of someone who has prepared cram-notes style summaries on their forum?
Rod Decker's Poor Man's Porter
Ken M. Penner
Professor and Chair of Religious Studies, St. Francis Xavier University
Co-Editor, Digital Biblical Studies
General Editor, Lexham English Septuagint
Co-Editor, Online Critical Pseudepigrapha pseudepigrapha.org
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