This falls in the category of "obvious questions that never occurred to us but should have."KathyMac wrote: ... Apologies if this has been discussed before, but the first thing I would ask is: why are terms like 'Biblical Greek' and 'NT Greek' still current? There may be some pragmatic reason for keeping them, but don't such terms reflect a sixteenth-seventeenth century mindset when proto-linguists (pre-modern linguists?!) had misunderstood the nature of Greek in the LXX/NT? Doesn't that encourage people to approach the language in the wrong way? Shoud we even be offering courses in Biblical Greek (usually with a focus on the Bible and the Bible alone). I would still ask the same question to those who are studying Greek for pastoral or theological reasons. ...
We know that when we speak of "NT Greek" or "Biblical Greek" we are talking about the Greek language as it appears in Biblical texts -- and we may add non-canonical Jewish or Christian patristic texts into the mix -- as opposed to the Greek of secular speech and texts. I think we also know very well -- and have known since the work of Deissmann and others -- that we are limiting our discussion to texts and usage of Hellenistic Greek as it appears in the literature of our focal concern, despite the fact that the language we're talking about is not distinct from secular or non-Biblical Hellenistic Greek generally. I think that's why Bob Funk titled his textbook, "Beginning-Intermediate Grammar of Hellenistic Greek" and why he also promoted a lamentably-failed effort to produce a successor to BDF that would be called "A Grammar of Hellenistic Greek."
But as KathyMac (what is her real name? We're supposed to be using real names in this forum) has said, isn't our continued usage of the term "Biblical Greek" a questionable practice? Doesn't it imply a view of the language of the texts with which we're concerned as something distinct from Greek not simply of other eras but of its contemporary secular literature and speech?
Does our continued use of these terms skew our perspective -- even without our being quite aware of it -- on the language and the texts we are discussing? If we were to cease referring to our forum's focus as "Biblical Greek," what term would we put in its place? Something like "Judaeo-Christian Literature and Hellenistic Greek Language?" or "Hellenistic Greek and Jewish and Christian Texts"?