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Re: Grammars

At 06:14 PM 9/6/94 EDT, PGardella@aol.com wrote:
>Now that we have discussed lexicons, what about grammars?  Which is
>considered to be the defintive work?  One person has suggested Robertsons
>1934 Grammar and others the Dana and Mantey work.
>
>I referring to one for Koine greek rather than Classical greek.  Or is there
>one that is that covers both better than one just for Koine?

Well, as the resident classicist, I'm going to recommend a classical 
grammar.   This is by no means the best grammar available, just one that I 
have found very helpful for the interpretation of Biblical and Classical 
Greek.  It is called "Greek Grammar by Smythe."  Although fairly old, and I 
have come to some other ideas about some of the things thaat Smythe says, I 
find it to be a reasonably complete starting point, complete with examples 
in liturature of most grammatical functions, and good parsing charts.

I also can't resist to suggest that there really isn't that much difference 
between classical and koine greek, at least no more than the differences 
between Early American English and modern English.  There are some changed 
meanings, due to time, and some conjugations have changed or become 
metaplasticisized, but Greek was still pretty much Greek.  

Now, I'm certain that people are going to jump all over me for saying this - 
every time I have suggested this notion someone has jumped out of the 
woodwork with Greek training and hit me over the head, but I would challenge 
anyone who feels that Koine Greek is qualitatively different from Classical 
Greek to show me a grammatical constructionm found in Koine Greek that is 
not found in Classical Greek with the same denotation and connotation.  In 
the past 10 years of study I have not found one, and I have tried.  If 
someone would like to point one out to me, I will be happy to run it down.
>
>Pat Gardella
>Asbury Theological Seminary
>Wilmore, KY
>

PS.  you can find Smythe over at the college bookstore across the street - 
at least, last time I checked in Wilmore they had a few copies.
>
Daniel J. McDonald                 home: mcdonald@teleport.com 
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Disclaimer:  my views are my own and no one else's