Linguistics

Daily Gleanings about the (non-)use of linguistics in biblical studies, particularly in Hebrew lexicography.

Daily Gleanings about Mike Aubrey’s discussion of new books in Greek linguistics and Mark Ward’s review of Dirk Jonkind’s “Introduction to the GNT.”

IBR has a new research group on “Linguistics and the Biblical Text.” HT: William Ross, Mike Aubrey The University of London’s Department of History provides an open list of “justifications. addenda, and corrigenda” for A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian (Harrassowitz, 1999). ...

Mike Aubrey points to a full set of video recordings of lectures from the recent SEBTS conference on linguistics and NT Greek. I’ve included this playlist below as well. The “hamburger” button in the upper left-hand corner will expand the playlist contents with a list of speakers and their topics. Larry Hurtado reviews Michael Dormandy’s recent TC essay, “How the Books Became the Bible: The Evidence for Canon Formation From Work-Combination in Manuscripts.” ...

Gleanings about Greek, linguistics, and saint cults in late antiquity and the early middle ages.

Mike Aubrey has provided an excerpt from an essay of his in Linguistics & Biblical Exegesis (Lexham, 2016). The excerpt strives carefully to work out a middle ground that is neither wholly on the side of theological lexica nor on that of James Barr’s critique of them. ...

On 30 June–1 July, Tyndale House is set to host a workshop on Greek prepositions that focuses on cognitive linguistics, lexicography, and theology. Registration opens 1 March. For further discussion and background, see Septuaginta &c.

Paul Danove has the latest article in Biblical and Ancient Greek Linguistics, “Features of the Conceptualization of Transference in the New Testament”: This article develops five features that describe the conceptualizations of the event of transference grammaticalized by New Testament verbs, and uses these features to formulate a model of the possible New Testament usages of transference. The discussion resolves all New Testament occurrences of verbs that designate transference into one of eighteen usages with distinct feature descriptions, and considers the usages of transference predicted by the feature model but not realized in the New Testament. ...

Robert Funk A single-volume edition Robert Funk’s Beginning-Intermediate Grammar of Hellenistic Greek is due out in April and is now available for pre-order from Polebridge. According to the publisher’s description, Originally published in three volumes in 1973, Robert Funk’s classic Beginning-Intermediate Grammar of Hellenistic Greek utilizes the insights of modern linguistics in its presentation of the basic features of ancient Greek grammar. Now redesigned and reformatted for ease of use, this single-volume third edition makes Funk’s ground-breaking work available once more. ...

Steven Runge has the latest article in Biblical and Ancient Greek Linguistics: “Relative Saliency and Information Structure in Mark’s Parable of the Sower.” According to the abstract: This study applies the cognitive model of Chafe and Givón, and the information-structure model of Lambrecht as applied by Levinsohn and Runge to the Markan explanation of the Parable of the Sower (4:14–20). The primary objective is to identify and analyze other linguistic devices, besides demonstratives, which might clarify the apparent prominence given to the unfruitful scatterings in Mark’s account. This study provides the necessary framework for comparing Mark’s pragmatic weighting of saliency to that found in Matthew and Luke’s accounts in order to determine whether Mark’s version is consistent with or divergent from the other traditions. ...