From: Dale M. Wheeler (dalemw@teleport.com)
Date: Tue Dec 07 1999 - 20:37:46 EST
<x-flowed>David Ritsema wrote:
>
>What is the best grammar book for learning advanced Greek syntax.
>
David:
Some bgreekers have suggested Dana&Mantey as a possible syntax book to
learn from...allow me to add a caveat to that recommendation.
D&M has LOTS of really good information and discussions in it, but there
are some that are just plain wrong and others that are seriously
misleading; and as a beginner in this subject area, you wouldn't know where
the landmines were.
In the former category, D&M's discussion of the Granville Sharp
construction (p 147) is just wrong, since they say nothing about the nouns
needing to be singular, personal, and non-proper. Also, their discussion of
the absence of the article is flawed in many places because they use
references which involve Apollonius' Canon constructions (which they don't
even mention), and thus try to derive some special meaning from the
article's absence, when its simply missing for symmetry (eg., p 149,
discussion of 1Thes 4:15).
In the "misleading" category, their treatment of the tenses/aspects of the
Greek verb, esp. the Aorist, is the reason that two generations of
preachers have insisted that the aorist communicates "point, once for all
action", when it clearly does not. Their discussions of tenses in general
are seriously out of date, and their discussion of the imperative can lead
one to totally erroneous conclusions.
IMHO, D&M is an interesting curiosity in the history of Greek grammars, but
is not to be recommended to students, esp. (if I read your question
correctly) ones who are trying to pick up Greek syntax on their own. If
you want a quick overview, Brooks and Winbery is a good syntax; if you are
looking to go indepth, then Wallace is your man...again, IMHO.
XAIREIN...
***********************************************************************
Dale M. Wheeler, Ph.D.
Research Professor in Biblical Languages Multnomah Bible College
8435 NE Glisan Street Portland, OR 97220
Voice: 503-251-6416 FAX:503-254-1268 E-Mail: dalemw@teleport.com
***********************************************************************
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