Archive for the ‘Book Reviews’ Category
Stay Tuned
There will be a book review coming either tomorrow or Monday. Pay attention!
Two Very Different Reviews
Recently two bloggers wrote reviews of Leland Ryken’s new book on translation: Understanding English Bible Translation (which I cannot link to for purchase with a good conscience).
One of them is written by Tim Challies, a self-employed web-designer with a degree in history from McMaster University, whose also done some interesting writing on culture & the church.
The other is written by Joel M. Hoffman, who has “a PhD in theoretical linguistics and has taught Bible in religious settings and translation theory at Brandeis University and at HUC-JIR in New York City”
Very different views of the same book.
Challies writes:
In Understanding English Bible Translation Ryken argues persuasively that there is much to gain in depending upon an essentially literal translation of Scripture and he argues equally well that there is potential for great loss if we turn instead to dynamic equivalents or other less-stringent translations.
Though not quite an academic book, neither was it particularly easy reading. Still, it did a good of presenting arguments for what Ryken calls an “essentially literal” approach to translating the Bible. <– That referred to Ryken’s first book; my mistake.
And Hoffman writes:
Unfortunately, Ryken’s work is marred by a disdain for scholarship, rhetoric disguised as argument, and a lack of attention to the very biblical text he claims to be investigating.
I’ll let you read the rest…
(HT: Bryan Lilly – I don’t actually read Challies’ blog…)
Book Review – Articular Infinitives in the Greek of the New Testament
This is a difficult book to review. That might sound strange to some since its not a long book, nor is its thesis particularly controversial. What makes it a difficult book to review is that I found Burk’s thesis to be quite acceptable and well argued. The parts of the book that gave me trouble were the preliminary discussions about case. But because it’s 1) such a complex issue and 2) rather peripheral, I decided that I wouldn’t spend too much time focusing on it.
Burk’s thesis is a good one and it’s well argued: When used with the infinitive, the Greek article is a syntactic marker that does not mark definiteness with the infinitive, but rather tends to clear up grammatical ambiguity in the interpretation of the infinitive. One might say that there isn’t to much revolutionary about it. And yes, that’s true, but even still, it’s a helpful guide where plenty of commentators have given too much emphasis to the appearence of the article with the infinitive (or too little).
Chapter one introduces Burk’s thesis, history of research & methodology. The history of research is a particularly helpful survey of grammatical discussions of the infinitive generally, one that probably wouldn’t be found elsewhere. Burk generally steers a helpful course between placing too much emphasis on the use of the article and two little emphasis.
The methodology section, surprised me a bit. One the one hand, there are some very good things said about how he went about his study, but on the other hand, there are a variety of statements that left me wondering. For example, were Moulton here today and read this section, he would probably respond by saying that his own work on grammar was also scientific (Burke, 17) and descriptive (21). And indeed, I doubt that any of Burk’s own work would be difficult for a grammarian of the previous generation to understand.
My other thought in reading this section was that his methodology appears to have a greater dependence upon scientific method than it does upon modern linguistic theory. And, to be honest, there’s nothing wrong with that. What is clear from the section is that Burk has done him homework in terms of reading secondary literature & his use of linguistic monographs & resources is better than a number of other studies I’ve read – though I was slightly concerned that many of the linguistic proper books were somewhat dated, but this is generally true with most NT studies that dip into linguistics.
Chapter two of the book introduces a helpful discussion of the Greek article more generally. There’s not too much for me to say here. The discussion provides a good summary of the literature and concisely describes how the article is used in the NT.
But it’s chapters 3 & 4 that pull me in two directions. On the one hand, Burk’s discussions of the article and the infinitive in these chapters are great. I really, really enjoyed them. On the other hand, I consider Burk’s discussions of the Greek cases to be both frustrating and disappointing. This, I think, has more to do with Burk’s following of Stanley Porter’s discussion of case more than it does Burk. But that doesn’t let him off the hook. There is a significant bibliographic gap with reference to the cases as used both with and without cases: Silvia Luraghi’s On the Meaning of Prepositions and Cases: The Expression of Semantic Roles in Ancient Greek (Studies in Language Companion Series). This book was published three years before Burk’s was in 2006. Now, I’m not sure whether he completed his dissertation before 2003 or not, so I don’t want to push this one too hard and if this is the case, it would have requires a massive rewrite to deal with the claims & data from Luraghi. I think it the end that would have been worth it, but at the same time, I can understand how unappealing that would be to someone who has already spent years working on the original thesis. Anyway, I’ve blogged about this book before HERE. It’s cognitive, rigorous, and written by a highly qualified Indo-European/Greek scholar who definitely knows her stuff. It’s also expensive. But if you’re going to write a dissertation on a subject closely connected to cases & prepositions in Greek, you cannot avoid it. There’s more I could say specifically, but this review would grow way too long (& it already has once).
The last two chapters provide some extra evidence from the LXX (chapter 5) for Burk’s claims and draw some conclusions with exegetical comments (chapter 6). Both these chapters were quite enjoyable.
All in all the book is a nice discussion of the infinitive and it would be a beneficial read for Greek students.
Digital WBC
Mark Stevens has begun a series looking at the benefits of Logos Bible Software for using commentaries – in this case, several Word Biblical Commentary Volumes:
Word Biblical Commentary Series for Logos Review: Part 1
I’ll be looking forward to reading his thoughts.
So…uh…Book Reviews…
Okay, so I know that I posted a poll looking for your thoughts on which book I should review first:
And…I’ve written quite a bit on Burk’s book for the review because that’s the book that got the votes.
BUT.
Now that I’m most of the way through reviewing it, I’m not sure. It’s become more difficult than I expected. There’s a side issue that really rubs me the wrong way that’s not exactly connected to his thesis. It’s distracting me from the main focus of the book. Maybe “rubs me the wrong way” is not the right phrase. That sounds pretty terrible and it’s not that terrible. All this to say, I’m not sure if Burk’s book will come before Danove’s…we’ll see. It’s for the best through.
Book Review Poll
I’ve finished two books that I plan on writing reviews for:
But I cannot decide which I should review first. The two books are very different animals in terms of method & focus – much of which can be recognized from the titles. But there is a significant relationship between them in that Burk makes some incredibly critical comments about Case Grammar, the linguistic framework that eventually morphed into Construction Grammar which Danove uses in this most recent book.
So what do you think:
In the Mail: Canadian Edition
I don’t know if I’ve ever done one of these posts, but I’ve just received a couple books that I’ll be reviewing:
The former book, I’ve received with many, many thanks to the kind people at T & T Clark & Continuum for their willingness to provide this review copy. especially Abigail Cox. I look forward to digging into Danove’s analysis and his use of Construction Grammar for studying the New Testament text.
The latter I’ve been interested in reading for some time and decided to buy it. Sheffield Phoenix Press provides a reduced price of their hardback books for scholars, which lowered the price of Burk’s book into a rather reasonable range (HERE) when you order it directly from them. Now if only Burk would start blogging about Greek on occasion – or perhaps start another blog that focuses on Greek since his blog on culture is already rather popular.
Discontinuous Syntax Part V
This is a continuation of my series examining Devine and Stephen’s book Discontinuous Syntax: Hyperbaton in Greek. Today’s post consists of much rewriting of about 15 pages I lost back in February when my hard drive died.
See also:
Weak Focus Y2 Hyperbaton[1]
Most commonly, Y2 Hyperbaton will denote weak focus on the initial head noun with the following adjective marking an additional restriction on the head noun. This additional restriction also tends to be weak focus. The first three instances of Y2 Hyperbaton in the New Testament provide an excellent example of this combination of syntactic structure and pragmatic meaning seen below.[2]
(1) τὸ γὰρ ἐν αὐτῇ γεννηθὲν ἐκ πνεύματός ἐστιν ἁγίου
For what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. Matt 1:20.
(2) ὁ λαὸς ὁ καθήμενος ἐν σκότει φῶς εἶδεν μέγα
The people who live in darkness have seen a great light. Matt 4:16
(3) καὶ ἰδοὺ ἄνθρωπος χεῖρα ἔχων ξηράν.
And behold, a man who had a withered hand. Matt 12:10
In these three examples, the author/speaker provides brand new information to the reader/listener. Example (50) is from the monologue of the angel to Joseph regarding the source of Mary’s pregnancy. The clause consists of the known information shared by both the Angel and Joseph: Mary is pregnant. There is a child conceived (τὸ γὰρ ἐν αὐτῇ γεννηθὲν). The predicate of this clause is the completely new, non-contrastive information: the child is from the Holy Spirit (ἐκ πνεύματός ἐστιν ἁγίου).
Example (51) is found within a quotation of Isaiah 9:1-2 in the Gospel of Matthew.[3] The discontinuous phrase appears late enough in the quotation from Isaiah to provide a large enough context for understanding the phrase’s information structure without recourse to the text of Isaiah.[4] The phrase appears following a description of the land of Israel, “Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, / the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan, / Galilee of the Gentiles— / the people living in darkness have seen a great light / on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned” (TNIV). In the greater context of the Gospel, the writer has just described Jesus as traveling through these regions, fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy. Verse 15 is entirely accessible, known information; as does the Subject of the clause in question here (the people). The brand new, prominent information is “light” –a great one.
In the last of these examples (52), Matthew introduces a new scene within the periscope that describes Jesus’ relationship to the Sabbath. With the new scene, come new participants. Since the clause itself introduces brand new information, there is little doubt about the information status of the constituents: καὶ ἰδοὺ (and behold) marks the shift to a new Topic, ἄνθρωπος (a man), which also is the Subject of the clause. The rest of the clause is a participial clause (χεῖρα ἔχων ξηράν, “having a withered hand”) in the predicate position with ἄνθρωπος (a man).
In light of DS’s claims about the discourse function of Y2 Hyperbaton, these first three examples are rather striking because of them, only the last one even partially parallels their predicted discourse context which Y2 Hyperbaton should occur. They write, “Two generalizations suggest themselves: first, the verbs are all intransitive, and second … they are all simple verbs of occurrence or existence.”[5] In our examples above, only example (50) is an existential verb and none of the three examples are intransitive. [6]
How do we deal with this? On the one hand, it is possible that DS limits their generalizations only to Weak Focus Y2 Hyperbaton examples where the discontinuous phrase bears the grammatical relation of Subject. This is not explicit in their discussion, but could easily be inferred from the text itself. Earlier they write, “In the simplest type of Y2 Hyperbaton, [Y1X] is an ordinary weak focus and the Y2 Adjective specifies an additional restriction on the noun, and so represents a second weak focus. Some of the clearest instances involve split subject phrases.”[7]
1 Intransitive, Existential, or Occurrence Verbs
If we accept this perspective on the intention of DS, as well as assume that their two generalizations function as separate possibilities rather than two requirements, a clearer picture emerges. Of those instances of Subject Y2 Hyperbaton, all of them fit their generalizations and many of the cases can be paraphrased in English with either, “an expletive there or an extraposed relative clause.”[8] Consider examples (53-55) with an existential verb from the New Testament and Josephus.
(4) καὶ ἐγένοντο ἀστραπαὶ καὶ φωναὶ καὶ βρονταὶ καὶ σεισμὸς ἐγένετο μέγας
And there was lightning and sounds and thunder and there was a great earthquake. Rev 16:18
(5) λίθος δὲ ἦν μέγας ἐπὶ τῷ στόματι τοῦ φρέατος
But there was a large stone on the mouth of the well. Gen 29:2
(6) κατὰ νυκτὸς ἐνάτην ὥραν τοσοῦτο φῶς περιέλαμψε τὸν βωμὸν καὶ τὸν ναόν, ὡς δοκεῖν ἡμέραν εἶναι λαμπράν
By the ninth hour of the night, such a light shone around the altar and the Temple, as to appear that it appeared to be bright day time. Josephus, Wars 6.290
In all three of these examples, the author is not seeking to contrast two items or events (i.e. Strong Focus), rather he is merely reporting that X exists or happened.[9]
There are also Hellenistic examples of Y2 Hyperbaton with intransitive verbs shown in the following examples.
(7) θύρα γάρ μοι ἀνέῳγεν μεγάλη καὶ ἐνεργής
For a door has opened up to me, a wide and effective one. 1 Cor 16:7
(8) πηγαὶ συνεσχέθησαν αἰώνιοι ἐξ ἀβύσσων ἀπὸ ὀρέων ὑψηλῶν, ὅτι οὐκ ἦν ἐν αὐτοῖς ποιῶν δικαιοσύνην καὶ κρίμα.
Eternal Springs were shut up from the depths from the high mountains, because there was no one among them performing righteous and justice. Psalms of Solomon 17:19
(9) Εἰπὸν αὐτῷ ἐπὶ τῷ ἐμῷ ὀνόματι Κρύψον σεαυτόν, καὶ δήλωσον αὐτῷ τέλος ἐπερχόμενον, ὅτι ἡ γῆ ἀπόλλυται πᾶσα, καὶ κατακλυσμὸς μέλλει γίνεσθαι πάσης τῆς γῆς καὶ ἀπολέσει πάντα ὅσα ἔστʼ ἐν αὐτῇ.
Say to him [Noah] in my name, “Hide yourself!” And show him that the coming end: that the entire earth will be destroyed and a severe flood is about to come upon all the earth and will destroy everything on it. Book of Enoch 10.2
Of these three examples, (56) could easily be paraphrased as, “There is a door that has opened to me, wide and effective.” Also, example (58) is particularly striking because it states explicitly the reportive nature of the construction with the angel Uriel commanding the son of Lamech to bring this new information to Noah.
Finally, there is one clear example of Y2 Hyperbaton with an occurrence verb in Josephus.[10]
(10) ἀσπασάμενος δὲ τὴν φωνὴν ὁ τοῦ Σαούλου παῖς ὡς νίκην αὐτῷ σημαίνουσαν παραυτίκα μὲν ἀνεχώρησαν ἐξ οὗπερ ὤφθησαν τόπου τοῖς πολεμίοις, παραμειψάμενοι δὲ τοῦτον, ἐπὶ τὴν πέτραν ἧκον ἔρημον οὖσαν τῶν φυλαττόντων διὰ τὴν ὀχυρότητα.
So Saul’s son accepted the voice, as it indicated to him victory. So he immediately came out of the place where they had been seen by their enemies; so he changed his place, and came upon a deserted rock guarded by its own strength. Josephus, Antiquities 6.112
The discontinuous phrase is “ἐπὶ τὴν πέτραν ἧκον ἔρημον” (he came upon a deserted rock). And once again, it is clear that Josephus is merely reporting what he views as the necessary new information in preparation for the more salient events which follow where Jonathan and his armor bearer route the Philistine army.
2 Challenges for DS’ Generalizations?
Now that we have covered the examples which can easily be explained by the generalizations of DS, what shall be done with the rest? Indeed, the majority of instances of Weak Focus Y2 Hyperbaton do not , at face value, align themselves to their description. These must be discussed and explained below, either by showing how they fit within the already stated generalization or by adapting and expanding the generalization so that all the data can be explained. This will be the focus of Part VI, which will appear in much better time than Part V did.
[1] For quick reference, the term weak focus is the plain vanilla basic new information to fill in an informational gap in the mind of the hearer/reader with no additional special prominence.
[2] There is one construction that could technically appear here, but will be discussed elsewhere, the construction: ἐγὼ χρείαν ἔχω X (cf. Matt 3:14). This structure is technically a Y2 Hyperbaton, but the modifier constituent is so varied it cannot be discussed consistently in this section with its focus specifically on Adjectives. Secondly, the nature of the construction as a stereotyped phrase deserves it own independent discussion later on.
[3] The quotation and its word order differ from both the LXX (Rahlfs) and the Masoretic Text. The LXX reads πορευόμενος instead of καθήμενος and neither the LXX nor the MT has the discontinuous phrase we find in Matt 4:16. For this reason, I do not view this instance of Hyperbaton influenced by its Hebrew source text.
[4] This assumes, of course, that Matthew did not adapt the text himself, but drew from an Isaiah manuscript that included the discontinuous phrase.
[5] DS, 92; they provide no definition for “verbs of occurrence.” But according to Angela Downing and Philip Locke (English Grammar: A University Course [London: Taylor & Francis, 2006], 85), verbs of occurrence are those such as, “appear, disappear, go, come, arrive, depart, vanish, fade, happen…”
[6] Though according to our reading of (52), the discontinuous phrase, with its participle, functions as the semantic predicate of a nominal clause and, by definition, nominal clauses are existential.
[7] DS, 91.
[8] Ibid, 93.
[9] Of note in the Josephus example is that the existential infinitive within the discontinuous phrase is governed by an occurrence verb: to appear.
[10] Since this is the only clear example, the context is quoted more fully.
Finally…Syntax & Lexicons
With such an incredibly productive day this afternoon for work, I’ve decided that I can excuse myself to studying Greek discontinuous noun phrases again (why do I view that sort of thing as leisure activity?). So expect a post about noun initial hyperbaton (Y2 Hyperbaton) in the next day or so.
I’m very excited.
In other news, Rod Decker announced that Muraoka’s LXX lexicon is finally complete for the entire Septuagint, which means that my book purchasing priorities have just changed significantly.
And in that regard, Jame Spinti’s comments on the post are exciting too.
But as we’re waiting, there are a couple of new and excellent reviews up:
One on Campbell’s new aspect book.
One on the New English Translation of the Septuagint.
Studying Greek Word Order: Comparing Classical & Koine
No, this post isn’t going to provide a comparison of how word order in Classical Greek differs from that of Koine Greek. Rather, I want to compare how such studies have been done in Classical Greek and Koine, specifically with regard to their use of statistics:
Ivan Shing Chung Kwong, in his study of word order in Luke writes the following:
The statistical result of the study contributes to the figure of relative positions between the three main constituents in two aspects: unmarked word order patterns and tendencies of certain word order patterns–a very high percentage of occurrences of a certain word order pattern indicates an unmarked order (a very regular/typical order patter, e.g., subject precedes the complement in a clause [as stated below]); as relatively high percentage of occurrences of a certain word order pattern indicates a certain degree of tendency of having such a word order (the percentage of a certain pattern is not as high as the unmarked ones, but it is still relatively high to demonstrate a certain degree of tendency of having such a word order pattern, e.g., subject tends to precede its predicate in independent clauses [as stated below]).
The Word Order of the Gospel of Luke: It’s Forgrounded Messages, Page 45.
Now compare that with what Helma Dik says in her first book on Greek word order in Herodotus:
We have seen 48 instances in this section, many of which discussed in the previous sections of this chapter. Throughout, I have refrained from giving any statistics of the ordering patterns found, mainly because I do not think that statistics on the order of, for instance, the three core constituents would be very illuminating. In any case, the number of instances examined here is so small, that we cannot even expect ‘significant’ results in the technical sense. Be that as it may, Table 4.1 presents the distribution over the various ordering patterns as introduced in section 4.1.
Table 4.1 Ordering patterns with two arguments expressed
Pattern Instances Total A1-A2-P 1.66.3; 1.188.1; 4.160.2; 6.7 4 A2-A1-P 3.1.1 1 A1-P-A2 1.161; 3.25.2; 4.173; 5.14.2; 6.28.1; 6.108.4 [3.19.3; 3.52.7; 3.151.1; 4.80.2] 6
[4]A2-P-A1 3.44.1 1 P-A1-A2 1.73.1; 3.47.1 2 P-A2-A1 1.166.1 1 What conclusions can we draw from this distribution? At first sight A1-P-A2 [e.g. Subject-V-Object] appears to be the preferred pattern. If we include 3.19.3, 3.52.7, 3.151.1, and 4.80.2, this pattern covers more than half of the total number of instances. Does this make A1-P-A2 the unmarked order and should we proceed to consider only the marked instances? Clearly this would be a complicated procedure; with five different ‘marked’ patterns, there is a lot left to explain. In the preceding chapter I have tired to show an alternative way of handling the data. From this it appears that we need not describe one pattern as the preferred or unmarked pattern, but that differences in pragmatic function assignment can account for the different orderings. In such a description, we would not regard A1-P-A2 as unmarked, but explain its frequency from the fact that it is often the first argument that has Topic function and, therefore, ends up in initial position, and that in continuous narrative the predicate is the primary candidate for Focus function. Ironically, if we wanted to describe one pattern as unmarked in this description, it would be P-A1-A2, for it is very simple to describe the five other patterns in terms of ‘deviations’ (resulting from pragmatic function assignment) from this pattern.
In the clauses in which only one argument is present, we can see a similar phenomenon. A1-P is the ‘statistically unmarked’ option; I have argued that in A1-P the first argument is pragmatically marked.
Word Order in Ancient Greek: A Pragmatic Account of Word Order Variation in Herodotus, Page 93-4.
And now for my commentary on these two discussions.
First of all, Kwong and Dik’s perspectives are polar opposites.
Secondly, the quote from Kwong above is a single long and cumbrous sentence that really gets under my skin.
Third (and to the point), Dik is highly critical of the sort of statistics that Kwong has based his entire study upon. In light of her statements on statistics, Kwong’s literature review comments about Dik are rather striking:
The method and approach of Dik’s work is strange and largely disappointing. . . . Dik’s attempt to study the area pragmatically on the theory of Topic and Focus is a good try, but she fails to have a reasonable methodology and thus her work cannot give a satisfactory figure on Herodotus’ pragmatic word order (Kwong, 20; you can look up this page on Google Books if you’d like).
A couple thoughts on these words. I truly find them to be incredible. The Bryn Mawr review of Dik’s first book was incredibly positive – the exact opposite of Kwong. The only explanation I can think of consists of a combination of Kwong simply not understanding Dik with the extremely high value that he places on statistics in his own study (the few books that he speaks positively of in his lit review tend to be statistical). The vast expanse between the two approaches, one statistical and the other wholly pragmatic seems to have also introduced a gap in comprehension.
Personally, and this is my opinion (of course, I consider my opinion is correct, but am willing to be convinced otherwise), I think that Dik’s approach does far more justice to the data itself and is significantly closer to reality for Greek word order. In the end, Kwong’s work on word order will be viewed as idiosyncratic, which is unfortunate, because there is some good stuff in the book, particularly on semantic chaining (there’s also some good discussion of Topic change in chapter 8). He is simply too dependent upon statistics to be the last word, especially considering that word order statistics often vary from author to author and even from book to book within an author. I’d be curious as to whether Kwong’s word order proposals in Luke’s Gospel also work for Acts. I haven’t checked, but I’m a bit cynical.
With all of that said, there is also some strength in his exegetical claims, but I think that has more to do with how he relates his statistical findings to other linguistic/grammatical factors within the text than it does with any sort of true discovery about word order.
As for Dik, she doesn’t have everything right either. Her basic paradigm is great, though I’m suspicious about her claim that Verbs can be Pragmatic Topics, which is a unique distinction from typical Functional Grammar (and in every other framework I’ve read on this subject). As for the issue of simplicity, her explanations of constituents that follow the Verb leaves something to be desired. Post-verbal constitutents are relegated to the category, “everything else” (in her 1994 book). I think there’s more structure following the verb than that. At times, she seems to want everything to be explained via pragmatics rather than other components of Grammar, which makes me nervous — though I’m not even sure if that’s an accurate description of her view either, so we’ll put that question aside for now.
But at least Dik is aware of the problems and dangers of overdependence upon statistics, which Kwong almost seems to embrace with open arms. Also her focus is on looking at word order as a discourse level phenomenon, while Kwong is entirely focused upon the sentence. I suspect that this is the cause of Kwong’s misreading of Dik. At least, that’s my working hypothesis.
So there are some reflections on two very different books on the same topic. I hope I haven’t bored you all to death yet.
