21. Language

Abstract

Rodney A. Whitacre has been teaching New Testament Greek for over forty years, and his NT Greek grammar synthesizes his teaching and exposition experience with current Greek scholarship in a very accessible volume. Aimed at anyone who has completed an introductory Greek course, Whitacre’s book is an invaluable resource that packs in a remarkable amount of information in a clearly presented format. Weighing in at a mere 508 pages, it is considerably shorter than, say, Wallace’s Beyond the Basics. After a couple of introductory chapters on some basic elements of the language, we then have three long chapters on the morphology of nouns and adjectives, the morphology of verbs, and syntax. Each chapter is carefully and logically subdivided. At the end, we get eight appendices on topics like English grammar, principal parts of common verbs, accenting, and how to parse and translate a Greek sentence. All very useful and well presented. There is a considerable amount of attention given to verbs—more than 40% of the book—and Whitacre gives a clear account of aspect and Aktionsart. His comment that these are ‘enjoyable and rewarding features of Greek to pay attention to’ reveals, as does much else in the volume, that this man loves and is enthusiastic about his Greek New Testament. Whitacre’s approach is to be concise, and yet the amount of material covered is considerable. He provides plenty of examples from the New Testament of the grammar and syntax he is explaining without this ever becoming cumbersome. The morphology gives a satisfying account of how words are formed but never gets overcomplicated. This is an excellent resource for every student of New Testament Greek.