New Testament Greek Language and Linguistics in Recent Research

Abstract

This article examines developments in research on the linguistic and grammatical analysis of the language and literature of the New Testament since the publication of James Barr's important work in 1961. While there have been a large number of important advances since this time, the present survey restricts its analysis to research that has been significantly informed by modern linguistics. It considers four areas, in particular: verb structure, case structure, syntax and discourse analysis. Verbal aspect theory has been treated in more detail than any other aspect of the Greek verb. Most investigation of case structure has been informed by case grammar, originating in Fillmore's work. Syntactic theories that have been applied to the language of the New Testament draw mostly from the generative tradition of linguistics, but the OpenText.org project has recently implemented a functional and relational dependency model. Discourse analysis has typically been divided into four schools, but in recent research we see a fifth, eclectic approach, emerging.