Grammatical Aid to the Greek New Testament
Grammatical Aid to the Greek New Testament (ISBN 978-0-615-48802-8)
Second edition – digital format – eBook)
This book is a useful tool for studying the New Testament in the original Greek. It is designed especially for the student that uses the Greek in his/her analysis of the New Testament text. The author has included grammatical comments, following the order of the New Testament, book by book, chapter by chapter and verse by verse. Consequently, this book has become an indispensable resource for doing an in-depth analysis of the Greek New Testament.
Second edition (ISBN 978-0-615-48802-8) $25.00:
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Numerous corrections have been made in an attempt to improve the work.
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Some comments were eliminated in this edition, if they were considered not pertinent for the interpretation of the passage under discussion.
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A considerable amount of material has been added. E.g., introductions are found at the beginning of the Gospels and Acts, as an attempt to aid in the analysis and interpretation of those books.
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More information has been included as editorial comments (either in brackets [] or preceded by the word “Note”). This is also the author’s personal opinion. This additional information has been provided with the intent of helping students of the New Testament to study the text more adequately and effectively.
Endorsements
William L. Lane (Western Kentucky University): “A goldmine…an invaluable resource.”
“A Grammatical Aid to the Greek New Testament is an important and valuable tool” for the pastor, the theological student, and the professor teaching a course on the Greek text of a New Testament book.”
Lane credits the author with “the sensitivity to recognize which of the varied comments offered in a particular grammar are significant ones for understanding the detail of the text. He understands technical grammatical terms and has the ability to clarify difficult statements in the advanced grammars. At many points he has appended a translation that brings out the grammatical nuance merely discussed by the grammarian cited.”
John H. Skilton (Westminster Theological Seminary): “Hanna has made the resources of a number of major grammars available to the student and interpreter. A Grammatical Aid could save one a great deal of time.”
Walter L. Liefeld (Trinity Evangelical Divinity School): “A unique and useful work. Although of necessity selective rather than comprehensive, it provides a judicious sampling of exegetical options, verse after verse. This distillation of grammatical data will benefit the busy or beginning student of the Greek text.”
Carl B. Hoch, Jr. (Grand Rapids Baptist Seminary): “Allows instant access to the comments of the major grammars on specific New Testament texts.”
Buist M. Fanning (Dallas Theological Seminary): “Highly recommended for anyone who wants to study the Greek New Testament in detail. It makes available in a verse-by-verse format the grammatical comments of the major reference grammars. Many of these grammatical notes are helpful for exegesis of the passages to which they refer. Hanna’s editorial comments add to the value of the work.”
Harold Van Broekhoven (Barrington College): “Hanna has done for grammatical study of New Testament Greek what others have done for lexical studies: he has given us a guide to major New Testament grammarians, and thus has opened up a treasure trove for a larger audience.”
Jack Lilley (Seminario Evangélico Asociado, Venezuela): “Not only brings together a representative selection of standard works, but limits points for discussion to those that influence interpretation of the text. Hanna’s editorial comments exhibit thorough research and careful analysis.”
A Review from Amazon.com
A fabulous resource for those working with the Greek NT!
By Alan E. Barber (Idaho Falls, ID USA), November 18, 2010
I’m amazed there’s no review of this title, so I guess is falls to me.
What a wonderful resource this book is for anyone working with the Greek New Testament. There’s nothing like it on the market of which I’m aware. Perhaps the best way to describe it is as a concordance of Greek New Testament reference grammars.
Let me explain what I mean. Students of the Greek New Testament are aware that there are many reference grammars out there. Paramount among these are works like A.T. Robertson’s A Grammar of Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, the Blass-Debrunner-Funk Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, J.H. Moulton’s three-volume grammar, Burton’s Syntax of the Moods and Tenses in the New Testament Greek, and C.F.D. Moule’s An Idiom Book of New Testament Greek. These are big books, they are expensive, and they’re not the kind of books that one reads cover to cover to learn NT Greek. They are reference works, designed to be consulted when one has a particular problem with a particular construction or phrase. But too often, the perplexed student can’t find the information (s)he needs, either because the desired reference grammar isn’t at hand, or because one simply can’t locate the precise assistance that’s needed because of the voluminous nature of the reference grammar and/or the student’s relative inexperience.
Into the breach steps Robert Hanna, who has taught koine Greek for most of his professional life. What Prof. Hanna has done in this work is to break down each book of the Greek New Testament verse-by-verse, isolate the problematical constructions, phrases and idioms, and then provide links (for lack of a better word) to each of the major Greek reference grammars discussing the particular Greek phrase at issue. Not only does this save the Greek student a tremendous amount of time in searching through the grammars, but Prof. Hanna also provides his own comments on the phrase under consideration. For the busy student, pastor, or layperson seeking to exegete God’s Word more fully, this is an aid whose value cannot be overstated. Like I said, it’s a concordance of the major reference grammars; knowing what each author says allows you to research more fully in the grammar under consideration, while knowing where to start in those voluminous tomes, and knowing what you’ll find once you get there! Pure koine bliss!
Two words of warning: (1) The more recent grammars, such as those by Daniel Wallace and Bill Mounce, aren’t included for the simple reason they weren’t in existence when Prof. Hanna published his work. This also means that Prof. Hanna doesn’t reference much of the recent work done on the aspects of Greek verbs, such as found in Buist Fanning’s Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek (Oxford Theological Monographs) or similar works. (2) This book won’t help you learn NT Greek. It’s not a course in how to learn koine Greek. For that, you need Bill Mounce’s Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar or a similar book. In fact, Prof. Hanna recommends that students with less than three years of NT Greek not use his book (though I’ve found it extremely useful with less than one full year of study).
It’s obvious this was a labor of love for Prof. Hanna. This work doesn’t appear to have been re-printed over the years, so you’ll need to find the original 1983 Baker edition. It’s become quite pricey. But it’s worth every penny you’ll spend. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
