Wallace The Basics of New Testament Syntax
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ILLUSTRATIONS
Tables
1. Literary Levels of New Testament Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2. Five-Case System Vs. Eight-Case System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3. The Functions of the Adjective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
4. Attributive and Predicate Positions of the Adjective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
5. How Agency is Expressed in the New Testament . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
6. The Semantics of the Moods Compared . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
7. English Tenses in Direct and Indirect Discourse. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
8. The Semantics of Deliberative Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
9. The Forms of the Periphrastic Participle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
10. The Structure of Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Charts, Figures, and Diagrams
1. The Multifaceted Nature of New Testament Greek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2. Frequency of Case-Forms in the New Testament . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3. Frequency of Cases in the New Testament (Nominative) . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4. Semantic Relation of Subject and Predicate Nominative . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
5. Frequency of Cases in the New Testament (Vocative). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
6. Frequency of Cases in the New Testament (Genitive) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
7. The Relation of Descriptive Genitive to Various
Other Genitive Uses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
8. The Semantics of the Attributive Genitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
9. A Semantic Diagram of the Attributive Genitive and
Attributed Genitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
10. Genitive of Content Vs. Genitive of Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
11. Genitive of Apposition Vs. Genitive in Simple Apposition. . . . . . . . . . . 53
12. Diagrams of Subjective and Objective Genitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
13. Frequency of Cases in the New Testament (Dative) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
14. Frequency of Cases in the New Testament (Accusative) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
15. The Semantics of the Object-Complement Construction . . . . . . . . . . . 85
16. The Cases for Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
17. The Basic Forces of the Article . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
18. Individualizing Vs. Generic Article . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
19. The Semantic Relations of the Individualizing Article . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
20. Flow Chart on the Article with Substantives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
9
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21. The Semantics of Anarthrous Nouns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
22 The Semantics of Indefinite Nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
23. The Semantics of Qualitative Nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
24. The Semantics of Generic Nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
25. The Semantics of Definite Nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
26. The Different Databases for Colwell’s Rule Vs.
Colwell’s Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
27. The Semantic Range of Anarthrous Predicate Nominatives. . . . . . . . . 117
28. Distinct Groups, though United [TSKS Plural
Personal Construction] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
29. Overlapping Groups [TSKS Plural Personal Construction]. . . . . . . . . 124
30. First Group Subset of Second [TSKS Plural Personal Construction] . 125
31. Second Group Subset of First [TSKS Plural Personal Construction] . 125
32. Both Groups Identical [TSKS Plural Personal Construction] . . . . . . . 126
33. The Semantic Range of the Forms of the Adjective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
34. Frequency of Pronoun Classes in the New Testament . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
35. Frequency of Pronoun Terms in the New Testament . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
36. Frequencies of Prepositions in the New Testament . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
37. The Spatial Functions of Prepositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
38. Semantic Overlap Between Simple Case and Preposition + Case. . . . . 164
39. Overlap in Uses of ∆Antiv and ÔUpevr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
40. The Scope of “We” in the New Testament . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
41. The Direction of the Action in Greek Voices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
42. Voice Statistics in the New Testament . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
43. The Moods Viewed in Two Continua . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
44. Mood Frequencies in the New Testament . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
45. Semantic Overlap of Subjunctive and Optative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
46. Relative Frequency of Tenses in the New Testament . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
47. The Force of the Instantaneous Present . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
48. The Force of the Progressive Present . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
49. The Force of the Extending-from-Past Present . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
50. The Force of the Iterative Present . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
51. The Force of the Customary Present. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
52. The Force of the Gnomic Present . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
53. The Force of the Historical Present. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
54. The Force of the Perfective Present. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
55. The Force of the (True) Conative Present. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
56. The Force of the Tendential Present . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
57. The Force of the Completely Futuristic Present. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
58. The Force of the Mostly Futuristic Present. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
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59. The Basic Force of the Imperfect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
60. The Force of the Progressive Imperfect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
61. The Force of the Ingressive Imperfect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
62. The Force of the Iterative Imperfect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
63. The Force of the Customary Imperfect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
64. The Force of the (True) Conative Imperfect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
65. The Force of the Tendential Imperfect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
66. The Force of the Aorist Indicative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
67. The Force of the Future Tense. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
68. The Force of the Perfect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
69. The Force of the Intensive Perfect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
70. The Force of the Extensive Perfect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
71. The Force of the Dramatic Perfect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
72. The Perfect with Present Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
73. The Aoristic Perfect and Perfect with Present Force Compared . . . . . 250
74. The Force of the Pluperfect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
75. The Force of the Intensive Pluperfect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
76. The Force of the Extensive Pluperfect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
77. The Semantic Range of the Infinitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
78. Time in Participles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
79. The Semantic Range of the Participle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
80. The Tenses of Adverbial Participles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
81. The Semantic Overlap of Purpose and Result Participles. . . . . . . . . . . 279
Illustrations 11
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ABBREVIATIONS
➡ Common categories that all intermediate Greek students
must know
✝ Abused categories that intermediate Greek students
should be aware of
acc. accusative
Accordance Macintosh software program that performs sophisticated
searches on a morphologically tagged Greek NT (Nestle-
Aland
26/27
text) as well as a Hebrew OT (BHS). Marketed
by the Gramcord Institute, Vancouver, Washington, and
programmed by Roy Brown.
BAGD Bauer, W. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament
and Other Early Christian Literature. Trans. and rev.
W. F. Arndt, F. W. Gingrich, and F. W. Danker. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1979.
BDF Blass, F., and A. Debrunner. A Greek Grammar of the
New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Trans.
and rev. R. W. Funk. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1961.
Bib Biblica
Brooks-Winbery Brooks, J. A., and C. L. Winbery. Syntax of New Testament
Greek. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America,
1979.
Chamberlain, Chamberlain, W. D. An Exegetical Grammar of the Greek
Exegetical New Testament. New York: Macmillan, 1941.
Grammar
Dana-Mantey Dana, H. E., and J. R. Mantey. A Manual Grammar of the
Greek New Testament. Toronto: Macmillan, 1927.
dat. dative
ExSyn Exegetical Syntax
Exegetical Syntax Wallace, Daniel B. Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An
Exegetical Syntax of the Greek New Testament. Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1996.
Fanning, Fanning, B. M. Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek.
Verbal Aspect Oxford: Clarendon, 1990.
gen. genitive
12
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Gramcord Windows software program that performs sophisticated
searches on a morphologically tagged Greek NT (Nestle-
Aland
26
text) as well as a Hebrew OT (BHS). Marketed by
the Gramcord Institute, Vancouver, Washington, and
programmed by Paul Miller.
GTJ Grace Theological Journal
JB Jerusalem Bible
KJV King James Version
LXX Septuagint
McKay, McKay, K. L. “Time and Aspect in New Testament
“Time and Aspect” Greek,” Novum Testamentum 34 (1992): 209–28.
Moule, Idiom Book Moule, C. F. D. An Idiom Book of New Testament Greek. 2d
ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959.
Moulton, Moulton, J. H. A Grammar of New Testament Greek.
Prolegomena Vol. 1, Prolegomena. 3d ed. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark,
1908.
Mounce, Mounce, W. D. Basics of Biblical Greek. Grand Rapids:
Basics of Zondervan, 1993.
Biblical Greek
MS(S) manuscript(s)
NASB New American Standard Bible
NEB New English Bible
NET New English Translation
Nestle-Aland
26
Novum Testamentum Graece. Ed. K. Aland, M. Black, C.
M. Martini, B. M. Metzger, A. Wikgren. 26th ed.
Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1979.
Nestle-Aland
27
Novum Testamentum Graece. Ed. B. Aland, K. Aland, J.
Karavidopoulos, C. M. Martini, B. M. Metzger. 27th ed.
Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1993.
NKJV New King James Version
NIV New International Version
nom. nominative
NovT Novum Testamentum
NRSV New Revised Standard Version
NT New Testament
NTS New Testament Studies
OT Old Testament
Abbreviations 13
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Porter, Idioms Porter, S. E. Idioms of the Greek New Testament. Sheffield:
JSOT Press, 1992.
Robertson, Robertson, A. T. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament
Grammar in the Light of Historical Research. 4th ed. New York: Hod-
der & Stoughton, 1923.
RSV Revised Standard Version
TSKS Article-Substantive-Kaiv-Substantive
UBS
3
The Greek New Testament. Ed. K. Aland, M. Black, C. M.
Martini, B. M. Metzger, A. Wikgren. 3d ed., corrected.
Stuttgart: United Bible Societies, 1983.
UBS
4
The Greek New Testament. Ed. B. Aland, K. Aland, J. Kar-
avidopoulos, C. M. Martini, B. M. Metzger. 4th ed., cor-
rected. Stuttgart: United Bible Societies, 1994.
Vaughan-Gideon Vaughan, C., and V. E. Gideon. A Greek Grammar of the
New Testament. Nashville: Broadman, 1979.
v.l.(l) textual variant(s)
voc. vocative
Williams, Williams, P. R. Grammar Notes on the Noun and the Verb
Grammar Notes and Certain Other Items, rev. ed. Tacoma, Wash.: North-
west Baptist Seminary, 1988.
Young, Young, R. A. Intermediate New Testament Greek: A
Intermediate Greek Linguistic and Exegetical Approach. Nashville: Broadman,
1994.
Zerwick, Zerwick, M. Biblical Greek Illustrated by Examples. Rome:
Biblical Greek Pontificii Instituti Biblici, 1963.
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PREFACE
This grammar is essentially an abridgment of Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics:
An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996). It is
systematically cross-referenced to the larger work (referred to as Exegetical Syntax
or ExSyn throughout this book) so that the interested student may be able to find
expanded discussions easily.
Because of the size of Exegetical Syntax several teachers of intermediate Greek
have felt it was unwieldy to use as a one-semester textbook. This book is offered
to them in the hope that they will find it more useful. Basics of New Testament Syn-
tax is about one third the size of Exegetical Syntax. It may be helpful to list the
kinds of things that have been omitted:
• The rarest categories of usage
• Most exegetical discussions
1
• Most of the biblical examples and cited references
• The select bibliographies at the beginning of each chapter
• Virtually all text-critical notes
• Advanced material (e.g., the appendices on verbal aspect and conditional
clauses)
• Many of the more detailed discussions of the semantics of a particular syn-
tactical category
What has not been removed or altered are the following:
• Category titles
• “Arrowed” and “daggered” categories, indicating which uses are common
and abused, respectively
• The vast bulk of charts and tables
At bottom, this book “majors on the majors.” It is designed more for the stu-
dent whose interests are focused on Greek syntax than for those who desire to see
the relevance of syntax for exegesis. Nevertheless, at over 300 pages, one could
hardly call this a mere outline of Greek syntax! It should be helpful for anyone
who wants to learn (or relearn) the basics of New Testament syntax.
Basics of New Testament Syntax was not produced in a vacuum. Thanks are due
especially to Chris Bradley, Chad Crammer, and Les Hicks for their help in the
summer of 1999. Among other things, Chris keyed in the cross-references to
Exegetical Syntax, while Chad and Les helped with style and content. Thanks are
due, too, to Princeton University for their stipend to Chris, enabling him to work
on this project.
15
1
Exegetical Syntax includes over 800 discussions of texts whose interpretation is impacted
by the syntax. Only a handful of these have been retained in this work, but most of the discus-
sions are cross-referenced by way of a footnote.
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To Pati, my wife of more than a quarter of a century: I am grateful for your
impatience with my long-windedness; it is because of you that I understand why
a book like this is needed.
I am thankful as well to Zondervan Publishing House for accepting yet
another manuscript from me: to Jack Kragt, whose sensitivity to the needs of
Greek teachers first prompted me to think about writing this book; to Stan
Gundry, for his vision and leadership in Christian academic publishing; and espe-
cially to Verlyn Verbrugge, whose encouragement in the editing process made
writing this book a light task.
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THE LANGUAGE OF THE
NEW TESTAMENT
1
In this chapter our goal is twofold: (1) to see where NT Greek fits in the history
of the Greek language (this is known as a diachronic and external study), and (2)
to look at certain issues related to NT Greek per se (this is a synchronic and
internal study).
Overview of Chapter
Stages of the Greek Language (Diachronic) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1. Pre-Homeric (up to 1000
BCE
). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2. The Age of the Dialects, or the Classical Era
(1000
BCE–330
BCE) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3. Koinhv Greek (330
BCE–330 CE). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4. Byzantine (or Medieval) Greek (330
CE–1453 CE) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5. Modern Greek (1453
CE to present) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Koinhv Greek (Synchronic) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2. Historical Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3. Scope of Koinhv Greek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4. Changes from Classical Greek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
5. Types of Koinhv Greek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
New Testament Greek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1. The Language Milieu of Palestine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2. Place of the Language of the New Testament in
Hellenistic Greek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Stages of the Greek Language (Diachronic)
ExSyn 14–17
There are five great stages of the Greek language.
1. Pre-Homeric (up to 1000
BCE)
As early as the third millennium
BCE, tribes of Indo-European peoples wan-
dered into Greece. Unfortunately, because we lack literary remains, we know lit-
tle from this period about the Greek language.
17
1
See ExSyn, 12–30.
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2. The Age of the Dialects, or the Classical Era (1000 BCE–330 BCE)
Geography and politics (e.g., independent city-states) caused Greek to frac-
ture into several dialects, four of which were predominant: Aeolic, Doric, Ionic,
and by far the most influential, Attic. Attic Greek, in fact, was an offspring of
Ionic; it was the dialect of Athens, the political and literary center of Greece dur-
ing the “golden age” of classical Greek (5th–4th centuries
BCE). Attic is often
equated with classical Greek.
3. Koinhv Greek (330
BCE–330
CE)
The Koine was born out of the conquests of Alexander the Great. First, his
troops, which came from Athens as well as other Greek cities and regions, had to
speak to one another. This close contact produced a melting-pot Greek that
inevitably softened the rough edges of some dialects and lost the subtleties of oth-
ers. Second, the conquered cities and colonies learned Greek as a second lan-
guage. By the first century
CE, Greek was the lingua franca of the whole
Mediterranean region and beyond. Since the majority of Greek speakers learned
it as a second language, this further increased its loss of subtleties and moved it
toward greater explicitness.
4. Byzantine (or Medieval) Greek (330
CE–1453
CE)
When the Roman Empire split between East and West, Greek lost its Welt-
sprache status. Latin was used in the West (Rome), Greek in the East (Constan-
tinople).
5. Modern Greek (1453
CE to present)
In 1453 the Turks invaded Byzantium, so that Greek was no longer isolated
from the rest of the world. The Renaissance was born in the West as scholars fled
with copies of Greek classics under their arms; the Reformation developed in
northern Europe as Christian scholars (such as Erasmus and Luther) became
aware of NT Greek manuscripts. Nevertheless, although Greek got out of the
East, Europe did not get in. That is to say, copies of ancient Greek literature
finally brought Europe out of the Dark Ages, but Europe had no impact on the
living language. The net effect is that “the modern Greek popular speech does
not differ materially from the vernacular Byzantine, and thus connects directly
with the vernacular koinhv.”
2
The Greek language has changed less over three
millennia than English has in one.
Today, there are two levels of Greek, katharevousa (kaqareuvousa = “literary
language”) and demotic (dhmotikhv = “popular language”). The former is not actually
a historical development of the language, but is “book Greek,” an artificial attempt
at resurrecting the Attic dialect in modern times. Since 1977, demotic Greek has
been the official language of Greece, tracing its roots directly back to Koine.
The Basics of New Testament Syntax18
2
Robertson, Grammar, 44.
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