A Short Grammar of the Greek New Testament, for Students Familiar with the Elements of Greek
Overview
B. B. Warfield once called Robertson’s Greek scholarship “monumental,” and George Truett said he “would exchange a billion dollars” for one of his grammars. Robertson devoted his life to the genius of the Greek language—its history and the individuals who have used it for speaking, writing, exegesis, and interpretation. At the time of publication, Robertson had taught Greek for twenty years and studied Greek for more than thirty. He wrote A Short Grammar of the Greek New Testament at the request of students, pastors, and colleagues. It became a standard textbook in many seminaries and was translated into a dozen languages.
This volume contains an introduction to modern linguistics and Greek pronunciation. Robertson also includes chapters on declensions, the principal parts of numerous verbs, a discussion of Greek syntax, the Greek article, prepositions, the moods, tenses, and voices of verbs, as well as clauses, participles, and Greek idioms.
Top Highlights
“It is that the New Testament is written in the vernacular Greek of the time.” (Page 5)
“Language is life and must be so studied, if one is to catch its secrets.” (Page 4)
“The office of the grammarian is therefore to register and to interpret facts, not to manufacture or warp the facts to a theory. The novice in the study of syntax has difficulty in ridding his mind of the idea that grammars and dictionaries regulate a language. They merely interpret a language more or less correctly as the case may be. The seat of authority in language is not the books about language, but the people who speak and write it. The usage of the best educated writers determines the literary style of a language, while the whole people determine the vernacular. Change in language cannot be stopped save by the death of the language.” (Page 4)
“The Greek of the New Testament that was used with practical uniformity over most of the Roman world is called the Common Greek or κοινή. Not that it was not good Greek, but rather the Greek in common use. There was indeed a literary κοινή and a vernacular κοινή. Plutarch is a good specimen of the literary κοινή while the papyri are chiefly in the vernacular κοινή like most of the New Testament.” (Page 6)
“The imperative is the mode for commands, the assertion of one’s will on another’s” (Page 131)
- Title: A Short Grammar of the Greek New Testament, for Students Familiar with the Elements of Greek
- Author: Archibald Thomas Robertson
- Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
- Publication Date: 1908
- Pages: 219
A. T. Robertson (1863–1934) was a renowned scholar and a terrific preacher. He was educated at Wake Forest University and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. In 1892, Robertson was appointed professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary where he taught until 1934.
Robertson was a founding member of the Baptist World Congress, now known as the Baptist World Alliance. Throughout his incredible life, Archibald Thomas Robertson wrote 41 books ranging from grammars to simple character studies.
His books are still used today and his publications available in Logos include Practical and Social Aspects of Christianity: The Wisdom of James, Studies in Mark's Gospel, The Divinity of Christ in the Gospel of John, and A Harmony of the Gospels. Also available from Logos is the A. T. Robertson Collection (15 vols.), which includes a number of Robertson’s grammars, commentaries, lectures, and sermons.