A good reference grammar improves the quality of your exegesis by enhancing your grasp of the Greek language. If you already own Wallace's Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics it's time to take the next step with BDF! Because BDF contains longer explanations with more examples, it serves as a kind of "commentary" on a word or word form and its grammar and syntax. This detailed commentary can help you arrive at sound exegetical conclusions and give you increased confidence in your scholarship or preaching!
Additional Details
- Title: A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature: A revision of F. Blass and A. Debrunner "Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch," incorporating supplementary notes by A. Debrunner
- Authors: Blass and Debrunner; translated and edited by Robert W. Funk
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Copyright: 1961
- Pages: 364
Daniel Wallace, author of a Greek exegetical grammar offered by Logos, acknowledges that BDF remains "the standard reference grammar for Greek NT studies after 40 years." Gordon Fee gives this grammar "pride of place" among all New Testament Greek reference grammars. Stanley Porter says, "The most widely used reference grammar for the study of the Greek of the New Testament is that of F. Blass and A. Debrunner. . . [it] continues to be the most widely-cited New Testament Greek reference grammar."
It's a testimony to the quality of the scholarship contained in this work that A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature remains the most commonly referenced English-language grammar of New Testament and Early Christian Greek after more than forty years.
New Testament scholarship in English-speaking countries will be incalculably aided by this new English version of the Blass-Debrunner Grammar...
—John H. Skilton, Westminster Theological Seminary
Many readers find BDF easier to use and more succinct than Moulton-Howard-Turner Grammar of New Testament Greek, the final volume of which was completed two years after Funk's translation appeared. Unlike other grammars, BDF does not treat the Greek of the New Testament as peculiar but sees it in light of its linguistic setting, with considerable reference to the classical Greek dialects which preceded Koine. Also, as the title implies, it considers the Greek of the New Testament in light of early Christian usage—particularly among the Apostolic Fathers—but also treats the early Christian (non-canonical) writers in light of the Greek of the New Testament.
Virtually every seminarian and pastor today uses and/or has used BDF in their training and ministry. While some researchers make use of Moulton-Howard-Turner in their work—and, indeed, that four-volume set is not to be disparaged in the least—it cannot readily accompany a person into ministry in the way that a concise yet comprehensive volume such as BDF can.
Simply put, BDF is a classic reference work that condenses centuries of New Testament scholarship into a highly manageable format.
From the Book Jacket of the Print Edition
This work was created by Friedrich Blass, professor of classical philology at the University of Halle-Wittenberg, and was continued after his death by Albert Debrunner, professor of Indo-European and classical philology at the University of Bern until his retirement in 1954. The grammar has passed through ten editions from 1896 to 1960.
Robert W. Funk, in translating this long-established classic, has also revised it and, in doing so, has incorporated the notes which Professor Debrunner had prepared for a new German edition on which he was working at the time of his death in 1958. Dr. Funk has also had the co-operation of leading British, Continental, and American scholars. The translation places in the hands of English-speaking students a book that belongs in their.libraries and in the libraries of every theologian, philologist, and pastor, alongside the Gingrich-Danker Greek-English Lexicon.
This grammar sets the Greek of the New Testament in the context of Hellenistic Greek and compares and contrasts it with the classical norms. It relates the New Testament language to its Semitic background, to Greek dialects, and to Latin and has been kept fully abreast of latest developments and manuscript discoveries. It is at no point exclusively dependent on modern editions of the Greek New Testament text but considers variant readings wherever they are significant. It is designed to compress the greatest amount of information into the smallest amount of space consistent with clarity. There are subsections discussing difficult or disputed points and copious citations of primary texts in addition to generous bibliographies for those who wish to pursue specific items further.
Benefits of the Logos Bible Software Edition
One criticism of A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature in print is that it is hard to read due to the way the information is arranged and its outlining schema. Many people find that the best way to access it is via the extensive Scripture index at the back of the book. With the advent of the electronic edition from Logos, it will be much easier to access the grammar, by Bible reference and in other ways as well!
Because each Bible reference in the grammar will be encoded as such, you can jump straight to a discussion of your verse or passage within the grammar using Passage Guide, the Reference Browser, or a Basic Search. Instead of spending minutes looking through the index, a click or two will get you to the information instantly!
BDF frequently cites classical sources and examples, but it does so using a system of highly compressed abbreviations and symbols. Indeed, Funk notes in the Preface that the countless abbreviations used in the German original presented a special challenge to the work of translation into English. The print edition of BDF contains 22 pages listing the abbreviations and symbols used in the text—pages that you will never have to memorize or even consult in the electronic edition! Our text developers do the work for you and encode each abbreviation in the text so that you can simply hover your mouse over it and see its expanded meaning in a temporary tip window. This makes the electronic edition of the grammar much more accessible to students and anyone who hasn't spent their life in the field.
Searching within the electronic edition for inflected forms, lemmas, and any other desired text will make it superior to print as well. The "Index of Greek Words and Forms" from the print edition will be reproduced in the electronic edition, enabling you to search for a Greek lemma or inflected form and jump to the page where it is discussed. Where extended discussions of words occur (ἴδιος, for example, or the article ὁ) they will be designated as topics. This will enable you to KeyLink to the grammar, just like you can with a lexicon.
Praise for the Print Edition
"The Blass-Debrunner Grammar is of the advanced type, of special usefulness for research purposes. Its formulations are concise; its notes, illustrative material, and references are rich and copious; and its bibliographical leads are valuable. The student will need to use other grammars along with it; but he will not be able to do without it." —reviewed by John H. Skilton, Westminster Theological Seminary, in Westminster Theological Journal Vol 25 (1962) 
"A reference grammar for New Testament Greek, in English, with an introduction and 3 main parts: 1) Phonology, 2) Accidence and Word-Formation, and 3) Syntax. There are subject, Greek words and forms, and references indices. The references index includes references to the NT, the Apostolic Fathers, the NT Apocrypha, the Pseudo-Clementine Literature, and the Septuagint." —Yale University Divinity School Library Research Guide on Christianity
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