Pisteuomen - πιστευομεν - T. Michael W. Halcomb

Today, I am pleased to announce the release of Volume 1 in the brand new Hexapla series that I have been working on with one of my mentors, Dr. Fred Long.  The first installment, Luke-Acts, is found in Hebrew, Latin, Greek, English, German, and French.  For those wanting to retain language abilities for research or recreation, this volume, which contains the Gospel of Luke in interlinear format and the Book of Acts in parallel format, is perfect for you!  It is also perfect for biblical studies and theological students (especially those of upper-level study) as it will help you prepare for exams.  Well, instead of saying so much about it here, let me point you to the website where you can read about it, see some examples and purchase it!  To visit the site, click the following link:   www.NTPolyglot.com .  Also, work on future volumes is already underway, so, be on the lookout!  Spread the word about this great resource!

Hey Pisteuomen readers, I just wanted to publish a quick post to let you know about my latest app, the Getting Greek: Reading Philemon App. The purpose of this lightweight, intuitive and user-friendly app is to allow readers not simply to access the Greek text of Philemon on their smart devices, but also to enable them to both read the Greek text and hear it read simultaneously. This is my 10th app and you can expect more to come. You can get this app in the Android Market and you can also check out my app gallery HERE . You can also see screenshots, specs and a preview video of the app HERE . Enjoy!

It is becoming more and more popular within the blogging community these days, especially the Bible/Theology blogging community, to masquerade as a blogger while really being little more than an RSS Feed puller. This is quite annoying! I presume that part of the reason for this is due to traffic and stats. There's at least a half a dozen so-called blogs out there whose monthly goal is to be at the top of the Biblioblog rankings (e.g. The Top 50). You will see these blogs that I'm speaking of coming through with 5 or 10 or more postings per day. Yet, in most instances, NONE of those posts are original. I'll get back to this momentarily. Or, if they are original, they might be a paragraph in length, or poll-based or asking some question, etc. In other words, the content can hardly constitute any sort of worthwhile post. Furthermore, the content is rarely meaningful or relevant in any way to biblical studies/theological studies. Now, I'm not saying that postin...

Steve Runge’s A Discourse Grammar of the Greek New Testament (DGGNT) is divided into four main sections, which are followed by a summary. In this portion of my review, I want to focus on Chapter 1 of Part 1, which is titled “Foundations” and as such, functions as an introduction to what Runge understands to be key concepts within his Discourse Analysis (DA) approach. While this is a grammar which both Wallace (in the foreword) and Runge (in the preface) suggest is a “complement” to other grammars, as opposed to being in competition with them, some of my initial questions/critiques flow from this assertion. When compared to other grammars, I find it interesting that Runge opts out of providing rudimentary elements of Greek at the beginning of his “grammar”. Absent from DGGNT are any signs of an alphabet, pronunciation, diphthongs, breathing/diacritical marks, etc. In the foreword, Wallace urges students to take up and read this book, while Runge, in the preface notes that this work ...

Runge opens the preface of his grammar, A Discourse Analysis of the Greek New Testament , by noting that among New Testament (NT) scholars, those interested in linguistic analyses of texts, have often created more problems with and in their analyses than existed before they undertook their own work; often scholars merely “reshape the problems using complex jargon” (xvii). Some, like Daniel Wallace, have found this to be the case with those who have attempted to use Discourse Analysis (DA) on the NT. Thus, Runge’s grammar seeks to “fill this lacuna” by minimalizing the use of technical jargon and providing practical grammatical solutions to grammatical problems. Runge is clear, however, that his work is not an attempt to simply reinvent the grammar wheel or to even “supplant previous work” (xvii) done in this field. Rather, A Discourse Grammar of the Greek New Testament seeks to help readers find their way through the maze of years and years worth of “contradictory claims” (xvii) ...

In the coming weeks I will begin a chapter-by-chapter review of Steve Runge's Discourse Grammar of the Greek New Testament: A Practical Introduction for Teaching and Exegesis .  I must say from the start, however, that I am coming at this mainly from an exegete and a "student" of Greek.  I have no degree in linguistics or linguistic theory and so, I am certainly limited in that capacity.  Having said that, my reasons for wanting to review this work (available from Logos and also by Hendrickson) are twofold:  1) To force myself to not just read it, but to consume it and to become very familiar with its contents, and 2) In having only read through chapters 1 and 2 so far, I can see that it is an incredibly different way of approaching Greek than I've ever been exposed to.  Traditional grammars almost always seem category-driven but Runge's work, thus far, has a very conversational feel, is full of examples, does not seem rushed and, while it is dense, it is no...