We call attention to a new series by Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, called the Library of New Testament Greek (LNTG). LNTG complements and supplements other academic book series in New Testament Greek linguistics, such as Linguistic Biblical Studies (Brill) and Studies in Biblical Greek (Peter Lang), among other venues where studies on Greek linguistics can be found.
The description of this new series states on their website:
The Library of New Testament Greek provides a home for traditional grammars, reference resources, classic works, monographs, and edited volumes related to the study of New Testament Greek. Volumes examine the language historically and linguistically, and show how it functions in terms of specific linguistic uses in the different and varied texts of the New Testament. The series features several landmark volumes [both newly commissioned and new editions of classic works] that will orient students and scholars to the language of the New Testament, giving a full survey of the grammar of New Testament Greek from introductory to reference levels, alongside academic studies and handbooks on key topics.
Three volumes are currently available, all published within the past several months. The following are the titles, a brief summary, and table of contents for each volume.
Porter, Stanley E. Linguistic Descriptions of the Greek New Testament: New Studies in Systemic Functional Linguistics. LNTG 1. New York: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2023.
This book provides an overview of linguistics and linguistic theory in relation to New Testament studies and focuses on System Functional Linguistics and various issues in linguistics that relate to the study of the biblical text.
Introduction to This Volume on Linguistic Descriptions
Part One: Linguistics and New Testament Study
1. Linguistic Theory and New Testament Greek Study I: Linguistic Schools and Traditional Grammar
2. Linguistic Theory and New Testament Greek Study II: Modern Linguistics and Its Schools of Thought
Part Two: Systemic Functional Linguistics and New Testament Study
3. Metaphor in the New Testament: Expressing the Inexpressible through Language within a Systemic Functional Linguistics Perspective
4. Rhetoric and Persuasion in the New Testament from a Systemic Functional Linguistics Perspective
5. Defining Cognition through Systemic Functional Linguistics System Networks and the Greek of the New Testament
6. Orality and Textuality and Implications for Description of the Greek New Testament from a Systemic Functional Linguistics Perspective
Conclusion
Porter, Stanley E., and Matthew Brook O’Donnell. Discourse Analysis and the Greek New Testament: Text-Generating Resources. LNTG 2. New York: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2024.
This book is a two-decade development of discourse analysis as applied to the New Testament and Koine Greek. Anyone interested in discourse analysis and working in discourse analysis must have a copy of this book.
Part 1: Discourse Analysis and New Testament Studies
1. Introduction to Discourse Analysis and Its Basic Concepts
2. Discourse Analysis and the Study of the Greek New Testament
Part 2: Toward Systemic Functional Discourse Analysis
3. Context, Co-Text, Register, and Its Metafunctions
4. Information Structure and Thematization
5. Linguistic Highlighting: Prominence, Markedness, and Grounding
6. Cohesion and Coherence
7. Conclusion: Discourse Analysis as a Critical Tool for New Testament Studies
Porter, Stanley E. Hermeneutics, Linguistics, and the Bible: The Importance of Context. LNTG 3. New York: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2024.
This book discusses the significance that hermeneutics and the question of meaning has on biblical studies and develops the meaning of context in biblical interpretation.
Introduction: An Orientation to Hermeneutics
Part 1: Hermeneutics and the Problems of Interpretation
1: What Constitutes Hermeneutics Today?
2: What Difference Does Hermeneutics Make in Biblical Interpretation?
3: Where Is the Locus of Meaning?
Part 2: Linguistics and Solutions to the Problem of Interpretation
4: The Meaning of Meaning
5: The Question of Context
6: A Functional Model of Context
Part 3: Conclusion
7: A Single Horizon Hermeneutics
There are several volumes already slated to be written, edited, and released in the coming years, although we are not at liberty to identify them at this time. Stay tuned for further announcements in this series, but for now, these three volumes should keep any student of Greek occupied.
— David I. Yoon
DOMAIN THIRTY-THREE 
I am really glad to hear this news 🙂
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Unfortunately _Discourse Analysis and the Greek New Testament is a major disappointment. For a number of years we have been referred to Porter & O’Donnell (forthcoming) for explanations of the variety of analysis that Stan Porter has advocated. This book (P&O) probably does not meet that need.
The preface supplies an explanation for the number of infelicities that careful editing would have caught.
But a couple of examples that might reveal more serious issues:
On p.129 P&O state ‘Malcolm Coulthard discusses prominence as a feature _apart from_ grammatical structure and from individual word stress, _being indicated in stressed syllables_ (emphasis added). In this case the examples given in Example 5.1 on the next page are NOT examples of Individual Word Stress.
On p.197 Example 6.1 is headed ‘Example of Co-reference’. The previous discussion might indicate that these data are examples of ‘co-classification’ which is what Halliday and Hasan say (and which P&O conclude on p.198 ‘So this is an example of co-classification.’
Also, the long footnote (101) on p.152 seems rather unfortunate. Especially in references to being accurate and misquoting. For example in fn101 7 (on p.153), Stan says he can find no reference to the augment on the pages in Lyons (Semantics 704). I guess ‘The morphological structure of both Greek and Latin supports this two-dimensional classification’ could be that reference, yes?
Also in that long footnote Stan mentions ‘minimal pairs’. He quotes from Paul Kroeger about contrast but adds ‘with nothing more theoretical needed than that.’ I would understand Stan to be saying that by finding a minimal pair or two in data we can draw valid and enduring conclusions.
But two comments: (1) Stan seems to have missed the footnote in Kroeger which is pertinent to Steve Runge’s criticism (has Stan established a ‘difference in meaning’ in his contrastive substitution example sentences). And (2) after the first day of an Introduction to Phonology course, students might well be able to identify ‘minimal pairs’. Hopefully by the end of a semester they might have enough linguistic nous to realise the theoretical pitfalls in those observations.
That ‘nous’ comes from moving from observation to explanation. One cannot help but feel that in the emphasis on labeling in P&O (often confusingly so) that observational adequacy is what is valued in this approach to discourse analysis.
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OK, so my comments are not going to pass the moderation process. Fair enough. But I would comment (even if for your ears (eyes) only) that the more I read Discourse Analysis and the Greek New Testament, the more examples of linguistic ineptitude I find.
For example p.184, fn162, there is a statement X ‘apparently claims SV and VO for main clauses … [Y] tentatively suggests SV and VO’. Is this meant to mean something linguistically? Should it be talking about VO and OV or does the writer simply not understand discussions of linguistic typology?
Frequently, examples do not support the statements being made: for example
p.206 ‘_Jesus came into the village and the Lord began to teach._’ ) Italics original and ‘the Lord’ underlined. The statement is made ‘There is a link between “Jesus” and “the Lord,” but the latter communicates further information.” Indeed it does! To the extent that in this example sentence, Jesus and the Lord are almost certainly not coreferential.
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Bruce, thanks for your comments and sorry for the delay in response. I’m sure Porter and O’Donnell appreciate you reading and engaging with the book. But I would say that these criticisms are confusing (meaning I’m not sure what you are trying to dispute exactly) or I’m not sure if you interpreted the DA text accurately–without getting into a detailed response. However, this book would be the most comprehensive discourse analysis, especially from an SFL framework, and probably the most theoretically comprehensive one so far, in New Testament studies, so even if there were some disagreements on some things, to say that it is characterized by linguistic ineptitude, infelicities, or a major disappointment is probably inappropriate and inapplicable.
— Dave
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