Christian Cyclopedia

A. Old Testament. The hist. of Heb. grammar begins roughly with the 9th c. AD, when Saadia* ben Joseph (ca. 882–942) laid the foundation for a science indep. of the Masoretes (see Masora[h]). The prince among his successors was David ben Joseph Kimchi (ca. 1160–ca. 1235), who paved the way for hist. and critical study of the Heb. language. The father of Christian Heb. grammarians is J. Reuchlin* (1455–1522); A. Schultens* (1686–1750) and Nikolaus Wilhelm Schröder (1721–98) laid the foundations for comparative grammatical methodology. Their most illustrious successor is H. F. W. Gesenius*; the 1st ed. of his Hebräische Grammatik was pub. 1813; the 28th appeared 1909; a beginning of the 29th was issued by G. Bergsträsser* 1918, 1926–29. The 2d ed. of George Wolseley Collins' (ca. 1846–95) Eng. tr., Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar, rev. by Arthur Ernest Cowley (1861–1931) appeared 1910, with corrections in reprints since 1946. Other works include G. H. A. Ewald,* Ausführliches Lehrbuch der hebräischen Sprache des Alten Bundes, 8th ed. (1870); B. Stade,* Lehrbuch der hebräischen Grammatik (1879); F. E. König,* Historisch-kritisches Lehrgebäude der hebräischen Sprache, 3 vols. (1881 to 89); A. B. Davidson,* An Introductory Hebrew Grammar (1884; 25th ed. rev. John Mauchline 1962); Jacob Weingreen, A Practical Grammar for Classical Hebrew (1939); Alexander Sperber, A Historical Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (1966).

B. New Testament. S. Glass(ius)* in Philologia sacra (1623–36) pioneered in undertaking a systematic description of the peculiarities of NT diction. G. Pasor* broke fresh ground 1655 with Grammatica graeca sacra Novi Testamenti domini nostri Jesu Christi, but NT Gk. grammar remained fettered in Heb. associations until J. G. B. Winer,* whose Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Sprachidioms (1822) saw 7 eds. and was tr. into Eng. 1825. Papyri discoveries moved G. A. Deissmann* to write Bibelstudien (1895) and Neue Bibelstudien (1897). A new era broke for NT interpretation. Much literature on the NT written before 1900 became obsolete. A grammar was begun by J. H. Moulton.* The 1st vol. appeared 1906; a 2d, ed. Wilbert Francis Howard, appeared in 3 parts 1919–29; the 3d vol., ed. Nigel Turner, appeared 1963. A. T. Robertson* issued A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research (the “Big Grammar”). It has largely been superseded by J. A. Debrunner's* eds. of F. W. Blass,* Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch (1896; 9th ed. 1954), available in Robert W. Funk's 1961 rev. and tr., A Greek Grammar of the New Testament, and Other Early Christian Literature. For special problems of syntax Ernest De Witt Burton, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses in New Testament Greek (1888; 3d ed. 1898) and Charles Francis D. Moule, An Idiom Book of New Testament Greek (1953; 2d ed. 1959) should be consulted. See also Robinson, Edward; Thayer, Joseph Henry.

F. Danker, Multipurpose Tools for Bible Study, 2d, rev. ed. (St. Louis, 1966), pp. 97–132. FWD