Filología Neotestamentaria

Many of you are likely familiar with the journal Filología Neotestamentaria simply because it’s the only journal of its kind that deals with a broad coverage of Greek language issues focusing on the Hellenistic and Early Roman periods of the language. And I’m sure that most of you have greatly appreciated the fact that the majority of issues are available online at their website (in the linked title above).

At the same time, I’m sure you’ve also been regularly frustrated by the fact that only issues starting on 1994 are available in digital format and the first issues from 1988-1993 are completely inaccessible unless you have a good reliable university library readily at hand.

I, in particular, have been meaning pick up Stephen Levinsohn and Jenny Heimerdinger article, “The Use of the Definitive Article before Names of People in the Greek Text of Acts with Particular Reference to Codex Bezae” through interlibrary loan. I’ve read it, but having a copy via ILL would be far more useful (note to self). It is an article that—in my view—has set the standard for how we understand the use of the Greek article with proper names, which has only just come up in beginner’s forum over at B-Greek. A read through that article would clear things up nicely. There are a couple books that deal with the subject too: Levinsohn’s Discourse Features of New Testament Greek and Stephanie Bakker’s The Noun Phrase in Ancient Greek. Obviously the former is far more affordable for the average person while also covering far more ground than just the use of the article and the function of the noun phrase, but they’re both excellent books (my review of Bakker is here: Noun Phrase Review Part I and Noun Phrase Review Part II). In the mean time, I’m hoping that I can tease out the function of the article with proper names in a more didactic fashion.

Anyway, there is a more accessible venue for Filología Neotestamentaria coming with Logos Bible Software: Filología Neotestamentaria (31 vols.). I’d say that’s definitely worth the money ($99 = $3.20 per issue), particularly for those issues that aren’t available digitally and when you don’t have access to the internet.