Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Nijay Gupta, of his eponymously-named blog, put out a list of 20 scholars who have influenced him most.

I don't have a list quite like Nijay's, likely because I haven't pursued formal graduate studies. My list is less centered around scholars and influence from the books they've written and more centered around scholars (and others who some may not qualify as 'scholars' because they have no post-grad/terminal degree) and the conversation(s) and relationship I've had with them. While ideas presented in books are important, relationships are much more shaping—at least for me. That said, here we go. This is in no particular order.

Randall Tan — Randall has been nothing short of an encouragement to me; he has always been generous and charitable in any interaction we've had. He is a gentleman, a scholar, and someone I am lucky enough to call a friend. I'd venture to say his functional recall of things having to do with Greek grammar is the highest of almost anyone I know, and he's always willing to help when I have a question. Anyway, Randall has encouraged and taught me to not be afraid when approaching things I don't fully understand; chances are I have a better understanding than I give myself credit for — and I'll usually be able to work it out while pursuing the problem.

Matthew Brook O'Donnell — While working on the Logos Bible Software implementation of OpenText.org's syntactic analysis of the Greek New Testament, I was able to interact with Matt a lot. In working through the OpenText.org data, and with his help (and, for that matter, Randall's help too) my brain made the shift from thinking about Greek at the word level to thinking about Greek at the level of the phrase/clause. Additionally, his Corpus Linguistics and the Greek of the New Testament (amazon.com) is thought provoking and (along with Jeffrey T. Reed's A Discourse Analysis of Philippians (amazon.com)) go a long way to providing documentation and background to the details of the OpenText.org analysis. All great stuff.

Albert Lukaszewski — I've had the privilege of working with Dr. Lukaszewski (whom many of you know from Zondervan's Reader's Greek New Testament (amazon.com) fame) on the conception and production of the Lexham Syntactic Greek New Testament for Logos Bible Software. The primary work was done roughly in the same period as work on the OpenText.org SAGNT (mentioned above), though the project is an ongoing one. In working through this information with Al, I was able to first of all come to an understanding of sentence diagramming that I would've never been able to outside of his work, and secondly come to understand the strengths and weaknesses of both the traditional approach to Greek grammar/syntax (which the Lexham SGNT largely represents) and the more linguistically oriented approach of the OpenText.org project.

Steven Runge — I've been working with Steve on the Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament for well over a year now. In much the same way that my brain shifted from thinking about words to thinking about phrases/clauses; my brain has shifted further into the realm of discourse; particularly the area of "Discourse Grammar". I never would've been able to realize the importance, at the discourse level, of function words and other sorts of information structures without his work and encouragement. I still have oodles to learn in this particular area, but Steve has given me a foundation I can build on as I examine all sorts of things (like αλλα) to learn more. Conjunctions and other particles are now my friends.

Maurice Robinson — I've been privileged to have a few conversations with Dr. Robinson as we've met in passing at ETS over the past few years. What I've learned from him and his work is that if you have theories you're convinced of, you need to do due diligence and work them out to their logical extent. I'm not a Byzantine priorist; but I do appreciate and respect Dr. Robinson's work.

Charles E. Hill — Dr. Hill was my first-year Greek prof at Northwestern College back in 1992-93. Without the foundation he gave (yay ATHENAZE!  Go, Δικαιοπολις!) I wouldn't be where I am today.

Ray Van Neste — Ray's work on the Pastorals (Cohesion and Structure in the Pastoral Epistles (amazon.com)) is the best non-commentary resource you can get for the Pastorals (and better and more helpful than most commentaries, for that matter). The section on semantic chaining (much of the theory here taken from Guthrie's work on Hebrews (amazon.com)) alone is worth the price of admission (or, it used to be before the book went out of print and you could get it for under $100). Discussions of transitions, cohesion and the like are excellent. This volume has helped and shaped my thinking about the Pastorals more than any other single volume. Find it at a library or get it via interlibrary loan if you're working in the Pastorals. And his focus on pastoral ministry and family is heartening.

Vincent Setterholm — Vincent is a colleague at Logos whom I've known for what, five years now? Vincent taught me that, properly focused and adequately balanced, auto-didacticism is a good thing. He also taught me that building a library is important. Don't be afraid to buy the worthy books at any reasonable price. And read them once you've got them.

Eli Evans — Eli is another colleague at Logos (you can tell I'm heavily influenced by the guys I work with, huh?). I've worked with him for over 10 years. Eli has single-handedly shaped my writing skills with his incisive and functional criticism of the stuff I've passed off as writing in the past, oh, five years. He's also a valued friend and debating partner/adversary.

Post Author: rico
Wednesday, May 07, 2008 11:00:06 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00) 

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