Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 181:722 (Apr 2024)
Article: Teaching Voice From Mounce: A Guide For Lecturers
Author: David J. Johnston

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Teaching Voice From Mounce: A Guide For Lecturers

David J. Johnston

David J. Johnston is Honorary Lecturer in the School of Divinity at the University of St Andrews, Scotland.

Abstract

Recent studies on voice have challenged the traditional explanation that New Testament Greek is a three-voice system, but the individual lecturer is often left to decide how best to teach voice. This article considers whether the verbs that Mounce expects students to learn function better as examples of a three-voice or a two-voice system. Since none of these verbs clearly exemplify a three-voice system when used in the New Testament, a lecturer who uses Mounce should teach a two-voice system.

Οne of the most popular textbooks for New Testament Greek is William D. Mounce’s Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar, now in its fourth edition.1 In a significant development from the third edition, Mounce raises the question of whether Greek was a two-voice or a three-voice system and suggests that students should “ask your teacher how you should learn this.”2 The discussion of voice in New Testament Greek textbooks typically begins with the validity of the category of deponency.3 There is growing agreement that the category itself—lexemes that

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despite their morphological form are in the active voice—should be discarded.4 So-called deponent verbs are not in the active voice in Greek; rather, they are nonactive in both form and meaning.5 This conclusion derives from scholarly recognition of the centrality of subject-affectedness for the interpretation of the middle voice.6 The markedness of subject-affectedness for the nonactive forms indicates that the grammatical subject participates in, benefits from, or has a self-interest in—that is, is affected by—the endpoint of the event denoted by the verb.7 This is true not only of a so-called deponent verb like δέχομαι or a verb in the middle form that can also be found in the active like λούω but also of a form inflected with the -θη marking like ἐπορεύθην, ἠγέρθησαν, and ἀπεκτάνθησαν. As a result, schola...