I am an ardent supporter of the Baylor Handbook on the Greek New Testament (BHGNT) series.

These handbooks are a boon both to the exegetes and the students who want a concise, but thorough, verse-by-verse, guide to the grammatical and textual issues of a given New Testament book (p. ix). The series, though certainly bearing the unique stamps of the individual volume’s authors, is consistent in its engagement with verbal aspect theory. Because I am a proponent of verbal aspect theory, who is often at a loss to recommend commentaries etc. to my students, I was heartened to hear that Porter and Yoon’s BHGNT offering on Romans was recently published.

In the series introduction, Culy/Novakovic clarify the skeletal plan of the handbooks. I applaud their goal to bring “linguistic insights into the mainstream of New Testament reference works,” while also dispelling “some of the myths about the Greek language” (p. x). For example, “deponency,” as a voice category is avoided in favor of [true] middle, because “at least in some cases, [deponency] effectively obscure[s] the semantic significance of the middle voice, leading to imprecise readings of the text” (p. xii).  They also give a very brief overview of the current debate on koine Greek verb tenses and express that the handbook authors “are encouraged to interact with these discussions and incorporate their insights in the analysis of the Greek text” (p. xi).

In their volume introduction, Porter and Yoon not only affirm their expected commitment to verbal aspect theory, but also to minimal syntactic categories, e.g., the primary function of the genitive case is restriction, so “subcategories” must be understood in light of this metafunction (xxvii). They orient the reader to their personal preferences, e.g., the aspectually vague verb εἰμί is referred to as “augmented,” or “unaugmented” rather than “imperfect,” or “present” (p. xxvii). Along with the above, they include short sections on Systemic Functional Linguistics and Discourse Analysis; Prominence, Thematization, and Levels of Discourse; Cohesion; and Context and Co-Text (pp. xxiii-xxviii). I recommend reading the introduction carefully to any readers not familiar with Porter and Yoon’s particular exegetical methodology. I doubt many, if any, will read this handbook cover to cover; thus, it is important to get a “feel for the landscape” from the introductory remarks.

Because this is a review of a handbook, not a commentary, much less a monograph, it is not intended to be exhaustive or even comprehensive. Rather, I will select a few insights from verses that I think have scholarly appeal. The first one comes early, in Romans 1:2 we find the middle verb, προεπηγγείλατο, “he announced beforehand,” which “indicates internal, indirect causality” (p. 3). This according to Porter and Yoon’s introduction means that the subject “he” is not the “direct cause of the verbal process,” but rather is associated (“internal”) with it (p. xxviii). Of the prepositional word group, διὰ τῶν προφητῶν, “through the prophets,” they opine it refers intermediate agency. “God is the implied ultimate source behind the speaking of the prophets” (p. 3). God is the “ultimate source” of prophetic speech, but not its “direct cause.” I find this to be a fascinating way to ponder inspiration. In 10:9 there is another middle worthy of remark: καρδίᾳ γὰρ πιστεύεται εἰς δικαιοσύνην, “for with the heart one believes” (p. 225). Again, the form, which could be middle or passive, is interpreted as middle by Porter and Yoon and therefore assumes an internal, indirect cause. They add, “The shift from the 2^nd person in the previous verse to the 3^rd person here reflects a shift from a more direct address…to a general statement” (p. 233).

The diatribe in 2:17-3:8 is considered given the interplay of tense forms. Paul’s main ideas are presented in the present (imperfective aspect – action viewed as in process, from within); background issues, in the aorist (perfective aspect – action viewed as a whole, from without); and the most prominent material, in the perfect (stative aspect – action viewed as an existing state of affairs) (p. 50). This is verbal aspect theory 101; but for those unfamiliar with its tenets, the subsection serves as a fine illustration of its merits. One could also look at the aorist and present tense forms in 3:23. The background for people’s lacking (present/imperfective) the glory of God is their sin (aorist/perfective). As Porter and Yoon say, “this does not mean that their sinning is unimportant,” but it allows “lack” to be foregrounded (p. 77). A defense of the choice to render ὑστεροῦνται with “lack” rather than “fall short” follows the remarks about the imperfective aspect. Moreover, Porter and Yoon take the verb as passive, rather than middle. “The passive voice reflects external causality/agency, which means that they were in need of God’s glory by some external cause or agent” (p. 77). Another place where verbal aspect sheds interpretive light is in chapter 7. From average readers to scholarly exegetes, people have pondered the tense (or tense form) shift from present to aorist in 7:7-25. If the tense forms themselves, rather than factors in the co-text, are temporal, Paul is referring to history, either his own or in general, in 7:13-25. Porter and Yoon, of course, assert the aspectual nature of the shift, a shift from imperfective to perfective, as key to Paul’s rhetorical intent. Paul’s “interlocutor asks the logical question that follows from Paul’s previous argument in 7:7-12…not referring to an earlier time but to the consequences of the Christian struggle with sin” (p. 154).

Given the amount of literature devoted to πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, “faithfulness of Jesus Christ” vs. “faith in Jesus Christ,” in 3:22, I would be remiss not to mention it here. Porter and Yoon do not go into great detail on the problem, but do make it clear that they do not accept “subjective” and “objective” as legitimate categories for the genitive case. As they said in their introduction, using subjective and objective of the genitive case “appl[ies] verbal categories to substantives” (p. xxvii). Genitives restrict, but they do restrict in various ways. What many call a subjective genitive could just as easily be analyzed as “possessive, origin, or source”; an objective genitive, as “definition or description” (p. 76). In the co-text, Porter and Yoon believe that the manner in which Jesus Christ restricts faith is descriptive. They also believe that correctly identifying the use of the genitive “does not solve the issue” (p. 76). Still, opting for a genitive of description places them in the “faith-in-Jesus-Christ” camp.

We turn next to a textual variant in Romans 5:1 (εἰρήνην ἔχομεν vs. εἰρήνην ἔχωμεν ). Porter and Yoon prefer the subjunctive reading. The subjunctive has far better manuscript evidence than the indicative, yet the UBS 5^th edition gives εἰρήνην ἔχομεν an A rating. Presumably this is based on internal evidence and the notion that a first-person plural subjunctive is hortatory (This was the case when Metzger compiled his last textual commentary on the UBS 4^th revised edition.). Porter and Yoon consider the subjunctive mood to be one of projection (not of possibility or probability). Paul is not expressing an exhortation to his readers gain what they currently possess, but projecting, for his readers’ consideration, “the next stage of his argument, that since they have been justified by faith, they should enjoy or realize the peace that they already had” (p. 106, italics mine). How interesting that the subjunctive reading was favored until the last century (p. 106)! It is interesting too, indeed scandalous, that in Rom. 16:7, Ἰουνίαν (unaccented in the earliest manuscripts), generally accepted as feminine for the first half-millennium CE, was “thought to be a shortened form of Junianus” until recently (Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, second edition, p. 475). The masculine name Ἰουνιᾶς (the feminine nominative = Ἰουνία) is unattested; yet, for most of Church history it was assumed that it must have been a man’s name because a woman could not have been numbered among the apostles (even without the uppercase A). Porter and Yoon argue for the feminine because the textual variant Ἰουλίαν is clearly feminine and because both Origen and Chrystosom understood it as such (p. 349).

Was Junia an apostle? I imagine that the debate will persist along with its disagreements on the function of the preposition ἐν (ἐν τοῦς ἀποστόλους). Porter and Yoon opt for attributing to the preposition its basic local or distributional meaning; so “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners who are well-known among the apostles” (pp. 346, italics mine, and 349). They also maintain that Junia was probably Andronicus’s wife, which might make her apostleship more palatable to some. On another prepositional note, διά + genitive is given its instrumental meaning in 4:11. “Paul is making the bold and perhaps exaggerated claim that those who believe do so by means of uncircumcision” (p. 94). This seems in keeping with Paul’s adamant affirmation that Abraham was justified by faith, before he was circumcised.  

Μὴ γένοιτο occurs ten times in Romans. The negated optative (projection + contingency) has been variously translated into English from the vulgar “hell no,” to the more refined “may it never be” (pp. 62, 126). I agree with Porter and Yoon that “indeed not” is a superior rendering of the optative because it “better captures [its] semantics” (p. 126). Tangentially related to ways one might gloss μὴ γένοιτο is the historical/cultural background of υἱοθεσία (adoption, “adoptive sonship”) (pp. 166, 178). North American views of and requirements for adoption may hinder our ability to grasp what Paul means in 8:15ff. Adoption of infants, much less female infants, is not in view. “In Greco-Roman culture, the eldest son would receive the inheritance of the family once the paterfamilias died. In some cases, this inheritance was bestowed upon someone outside the line of patrilineage through adoption” (178). Where υἱοθεσία occurs five times and only in the Pauline corpus (four if Ephesians is not counted), the lexeme ἀναλογία, proportion/measure, is a New Testament hapax legomenon, found in 12:6.  It “refers to an amount in relation to the whole” (p. 287). Porter and Yoon go on to say, “Considering this, it appears that there were various abilities or qualities of prophecy depending on the proportion or measure of faith one was given” (p. 278). I think we can broaden the application here and make it our purpose not to overstep what God has given, but with sober estimate to serve the body of Christ.      

As many do not read introductions, I suspect they neglect prefaces as well; but this one is worth a perusal, perhaps as an afterward. On the first page, COVID is mentioned six times and again in the last paragraph. I note this because the pandemic affected us all in predictable, unpredictable, and probably incomprehensible ways. I agree “that COVID has had a far greater effect than anyone imagined”; it will take years before we can assess what it took and gave from and to us. I hope that all of us who use this handbook will take a moment or two to reflect on the fact that COVID can be added to the lists in Romans 8:35-39 of things that cannot separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.   

Elodie Ballantine Emig
Instructor of NT Greek
Denver Seminary
January 2024