I, II, III John: A Handbook on the Greek Text (Baylor Handbook on the Greek New Testament) [Paperback]

Martin M. Culy (Author)

Book Description

Series: Baylor Handbook on the Greek New Testament | Publication Date: October 12, 2004

In this volume Culy provides a basic lexical, analytical and syntactical analysis of the Greek text of 1, 2, 3 John--information often presumed by technical commentaries and omitted by popular ones. But more than just an analytic key, I, II, III John reflects the latest advances in scholarship on Greek grammar and linguistics. The volume also contains recommendations for further reading and an up-to-date bibliography. A perfect supplement to any commentary, I, II, III John is as equally helpful to language students, of any level, as it is to busy clergy who use the Greek text in preparation for proclamation.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This handbook continues the admirable pattern of applied scholarship displayed in Culy and Parson's Acts. I, II, III John provides real help for the student, pastor or scholar who wants to make sense of the Greek text. The author's linguistic training as evidenced in his approach to semantics, syntax and structural features leads to a volume providing information that is simply unavailable in the standard commentaries and any analytical lexicon. I heartily recommend this volume. --Dr. William Varner, Professor of Greek Exegesis, The Master's College

About the Author

Martin M. Culy (Ph.D. Baylor) is Associate Professor of New Testament at Briercrest Biblical Seminary, Caronport, Saskatchewan, Canada. He is the co-author of Acts: A Handbook on the Greek Text, also from Baylor University Press.

Product Details

• Paperback: 175 pages
• Publisher: Baylor University Press (October 12, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932792082
• ISBN-13: 978-1932792089
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #696,864 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Serviceable Work, May 28, 2006

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J. F Foster - See all my reviews
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This review is from: I, II, III John: A Handbook on the Greek Text (Baylor Handbook on the Greek New Testament) (Paperback)

Culy has attempted to give us a handbook on the Johannine epistles that is not exactly a commentary, nor a detailed exegetical or syntactical study. Instead, his work is something of a top-level combination of all these things that has syntax as its focus, but also touches on interpretational issues without getting too detailed about it. As a result, someone wanting to walk through the grammar, parsing, and syntax of the Johannine letters will find this work to be predominately useful. A working knowledge of Greek is likely necessary to get a whole lot out of this work, but it is a work that is not so overly technical that beginners in Greek will be left out of the conversation.

Culy is often helpful on issues of syntax. While not agreeing with all of his conclusions, Culy often lays out the syntactical options in a particular passage in summary form in ways that are helpful and understandable. In this way, Culy does the reader a service in providing summaries of major commentaries regarding syntactical options. This should not be used as a substitute for the bigger commentaries, but it does provide a good springboard for someone who wants a general grasp of the issues at stake without wading through much more expansive and technical material.

Culy's major syntactical error regards the issue of deponency. Culy tends to side with the school that believes that true deponency is problematic, and that many middle forms in particular should be taken as true middles. Culy believes that in taking this position, the significance of the middle voice reemerges from the obscurity that was forced on it by the deponency concept. The problem is that in taking this view, Culy only interacts with the anti-deponency school and does not give us a hint of the arguments on the other side or interact with them at all. There are still many good reasons for maintaining the deponency concept in Koine that Culy glosses over completely. One would have hoped that on an issue that he himself regards as semantically significant, he would have bothered to present the reader with something better than a one-sided presentation that half-heartedly stacks the deck in a particular direction.

Lastly, one of the major areas where Culy engages in interpretational commentary regards the infamous passage in 1J 5:6-9. It is here that the reader will find (at least in this book) a rather extensive commentary on what the 'water and blood' mean. He concludes, a la Witherington, that the water refers to Jesus' birth, rather than his baptism. While syntactically this is a possibility (the aorist form for 'come' certainly seems to refer to concrete actions in the past), it is grammatically and theologically deficient. Culy follows Larsen (and Witherington) in citing John 3 as support for this idea. But in doing so, Culy is going against every major lexical dictionary and lexicon that unanimously state that the Greek word for water never refers to amniotic fluid. That Culy fails to mention this is very problematic and raises serious questions about the breadth of his scholarship. Further, Culy assumes that John 3 supports the Incarnation view, but this is not at all the case. Culy is appealing to a particular (and minority) interpretation of a highly disputed passage to argue for a particular (and minority) interpretation of another highly disputed passage to make his case. This is methodologically deficient, and he should know it. But secondly, such a reading is problematic in light of the letter's theological purpose - to combat a particular form of heretical Christology that proposed that the man Jesus was adopted by the spiritual Christ at his baptism, but later abandoned the man Jesus at the crucifixion because God can't suffer. Culy's interpretation renders the parenthetical comment of 'not by water only, but water and blood', incoherent. This comment assumes that the heretics had no problem with the idea that Jesus Christ came by water (at the baptism). Their problem is that Jesus Christ suffered on the Cross. If we accept Culy's interpretation that the Incarnation and the crucifixion are in view, this parenthetical comment of v6 becomes nonsensical, because the heretics would have had a problem with Christ coming in the Incarnation as well. Culy does not engage any of this data, so that not only is his conclusion problematic, the method he takes to get there is also.

So while the discerning reader will profit from this handbook, the reader does indeed need to be discerning. The reader should realize that the somewhat technical nature of the book does not hide the fact that a number of the conclusions reached are based on assumptions and starting points that are definitely not beyond challenge.