3 September 2025
Does it make a difference, theologically, whether we speak of God in finite verbs, nouns, (nominalised) participles, or adjectives? How are the usages of tense to be interpreted in terms of their
theological value? Bringing together philological, exegetical, linguistic, and
philosophical expertise, this workshop will scan the different areas of New Testament grammar (and that of contemporary literatures) for their theological value. Areas of discussion are verbal aspects, nominalisation, prepositional expressions and phrases, the passivum divinum, pronouns, and the like. The basic assumption of and starting point for the discussion is that grammar needs to be discussed as more than just an empty shell waiting to be filled with the semantic value of individual lexemes. While semantics have been the focus of a good amount of New Testament scholarship since J. Barr’s seminal The Semantics of Biblical Language, surprisingly little attention has been given to the theological value of grammar (see, however, S. E. Porter, New Testament Theology and the Greek Language: A Linguistic Reconceptualization, Cambridge 2022). Contributions from the fields of Classics, New Testament studies, and Linguistics will present exemplary cases of theological uses of grammar.
The workshop will be streamed online and open to the public. Please feel free to join online via the link: