Constantine R. Campbell

A thorough and exhaustive survey of all the Biblical verses which explicitly or implicitly conveys Paul's theme of union with Christ within his epistles. Campbell starts with brief discussions of how major Biblical scholars, like Deismann to Barth to Gorman, view union with Christ, defines certain theological concepts like mysticism, sacramentalism, deification, and the "body of Christ," to finally engage the everyplace in Paul's writings where he refers to or suggests union with Christ explicitly or implicitly, e.g. "in Christ," "through Christ," "by Him" (i.e. "by Christ"); he even discusses those texts where Paul metaphorically refers to union with Christ as believers being, for example, the "body," "temple," and "building" of Christ.

Campbell then pursues a theological study, that is, the significance of union with Christ as it relates to the work of Christ, the Trinity, Christian ethics, justification, and defines it as participation with, identification, and incorporation into Christ. He even considers union with Christ in relation to eschatology. Campbell closes his exhaustive study making suggestions and directions for future study and research discussing the importance and structure of Paul's theology as it relates to union with Christ.

This is a necessary read for anyone considering a serious study on the topic of union with Christ in the thought of Paul the apostle. Since Campbell, apparently, minutely goes through every verse in Paul's writings on the issue, I contend it should be the first book before any other books relating to a study of union with Christ.… (plus d'informations)

An introduction, albeit potentially contentious, to the nature of aspect in the Greek verbal system.

He begins with discussions regarding the terms to be used. He helpfully differentiates aspect from Aktionsart and notes how many "aktionsart" items are unhelpfully considered part of aspect (aspect is non-cancelable; aktionsart is more fluid and cancelable). His discussion of the history of how aspect has been understood is vital; it's interesting to see that aspect was not discussed much until the 19th century and really has only reached its current point within my lifetime (which is not that long!). It goes a long way to explain why so few grammars have a good, strong, coherent picture of aspect.

The author argues for a primarily "spatial" way of looking at the nature of the Greek verbal system over that of "temporal." He identifies only the future tense as primarily marking time; other tenses mark the aspect of "imperfective" (as if seeing the events as they proceed) or "perfective" (as if seeing the event as a whole, as if above). Present, imperfect, and the perfect are seen as imperfective; aorist and future are seen as perfective.

He then further narrows the function of each "tense" by virtue of proximity or remote: thus present is imperfective and proximate while imperfect is imperfective and remote; aorist is perfective and proximate while future is perfective in terms of remoteness. Perfect / pluperfect intensify proximity and remoteness. The author spends some time discussing form and function and provides many examples. Exercises and their answers are also provided.

There's a lot of great stuff here even if you are not entirely on board with all of the author's premises (I remain a bit skeptical of the future as perfective, but that may be my Hebrew background talking...). An essential work for a more developed understanding of Greek verbal aspect.… (plus d'informations)