Granville Sharp’s Canon and Its Kin: Semantics and Significance

by Daniel B. Wallace

Granville Sharp’s Canon and Its Kin explains that the semantics of the article-substantive-KAI-substantive construction (TSKS) have been largely misunderstood and that this misunderstanding has adversely impacted the exegesis of several theologically significant texts. This issue is addressed from three historical investigation, linguistic-phenomenological analysis of the construction, and exegetical implications. The reasons for the misunderstanding are traced historically; a better comprehension of the semantics of the construction is established by an examination of primary literature in the light of linguistic theory; and the implications of this analysis are applied to a number of passages in the New Testament.
Historically, the treatment begins with a clear grammatical principle articulated by Granville Sharp, and it ends with the present-day confusion. This book includes a detailed examination of the New Testament data and other Ancient Greek literature, which reveals that Sharp’s rule has a general validity in the language. Lastly, a number of exegetically significant texts that are affected by the linguistic-phenomenological investigation are discussed in detail. This enlightening text is a valuable resource for undergraduate and graduate students of religion, linguistics, history, and Greek.

347 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2008

About the author

Wallace was earned his B.A.(1975) from Biola University, and his Th.M. (1979) and Ph.D. (1995) in New Testament studies from Dallas Theological Seminary. He also pursued postdoctoral studies in a variety of places, including in Cambridge at Tyndale House, Christ's College, Clare College, and Westminster College, and in Germany at the Institute for New Testament Textual Research, University of Tübingen, and the Bavarian State Library. Wallace, along with DTS colleague Darrell L. Bock, has been an outspoken critic of the alleged "popular culture" quest to discredit conservative evangelical views of Jesus—including the writings of Elaine Pagels and Bart Ehrman.