Deponent verbs: Why we should stop talking about them in Koine Greek

For hundreds of years, greek grammars have taught that some verbs are deponent, that is middle in form but active in meaning. Today, scholars generally agree that deponency should not be taught, and instead, that teachers should teach the middle voice more carefully, explaining its difference to the English active voice. In this video, I explain the background to this consensus and talk about which grammars teach deponency and which ones don't, as well as share my ideas for what to do if your Greek professor teaches deponency.
2:41 - What is deponency?
6:24 - The history of the discussion
8:35 - Two mistakes of deponency
12:32 - The establishment of consensus
13:37 - Remaining questions
15:18 - Deponency and Greek Grammars
17:36 - Conclusion
17:48 - What if my teacher teaches deponency?
If you want to research this yourself, a great starting point is chapter 4 of Advances in the Study of NT Greek by Constantine Campbell, which includes a section about Neva Miller's and other contributors as well as links to other articles. If you're researching this subject, start here:
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[@samlamerson8372]

Thanks much for this helpful summary. I'll be sending it out to my students (providentially we just arrived at the deponent in Mounce). While I am not quite ready to give up on the deponent yet, I realize that I am in the minority and want my students to be well-rounded in their education. You do an amazing job of boiling this all down to 20 minutes. May the Lord continue to bless you in your work. SamLam

[@bma]

Thank you for your encouraging comments! I really appreciate your support, Dr. Lamerson!

[@Thrusce]

I was talking to a time traveler the other day, and he spoke pretty good English, but he was having trouble understanding some of our active English verbs, like "take" and "travel." He was very frustrated that we don't have a middle voice for those verbs, which are obviously middle in their lexical meaning. He was thinking of inventing a separate category for verbs which are conjugated active when they should not be. Of course, I hadn't watched this video yet, so I was at a loss for how to help him.

[@StrategicGamesEtc]

Why isn't this comment upvoted? Absolutely wonderful analogy.

[@alexandersmith9385]

Thank you for this clear instruction on the argument against deponency. My seminary instructor leaned toward deponency as we studied Mounce. After reading Mathewson the argument in favor of the Greek middle voice over deponency is clear also. Thanks again. Your videos are always helpful.

[@kevinobie1]

I appreciate your thoughts on this. I've heard a number of teachers just try to sweep such issues under the rug of "such and such verb is just an exception to the rule in this instance", which is really inadequate and unsatisfactory. Blessings!

[@bma]

Thanks Kevin!

[@luchosab1]

Great summary. I remember that Prof. Carl Conrad in Washington University also disagrees with the term "deponent" or "deponency", from whom I took the perspective you talk about. I totally agree with it, but I still think my students would feel unfamiliar with it if I don't explain the syntax and semantics of Greek verbs thoroughly... And all my colleagues talk about "deponency". So, avoiding this term can be a difficult task sometimes.

[@christodelportart8258]

Thank you Darryl, that was very helpful! I used Mounce’s third edition to start learning greek. The greek bible that I used was the UBS reader’s edition published in 2014. As I went through the text I tried to parse the verbs and checked myself using the parsing of the verbs in the footnotes. They use the middle voice and not deponency. To me that was a natural way to “unlearn” deponancy. Thanks again for your videos. Blessings Christo

[@stevehobby3854]

Thanks Dr. Darryl for explaing clearly the history and development of this issue around the so-called deponent verbs. I realise that the challenge is to understand clearly the Middle voice! I was taught that the middle voice was either "self-directional or deponent", and that "the majority of middle verbs are not self-directional, but deponent". Ho hum, seems like I have a job to do in order to understand the middle voice. By the way your shirt was quite entertaining in the video, the white lines seemed to be doing some interesting interference patterns. Keep up the good work.

[@KingoftheJuice18]

I love the concept of the Middle Voice! (It also helped me understand certain verb forms in Hebrew). But I still need to understand why some Greek verbs "go deponent" in the future tense. Why does one "know" or "take" or "flee" or "fall," or "ascend," etc. in the ACTIVE voice in Koine Greek in the present, but one does these things in the middle voice in the future?

[@christopherskipp1525]

Great video on deponent verbs; excellent.

[@bma]

Thanks! 😃 Glad I was able to help!

[@bromineandtungsten]

Not sure I agree. I’ll have to think through this and investigate further myself, but thank you for highlighting this. My Greek professor was emphatically opposed to the more recent trend against deponency, and he was always very careful and honest when it came to abuses of Greek in exegesis in the past (e.g., Wuest). But it is worth thinking through because he may be wrong on this issue. Anyway, thanks for addressing the subject.

[@zachariahloney210]

I believe the English word "continue" can make a good example of middle voice. Active: I continue my book. Passive: The movie was continued. Middle: The rainy weather continues. Middle voice occurs in English when the subject is "it" or can be swapped out for "it": It is raining; it works; it happens; it is; it occurs. We have "despondency" in Latvian: Latvian mācīt (to teach) is cognate with the Greek word from where we get mathematics. In Latvian we use the middle voice a lot and we also use its form as an active verb sometimes. But like it was said in the video, the middle voice seems to just add an element of "myself" to the verb. Again in Latvian, mācīt means "to teach" and mācīties means "to learn", which is logical, because to teach oneself, or, for oneself to be taught, is equal in meaning to "to learn", and we give this middle voiced verb an object more often than not. I personally think that many middle voice verbs have come into existence through similar logical processes.

[@KingoftheJuice18]

I commend your English! (Autocorrect, I think, used "despondency" instead of deponency. I hope you guys are not despondent in Latvia ;-) Expressions like "its raining" and such are not usually considered "middle." "It" in these kinds of clauses is not the true subject....There are many middle-type verbs in English, although there's a fine line between "middle" and intransitive. "Exercise" has a middle meaning. You're the subject and the object at the same time. "Shower" might be a better verb to use than continue to illustrate. I will shower you with attention (active); I shower after coming home from work (middle); He was showered with kisses by his loving wife (passive).

[@digital0day]

Great summary, Darryl. Thank you.

[@bma]

Glad it was helpful!

[@mikemontoya2332]

I'm having trouble understanding the aorist passive deponent imperative of the word translated "be" in 1 Peter 1:15. Are the subjects being holy in all their conduct for themselves?

[@MichaelSmith-yy8fw]

I questioned deponency in 2004 knowing little or nothing about Greek. It seemed strange to hear that, "Some verbs just lost their active forms." Mikeinminnesota

[@bma]

Thanks for watching and commenting!

[@PracticalBibleStudies]

Can you do a video on Minuscule vs Majuscule manuscripts? It's a lot more frustrating than people might think.

[@bma]

Sure! What do you find frustrating about them?

[@PracticalBibleStudies]

@@bma I guess Majuscule/Uncial is more difficult to me. As a native English speaker, Minuscule is far easier. I'm working on a project for my MDiv that involves translating an old Papyri that's Majuscule, and I thought it would make a great video for your channel. I personally run into problems in where to separate some words. Maybe if you could just go over time periods, differences, how they can effect translation, etc. Thanks and God bless.

[@paulakahn9384]

@Master New Testament Greek That sounds like a fascinating topic

[@TheJesusNerd40]

This was so helpful!

[@christopherdonahoo1287]

The Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains by Johannes P. Louw; Eugene Nida sorts/groups words by meaning and not alphabetically. It helps identify when the middle form of a word is a completely different word than the active. A good example in English is "eat" and "feed". They would be grouped together.

[@ronaldmiller146]

So ... on those verbs never used in the present active voice, those we considered deponent, I assume we still learn the first person singular middle voice form as the vocabulary (dictionary) form. (Even if Plato or some other koine author outside of scripture did use an active form at one time)? My takeaway from this is to consider how the verb does have a middle voice flavor and is not simply active. I will think on this as I see them in my GNT reading, considering not just the action but more closely how it affects the subject.

[@honestconversations8620]

What is that aqua colored "going deeper" book on your right? I know of the other two books.

[@bma]

I have the first edition and the revised edition next to each other there. They are largely the same...

[@NomosCharis]

Question: How does this practically make a significant difference when I'm translating words like φοβέομαι in Luke 2:9? Should it say, "they feared for themselves?" 🤔 Seems like we might be straining out a gnat here.

[@bma]

Actually, adding "for themselves" would make it reflexive, which would be more like what the older grammars often argued for. What we're aiming for is a more nuanced understanding, since English doesn't have a middle voice, this will be hard (if not impossible) to bring it out in translation. But if you're reading in Greek, you'd be able to see that certain types of words lend themselves to a subject affectedness, and others that don't naturally when using the middle voice carry additional nuance that you might otherwise miss. So this is not so much about translation as about understanding how the language actually works. I hope that helps!

[@NomosCharis]

@@bma That does help tremendously. Appreciate the clarification

[@rinkevichjm]

When a subject acts on, or for, or to itself is called reflexive. We need to get rid of middle.

[@honestconversations8620]

My grammar teaches deponent verbs.

[@brandonzylstra]

This is an interesting and helpful video, but it SEEMS to me that you might be confusing the subject with the agent. The subject pertains only to the syntax, not to the semantics of the sentence. (That is to say that the subject is defined by its position in the syntactic structure, without any regard to who is "doing something". The subject is the word or phrase occupying the position of the subject.) The agent is defined by the meaning of the sentence, so when you say "the subject doing the action" it really sounded (given the context of explaining the middle voice) like you meant to say the agent-or am I missing something?

[@pkoden19]

As someone who has studied Latin for many years, I would like to add my opinion. I don't think that any Latin Scholar today would think that the Latin deponents ever "laid aside" an active form. I personally have no problem with the term "deponent" if it is defined as "a verb only found fully or partially in either the middle or passive voice or found in the middle or passive voice with a completely different meaning than a collateral active form". Many verb books are still using the term "deponent" and it does not bother me if it is meant to signal that a particular verb is only found in the middle voice such as έρχομαι .

[@bma]

Yes... unfortunately most Greek grammars teach that these forms are "active in meaning but middle in form" which is incorrect. Thanks for your comments!

[@claireandcolin5314]

How do modern Greek speakers reading ancient Greek and Eastern Orthodox people think/talk about this?

[@rabignall]

Now i must go out an buy all new "Mounce" books?

[@bma]

The short answer is "it depends." 😉 If you're learning Greek from scratch, and you don't have something more up to date, then it might help. If you've already learned Greek, then I wouldn't worry too much. A good intermediate grammar such as Mathewson and Emig would do fine and has a sidebar on deponency which is a good starting point.

[@dooglitas]

I'm not sure I agree with you on this. I have heard some of this talk recently and have found it confusing. You mentioned several times that there were "still questions" on this matter, which you briefly enumerated. You also said several times that "deponent" verbs "almost always" had a middle element in their meaning and function. It seems to me that until those "questions" can be satisfactorily accounted for and until the deponent verbs that do not have any substantially middle ideas in their meaning can be accounted for, I think it would be a mistake to simply throw out the idea of deponency. Also, it is obvious that this phenomenon of verbs that only appear in the middle form in Greek exists. To pretend it does not exist is simply going to confuse beginning students. When you teach that a certain form in Greek is middle voice and then when you come to verbs that seem to us to have an active voice meaning but have middle forms, it is almost certainly going to confuse the beginning student. Also, the fact that in some tenses the middle and passive forms are the same while in other tenses they are different must be fully understood and explained before making a hasty decision now that may end up having to be changed again in the future. I agree that more research needs to be done to fully understand the middle voice. I think that is the real problem here. Since English and most (if not all) modern European languages do not have a middle voice, it is difficult for us to wrap our heads around the concept. I think that is probably part of the problem. But I think it is a mistake to suddenly change the concept of "deponency" simply because of a couple of meetings of scholars, when it addresses an obviously real phenomenon that is not yet satisfactorily understood or explained.

[@bma]

Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I don't think this is a hasty decision, as I mention, respected scholars have been arguing against deponency for over 100 years. But it has come to a head more recently (10 years ago now). Second, Neva Miller has provided a very good explanation of every middle voice verb in the Greek New Testament showing them all to be true middles without exception. You will find it in Appendix 2 of Friberg's Analytical Lexicon of the Greek New Testament (ref.ly/logosres/anlex?ref=Page.p+422&off=264). This explanation of middle voice is far more satisfying than what can be provided by the deponency hypothesis. The remaining questions are more about the place of the passive voice than than the middle and how the voice of the lexeme might change between tense forms, and doesn't undermine the "self-interest" hypothesis of the verbs in question. It is more of a 'why?' question (and not one explained by deponency either). I disagree that teaching the middle voice properly makes it more confusing for students. Properly understood, I think it makes things clearer. Thanks again for your comments! I really appreciate it!

[@dooglitas]

@@bma Thanks for the clarification. I had not really heard a great deal about this topic. I must admit that when I was in Greek classes (many years ago), I did wonder about the deponent issue and whether there was a better explanation for this phenomenon. I will research this more. The issue I have heard much more about is that of aspect vs. (temporal) tense in Greek verbs and the meaning of the aorist in Greek. I have found the discussion on that topic fascinating but somewhat confusing. If you have any suggestions on where I might find info on that, I would appreciate it. Thanks again. I really enjoy your videos. Thanks for your hard worrk.

[@bma]

You're welcome! I created a video on verbal aspect last year which might be helpful (kzbin.info/www/bejne/nnSsf4Gaesh3f7c). A great introduction to this topic is Campbell's book The Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek. He provides lots of examples and I think the clearest explanation I've seen, though not everyone agrees with his views - though I think he has the best explanatory power of the explanations I've seen so far. You can find a review of this book here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iobGnWl8hJqlrq8 Thanks again!

[@ChaplainDaveSparks]

This isn't precisely the correct video to ask this question, but ... how do you handle translating a grammatical form from Greek to English where the equivalent doesn't exist in English? I recall in one English translation, the translators brought up the translation of a neuter, singular pronoun from Greek to English. When I learned English grammar in high school, I was told that a conceptual neuter pronoun should be rendered in the masculine by default, rather than the awkward "he or she". In this translation, it was stated that the incorrect but vernacular "they" (plural) would be used instead because, over the years, it had gradually become more acceptable. To me, it rather implies something being hidden. IOW, if I *KNOW* it's either "he" or "she" but would rather not disclose gender, people often use "they". What are your thoughts? If there is a more appropriate place to ask this question, please let me know.

[@bma]

We have to make compromises in translation and often it is the best of more than one option. Determining the best option will depend on your philosophical approach to the translation, your target audience and how information that doesn't transfer well can be noted for the reader. In short there is no one answer except, "it depends." If you're working on a translation for a sermon or a study, the best thing to do is to provide what you think is the best option and then explain the significance of the grammar in terms the audience can understand. I hope that helps!

[@P_Ezi]

"Deponency really should be set aside." So they are arguing that deponency should become, or already is, deponent. Maybe they would argue that the more we !earn about it, deponency actually sets itself aside. But if deponency sets itself aside, then it is really acting on itself in a middle voice. This would mean that deponency is actually middle voiced, and therefore not deponent, but if deponency is not deponent..... Never mind. I will set myself aside from this discussion.

[@bma]

😂😂🤣

[@rinkevichjm]

The middle voice is not a real thing in fact it’s a reflexive voice, every other IE language that is highly verbal inflected has a reflexive.

[@giannirussso]

Can I make a controversial proposal? I don't think Greek has a middle voice at all. I think this idea was imposed on the language by non-native speakers as they were seeking to understand the different forms of writing for verbs. But just like βλέπω, έρχομαι, and δίδωμι all have different endings, they all mean a certain thing given the context. I think the way words are written don't matter as much as the context they are used in does. Therefore, if we abandon this idea of deponency, we should do well to abandon the idea of "middle voice" in general as well. Remember, the language was first spoken before a writing system was ever developed, and the writing system was used to reflect the sounds that were already existent by the speakers. I don't think they spoke understanding that they are using certain "case endings" which indicate certain "voices" in their speech. I think it was the way a verb was pronounced, and then they just put it into writing. Has this ever been thought of before? Am I the first to propose this idea? I wonder if I seem completely unknowledgeable to some of you. For some context, I speak Modern Greek, and I have taken first-year Koine Greek. I think I have a good understanding of how the language works (especially in spoken speech, as Paul and John used the language, and not so much on technicalities and grammar). I think the reason we sometimes have trouble with morphology and trying to understand how we get είπον from λέγω is because we impose these rigid rules on languages that the native speakers themselves never thought of and would perhaps find foolish. Languages don't work in certain ways that we think they do. Languages are constantly changing and evolving, especially Koine Greek during the apostles' period. So to think that the language works this way and this way only because grammarians say so is, I think, not treating the language or languages in general to their upmost beauty.

[@roberttrevino62800]

How could middle verbs not exist when active forms change into a middle form? If middle did not exist, then the active forms would simply stay active.

[@rinkevichjm]

This is what UTX says: lrc.la.utexas.edu/eieol/ntgol As in Latin, a number of verbs have their forms in the middle while corresponding to active verbs in English. Many of them indicate state, and do not take objects. They can be recognized from dictionary entries. Examples are: γίγνομαι 'become' δέχομαι 'receive' ἐργάζομαι 'work' ἀπο-κρίνομαι 'reply' λογίζομαι 'reason' μιμέομαι 'imitate' These have a active meaning in the aorist middle form, but passive meaning in the passive form of the aorist. Others have the passive form of the aorist. Many of them denote motion, feeling or mental action. Examples are: ἔραμαι 'love' ἥδομαι 'rejoice' έν-θυμέομαι 'consider' δια-νοέομαι 'intend'