Last week I finished reading the most challenging Greek monograph I’ve ever worked through:

• Stanley E. Porter. Verbal Aspect in the Greek of the New Testament, with Reference to Tense and Mood. Edited by D. A. Carson. Studies in Biblical Greek 1. New York: Lang, 2003 [1989]. 582 pp.

Earlier this week I was very thankful to discover this:

• Rodney Decker. “The Poor Man’s Porter.” This is a thirty-page “condensation and summarization” of Porter’s seminal work. I wish that I had read Decker before reading Porter! So if you are planning to work through Porter’s volume, you may be better off by reading Decker first.

For a relatively recent survey of verbal aspect theory (in language much more understandable than Porter!), see this:

• Rodney Decker. “Part 1.” Pages 1-59, 157-98 in Temporal Deixis of the Greek Verb in the Gospel of Mark with Reference to Verbal Aspect. Studies in Biblical Greek 10. New York: Lang, 2001.

Related: Andrew David Naselli, “A Brief Introduction to Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek,” Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal 12 (2007): 17–28.