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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 November 2011
The language of the Greek New Testament has been under the continual search-light of criticism since the early part of the seventeenth century, when the keen debate between the Purist and the Hebraist produced a copious literature. The former laid a very heavy burden on his own shoulders. Although he could easily argue for his thesis of the “purity” of the New Testament language by citing numberless parallels between it and the best Greek writers, it was hard to account for the many points of divergence, and consequently the Hebraist steadily gained ground. Antecedent probability, as well as common sense, seemed to be on the side of the latter. For the New Testament was akin to the Septuagint, and that was regarded as a treasure-house of Semitisms. Moreover most of the writers of the New Testament were Jews, and nothing seemed more natural than that their Greek should be deeply tinged with the idioms of their native tongue. Accordingly Hebraism was granted large concessions, and under it were included not only the Greek expressions which happened to have sister-constructions in Hebrew or Aramaic, but also many usages peculiar to Greek but unusual in the days of the best Attic. These Semitisms were supposed so to affect syntax, vocabulary, and style as to make the result un-greek.
1 Bibelstudien, Beiträge zumeist aus den Papyri und Inschriften zur Geschichte der Sprache, des Schrifttums und der Religion des hellenistischen Juden tums und des Urchristentums, 1895; Neue Bibelstudien, Sprachgeschichtliche Beiträge zumeist aus den Papyri und Inschriften zur Erklärung des Neuen Testaments, 1897 (English translation in one volume, Bible Studies, 1901, 21903); New Light on the New Testament, 1907; The Philology of the Greek Bible, 1908; Licht vom Osten; das Neue Testament und die neuentdeckten Texte der hellenistisch-römischen Welt, 1908.
2 A Grammar of New Testament Greek, vol. i, Prolegomena, 1906, 21906, 31908.
3 Einleitung in die drei ersten Evangelien, 1905. p. 13.
4 Cf. E. Schwyzer, Die Weltsprachen des Altertums in ihrer geschichtlichen Stellung, 1902, p. 32.
5 Sources of New Testament Greek, 1895, pp. 60–83, and p. 93.
6 Expositor, Jan. 1908, pp. 70, 71. Cf. also Licht vom Osten, p. 47, “In der religiös schöpferischen Urzeit ist die wortbildende Kraft des Christentums bei weitem nicht so gross, als seine begriffsumbildende Wirkung.”
7 Étude sur le Grec du Nouveau Testament; Le verbe, syntaxe des propositions, 1893; Sujet, complément et attribut, 1896.
8 Die Sprache und Heimat des vierten Evangelisten, 1902; see Thumb's withering criticism in Archiv für Papyrusforschung, 1906, p. 461.
9 Jean Psichari in a learned “Essai sur le Gree de la Septante,” in the Revue des études juives, April, 1908, points out by way of protest against Deissmann and Moulton certain Hebraisms to be detected by the use of modern popular Greek.
10 A notable exception is Paul, who, though a Hebrew of Hebrews, spoke Greek like a second mother-tongue, and thought in Greek. See, however, Zahn, Einleitung in das Neue Testament, 3d ed., i, p. 33; cf. the literature noted by Milligan, Commentary on Thessalonians, p. lv, and Jülieher, “Hellenism,” in Encyclopaedia Biblica.
11 Die Worte Jesu, 1898, English translation, 1902.
12 Einleitung in die drei ersten Evangelien, 1905, pp. 1–43.
13 Aegyptische Urkunden aus den kgl. Museen zu Berlin: Griechische Urkunden, vol. iv, 1907, no. 1079; quoted also in Licht vom Osten, p. 82, footnote 6.
14 “Die griechische Sprache unter den Juden,” Einleitung in das Neue Testament3, i, pp. 24–52.
15 G. B. Winer's Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Sprachidioms, 8th ed., 1894, p. 25.
16 Thumb, op. cit., p. 177.
17 Now in the Museum of Corinth. See Journal of Hellenic Studies, xviii, 1898, p. 333Google Scholar; American Journal of Archaeology, 1903, pp. 60–61.
18 Op. cit., p. 123.
19 Op. cit., p. 131, cf. p. 127, “Bevor jemand von der biblischen Gräcitat behauptet, ‘l'hébreu a done exercé une influence profonde sur l'emploi des voix et sur leur signification,’ sollte er sich die mittel- und neugriechische Grammatik genau ansehen; denn es geht schlechterdings nicht mehr ohne deren Studium, wenn man die Sprache der griechischen Bibel beurteilen will.” A careful study of Hatzidakis, Einleitung in die neugriechische Grammatik, 1892, Thumb, Handbuch der neugriechischen Volkssprache, 1895, and Dieterich, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der griechischen Sprache von der hellenistischen Zeit bis zum X. Jahrhundert nach Christo, 1898, will shake the faith of any believer in Semitisms.
20 Grammatik des neutestamentliehen Griechisch, 1896, 21902, English translation, 1898, second edition, revised and enlarged, 1905.
21 I. Theil, Einleitung und Formenlehre, 1894; II. Theil, Syntax, 1. Heft, 1897, 2. Heft, 1898. Schmiedel's attention having been diverted to other subjects, E. Schwyzer will assist in the completion of this long-delayed publication.
22 In his preface to A Short Grammar of the Greek New Testament, New York, 1908, A. T. Robertson announces that he has already written a number of chapters of a “larger grammar of the Greek New Testament on the scale of Winer,” which he will finish as rapidly as possible.
23 Leyden, 1902; Appendix, 1904; “Nov a addenda,” in Mélanges Nicole, Geneva, 1905.
24 Deissmann, , “Die Sprache der griechischen Bibel,” in Theologische Rundschau, 1906, p. 223.Google Scholar
25 Vollständiges griechisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments und der übrigen urchristlichen Literatur, 1908-.
26 See the reviews by Moulton, J. H. in American Journal of Theology, 01 1907, pp. 157–164Google Scholar, and by Nicklin, T. in Classical Review, xx, p. 172Google Scholar.
27 The Science of Language and the Study of the New Testament, Manchester, 1906, p. 20.
28 But cf. Winer-Schmiedel, p. 3, “Eine Specialgrammatik einzelner nt. Autoren erscheint unnötig. Das Individuelle der Diction des Johannes, des Paulus etc. bewegt sich fast nur in dem Gebiete der Wörter und Phrasen (Lieblingsausdrücke) oder fällt dem rhetorischen Element anheim. Die Grammatik wird nur selten davon berührt, häufiger nur bei der Apokalypse.”
29 The Modern Greek Language, Oxford, 1870, p. 102.Google Scholar
30 Liverpool, 1903; see Thumb, , “Die Forschungen über die hellenistische Sprache in den Jahren 1902–4,” in Archiv für Papyrusforschung, 1906, p. 460Google Scholar.
31 See Deissmann, , Licht vom Osten, p. 196.Google Scholar
32 While the New Testament is predominantly colloquial language, we ought not to go so far as Deissmann in maintaining that it is in toto colloquial, but must recognize in authors like Paul and Luke varying degrees of literary language, though a literary language in sympathy with the vernacular.
33 These four in Lietzmann's Handbuch zum Neuen Testament, 1906–1909.
34 Conversely our uncial MSS. may assist in studying dialectic differences in the Koinê.
35 Cf. Thumb, , Die griechische Sprache im Zeitalter des Hellenismus, p. 179Google Scholar; and “Die sprachgeschiehtliche Stellung des biblischen Griechisch,” in Rundschau, Theologische, 1902, p. 97Google Scholar.
36 Light vom Osten, pp. 300–301; also Expositor, 1908, p. 72; New Light on the New Testament, p. 111.
37 For a brief survey of the literature of this period see Krumbacher, K., “Die griechisehe Literatur des Mittelalters” in Die Kultur der Gegenwart, I, 8, p. 287 ff.Google Scholar, and a detailed account in his Geschichte der byzantinischen Literatur von Justinian bis zum Ende des oströmischen Reiches, 21897.