Bible Studies

391 Pages·2006·2.89 MB·English

by  G. Adolf Deissmann

BIBLE STUDIES

CONTRIBUTIONS
CHIEFLY FROM PAPYRI AND INSCRIPTIONS
TO THE HISTORY OF
THE LANGUAGE, THE LITERATURE, AND THE RELIGION
OF HELLENISTIC JUDAISM AND PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY

BY
DR. G. ADOLF DEISSMANN

Digitally prepared by Dr. Ted Hildebrandt
Gordon College, 2006

TRANSLATED BY
ALEXANDER GRIEVE, M.A., D. PHIL.

T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1901
CONTENTS.

PAGE
PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION vii

EXTRACT FROM THE PREFACE TO Bibelstudien ix

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE xiii

ABBREVIATIONS xv

I. PROLEGOMENA TO THE BIBLICAL LETTERS AND EPISTLES 1

II. CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF THE LANGUAGE OF THE
GREEK BIBLE 61

III. FURTHER CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF THE LANGUAGE
OF THE GREEK BIBLE 171
Introductory Remarks 173
(i.) Notes on the Orthography 181
1. Variation of Vowels 181
2. Variation of Consonants 183
(ii.) Notes on the Morphology 186
1. Declension 186
2. Proper Names 187
3. Verb 189
(iii.) Notes on the Vocabulary and the Syntax 194
1. So-called Hebraisms 194
2. So-called Jewish-Greek "Biblical" or "New Testament"
Words and Constructions 198
3. Supposed Special "Biblical" or "New Testament" Mean-
ings and Constructions 223
4. Technical Terms 228
5. Phrases and Formulae 248
6. Rarer Words, Meanings and Constructions 256

IV. AN EPIGRAPHIC MEMORIAL OF THE SEPTUAGINT 269

V. NOTES ON SOME BIBLICAL PERSONS AND NAMES 301
1. Heliodorus 303
2. Barnabas 307
3. Manaen 310
4. Saulus Paulus 313

(v)
vi CONTENTS.

PAGE
VI. GREEK TRANSCRIPTIONS OF THE TETRAGRAMMATON 319

VII. SPICILEGIUM 337
1. The Chronological Statement in the Prologue to Jesus
Sirach 339
2. The Supposed Edict of Ptolemy IV. Philopator against the
Egyptian Jews 341
3. The "Large Letters" and the "Marks of Jesus" in
Galatians 6 346
4. A Note to the Literary History of Second Peter 360
5. White Robes and Palms 368

INDEXES 371
AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH
EDITION.

Having been honoured by a request to sanction
an English translation of my Bibelstudien and Neue
Bibelstudien, I have felt it my duty to accede to the
proposal. It seems to me that investigations based
upon Papyri and Inscriptions are specially calculated
to be received with interest by English readers.
For one thing, the richest treasures from the
domain of Papyri and Inscriptions are deposited in
English museums and libraries; for another, English
investigators take premier rank among the discoverers
and editors of Inscriptions, but particularly of Papyri;
while, again, it was English scholarship which took
the lead in utilising the Inscriptions in the sphere
of biblical research. Further, in regard to the Greek
Old Testament in particular, for the investigation
of which the Inscriptions and Papyri yield valuable
material (of which only the most inconsiderable part
has been utilised in the following pages), English
theologians have of late done exceedingly valuable
and memorable work. In confirmation of all this I
need only recall the names of F. Field, B. P. Grenfell,
E. Hatch, E. L. Hicks, A. S. Hunt, F. G. Kenyon,
J. P. Mahaffy, W. R. Paton, W. M. Ramsay, H. A.
Redpath, H. B. Swete, and others hardly less notable.
Since the years 1895 and 1897, in which respec-

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viii AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION.

tively the German Bibelstudien and Neue Bibelstudien
were published, there has been a vast increase of
available material, which, again, has been much more
accessible to me as a Professor in the University
of Heidelberg than it was during my residence at
Herborn. I have so far availed myself of portions
of the more recent discoveries in this English edition;
but what remains for scholars interested in such
investigations is hardly less than enormous, and is
being augmented year by year. I shall be greatly
pleased if yet more students set themselves seriously
to labour in this field of biblical research.
In the English edition not a few additional
changes have been made; I must, however, reserve
further items for future Studies. With regard to the
entries kuriako<j (p. 217 ff.), and especially i[lath<rion
(p. 124 ff.), I should like to make express reference
to the articles Lord's Day and Mercy Seat to be
contributed by me to the Encyclopcedia Biblica.
Finally, I must record my heartiest thanks to
my translator, Rev. Alexander Grieve, M.A., D. Phil.,
Forfar, for his work. With his name I gratefully
associate the words which once on a time the trans-
lator of the Wisdom of Jesus Sirach applied with
ingenuous complacency to himself: pollh>n a]grupni<an
kai> e]pisth<mhn prosenegka<menoj.

ADOLF DEISSMANN.

HEIDELBERG,
27th December, 1900.
FROM THE PREFACE TO THE GERMAN
EDITION.

Bible Studies is the name I have chosen for the
following investigations, since all of them are more
or less concerned with the historical questions which
the Bible, and specially the Greek version, raises for
scientific treatment. I am not, of course, of the
opinion that there is a special biblical science.
Science is method: the special sciences are distin-
guished from each other as methods. What is
designated "Biblical Science" were more fitly
named "Biblical Research". The science in ques-
tion here is the same whether it is engaged with
Plato, or with the Seventy Interpreters and the
Gospels. Thus much should be self-evident.
A well-disposed friend who understands some-
thing of literary matters tells me that it is hardly
fitting that a younger man should publish a volume
of "Studies": that is rather the part of the ex-
perienced scholar in the sunny autumn of life. To
this advice I have given serious consideration, but I
am still of the opinion that the hewing of stones is
very properly the work of the journeyman. And in
the department where I have laboured, many a block
must yet be trimmed before the erection of the edifice
can be thought of. But how much still remains to
do, before the language of the Septuagint, the relation

(ix)
x FROM THE PREFACE TO THE GERMAN EDITION.

to it of the so-called New Testament Greek, the
history of the religious and ethical conceptions of
Hellenic Judaism, have become clear even in outline
only; or before it has been made manifest that the
religious movement by which we date our era origin-
ated and was developed in history—that is, in con-
nection with, or, it may be, in opposition to, an already-
existent high state of culture! If the following pages
speak much about the Septuagint, let it be remem-
bered that in general that book is elsewhere much
too little spoken of, certainly much less than was the
case a hundred years ago. We inveigh against the
Rationalists—often in a manner that raises the sus-
picion that we have a mistrust of Reason. Yet these
men, inveighed against as they are, in many respects
set wider bounds to their work than do their critics.
During my three years' work in the Seminarium
Philippinum at Marburg, I have often enough been
forced to think of the plan of study in accordance
with which the bursars used to work about the
middle of last century. Listen to a report of the
matter such as the following :— 1
"With regard to Greek the legislator has laid
particular stress upon the relation in which this
language stands to a true understanding of the .N.T.
How reasonable, therefore, will those who can judge
find the recommendation that the Septuagint (which,

1 Cf. the programme (of the superintendent) Dr. Carl Wilhelm Robert:
. . . announces that the Literary Association . . . shall be duly opened . . .
on the 27th inst. . . . [Marburg] Miller's Erben and Weldige, 1772, p. 13.
That the superintendent had still an eye for the requirements of practical
life is shown by his remarks elsewhere. For example, on page 7f., he good-
naturedly asserts that he has carried out "in the most conscientious manner"
the order that "the bursars shall be supplied with sufficient well-prepared
food and wholesome and unadulterated beer". The programme affords a fine
glimpse into the academic life of the Marburg of a past time.
FROM THE PREFACE TO THE GERMAN EDITION. xi

on the authority of an Ernesti and a Michaelis, is of
the first importance as a means towards the proper
understanding of the N.T.), has been fixed upon as
a manual upon which these lectures must be given!
And how much is it to be wished that the bursars,
during the year of their study of this book, should go
through such a considerable part of the same as may
be necessary to realise the purposes of the legislator!"
I am not bold enough to specify the time when
academical lectures and exercises upon the Septua-
will again be given in Germany.1 But the coming
century is long, and the mechanical conception of
science is but the humour of a day! . . .
I wrote the book, not as a clergyman, but as a
Privatdocent at Marburg, but I rejoice that I am
able, as a clergyman, to publish it.

G. ADOLF DEISSMANN.

HERBORN: DEPARTMENT OF WIESBADEN,
7th March, 1895.

1 1. Additional note, 1899: Professor Dr. Johannes Weiss of Marburg
has announced a course upon the Greek Psalter for the Summer Session, 1899;
the author lectured on the Language of the Greek Bible in Heidelberg in the
Winter Session of 1897-98.
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.

In addition to the supplementary matter specially
contributed to the present edition by the Author,
the translation shows considerable alterations in other
respects. Not only has the smaller and later volume,
Neue Bibelstudien, 1897, found a place in the body
of the book, but the order of the Articles has been all
but completely changed. It has not been thought
necessary to furnish the translation with an index
of Papyri, etc., more especially as the larger Bibel-
studien had none; but there has been added an index
of Scripture texts, which seemed on the whole more
likely to be of service to English readers in general.
The translator has inserted a very few notes, mainly
concerned with matters of translation.
For the convenience of those who may wish to
consult the original on any point, the paging of the
German edition has been given in square brackets,
the page-numbers of the Neue Bibelstudien being
distinguished by an N. In explanation of the fact
that some of the works cited are more fully described
towards the end of the book, and more briefly in the
earlier pages, it should perhaps be said that a large
portion of the translation was in type, and had been
revised, before the alteration in the order of the
Articles had been decided upon.
The translator would take this opportunity of

(xiii)
xiv TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.

expressing his most cordial thanks to Professor
Deissmann, who has taken the most active interest
in the preparation of the translation, and whose
painstaking revision of the proofs has been of the
highest service. A word of thanks is also due to the
printers, The Aberdeen University Press Limited,
for the remarkable accuracy and skill which they
have uniformly shown in the manipulation of what
was often complicated and intricate material.

ALEXANDER GRIEVE.

FORFAR,
21st January, 1901.