Bible Studies - Biblical eLearning

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

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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
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