Jewish and Christian Influence on New Testament VocabularyAuthor(s): Nigel TurnerSource: Novum Testamentum, Vol. 16, Fasc. 2 (Apr., 1974), pp. 149-160Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1560118 .

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JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE ON NEW TESTAMENT VOCABULARY

BY

NIGEL TURNER

Owing to the influence of OT religion and of the Gospel, old words from the Koine and LXX were revitalized, and a few new ones were coined in the Greek of the NT.

THE NEW WORDS

Today the student will hesitate to ascribe all exclusively Christian words to the inventiveness of religion, for they may at last come to light in secular texts. Many have done so, but there are still a considerable number which have not yet appeared elsewhere and which in themselves seem likely to be Christian inventions.

Most important of all, &ydty finds no clear instance in secular Greek of pre-Christian date 1); in rejecting the obvious parallels, EpCo and cyXia, Christians may have been guided by the like consonants of Hebrew 'hb. The ?mtouotosq of the Lord's Prayer appears with certainty nowhere else 2). Matthew uses the exclusively Christian words 6LXyomatLa, -o?, xoaT0f9o TrTco, and Pa,7aXoy'o, the latter coined perhaps from Aramaic. Several others may be the creation of St. Paul, especially in Eph. and Col.: - a&vpco7rapaxo4 (Eph. vi 6; Col. iii 22), ov-TL.La?06[c (Rom. i 27; 2 Cor. vi I3), &xcx- 8ucrL (Col. ii II), &ToxaaXXtmcaco (Eph. ii I6; Col. i 20, 22), O?XoOpu- 'rIq (I Cor. x io), 64padXo8oouXao (Eph. vi 6; Col. iii 22), auvxoo-

orIotw (Eph. ii 5; Col. ii I3), and XZpaGTRuo[cx (i Cor. xiii 4).'Avo- xavCoalq (Rom. xii 2; Tit. iii 5) may be borrowed from Paul by the Pastorals, but these are of apparent Pastoral coinage: auroxa-

1) A fragmentary occurrence of uncertain meaning in a pre-Christian papyrus: P Berlin 9869 (2nd. c. B.C.?); two inscriptions and a papyrus of 3rd. c. A.D.; but nothing else very convincing. The meaning of the verb &yadcxio is indefinite; it is the kind of word Christians would be likely to seize on as having no dubious overtones.

2) Expository Times lxxi (1960) p. IO7. There is one possible secular instance: F. PREISIGKE, Sammelbuch I (1915) 5224. This word and &y&w?n if vouched for in secular texts, should be included in the next section. Novum Testamentum, Vol. XVI, fasc. 2

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NIGEL TURNER

-r xpLToS (Tit. iii II) 1), &apLXA0yo0o (2 Tim. iii 3), SiXoyos (I Tim. iii 8), ,T?po88a,xa'co1 (I Tim. i 3; vi 3), Eu?[Te08oToq (i Tim. vi I8, and

post-Christian secular), xaXoS8&saxaXoq (Tit. ii 3). Acts has xapSco- yvtG)aqt (i 24; xv 8). The General Epistles have: &ituXoq (Jas iv 8), aXXoTpoL0oL ctxoTco (i Pet. iv 15), L6aoM080oCo(a (-'Tr) (Heb. ii 2; x 35; xi 6, 26), auyxaxouXoutoual (Heb. xi 25). The rest, shared by several books, may be part of the special Christian vocabulary, rather than the creation of any author: voVoSL6aaxoaXoq (Luke v I7; Acts v 34; I Tim. i 7), rXpocpoopLo (Rom. xv 29 D*G; Col. ii 2; I Thess. i 5; Heb. vi II; x 22, and post-Christian secular), xpoa)o- 7roXqpixS (Acts x 34), -[y4a (Rom. ii II; Eph. vi 9; Col. iii 25; Jas ii i), -7Lt7reco (Jas ii 9; cp. LXX rtp6orCoov Xatpavo), and

aua6Taupoooat (Matt. xxvii 44; Mark xv 32; John xix 32; Rom. vi 6; Gal. ii I9). Most of the words are vouched for in the early Church texts. The context and the etymology usually combine to make the meaning clear, but there is much about these words that we do not yet know.

Some Christian words may be the creation of Jewish Greek, appearing in the LXX for the first time and absent from secular texts (at least, until post-Christian times): ayaOcoatvY (LXX, Paul), &yaXX&aco (oaiL) (LXX, T 12 P, Gosp, Acts, i Pet, Church), &aaXXia- aCT (LXX, Enoch, T 12 P, Luke-Acts, Heb, Jude, Church), &yt?a[q6o (LXX, T 12 P, Paul, Pastorals, Heb, i Pet), a'vsaSq (LXX, Philo, Heb, Church), &aXm(iLa (LXX, Acts, lexs. of Hesych. and Suid.), avTa7ot6taopa (LXX, Luke, Paul), 8aLCpov68o' (Jas, Sym, later secular Greek), &xaloxpl6tc (T 12 P, Paul, later secular Greek),

ioxT-Yq (Pastorals, Sym, Church), Xurtpcoq (LXX, Acts), ax)y- poxapaoc (LXX, Philo, Matt, Mark, Mk. xvi 14, Church), 4eu- a8orpo0pTrq (LXX, Philo, Josephus, T I2P, Matt, Mark, Luke-Acts, 2 Pet, i John, Rev, Church). It may be protested, with BAUER 2),

that most of the so-called "biblical" words are closely related to forms in secular Greek and are therefore highly unlikely to be unique. BAUER'S warning has weight in the circumstances he mentions, i.e. where there is "nothing specifically Jewish or early Christian or even religious" about the words. We have in fact instanced only those which have a clear religious or moral content;

1) Only elsewhere in a Philo fragment. 2) W. BAUER, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other

Christian Literature (tr. and ed. W. F. ARNDT and F. W. GINGRICHT; Chicago and Cambridge, 1957) p. xvii.

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NEW TESTAMENT VOCABULARY

just the kind of word that Jews or Christians would be likely to coin 1).

In this connection we should specially note the word oX?cayX- vLoLajL (LXX, T i2P, T Abr, Matt, Mark, Luke, Church), together with ntoX6an7XaoyZo (Jas and Church), coined probably from the secular TO& OaX-yXvaM which itself, in the sense of affectionate emotion, may be a Biblical coinage which entered the Koine by way of Jewish Hellenistic influence 2). Many words must have trespassed from the Biblical vocabulary into the secular papyrus texts, passing from the ethos of the Alexandrian LXX into the Greek which the Jews spoke there, for the Egyptian Jews were numerous enough to influence the Koine spoken by Gentiles. We should probably also include axicvSaXov, -Co., which although the derivation is the same as secular ocxavSaXO6pov (trap), are exclusively Biblical- Church words in their figurative sense at least, in spite of the fact that they turn up in the 8th. c. A.D. They have weighty significance in Christianity, where the notions of enticing to sin and of shocking are fundamental.

Another feature of this language which we venture to distinguish as "Biblical Greek" is the variety of compounds of e'loXaov which are based on its new meaning, an idol, which it gained from its Semitic inheritance; the compound words appear only in the LXX and NT: 'icoX^ov, S, AcoXOuroov, ecXoXoX0aprlo, xaMtx-oXoq 3).

Simple transliterations of Aramaic and Hebrew include many words like a3Poc and poaros, and the following are Jewish technical terms: 'axpcapucxa, XvTLxpLTco q , lu6Xop,OpTo , Uaanopa, 6uLM pLov, xrpiLaTGTocr OX, oXoQxocu'a, PTrOrTpX, 7ap pa, ptpoal XuvTOq, TpcoToooxLa and compounds of auv?ycoyoo. This pretty well exhausts the words, nearly all religious, which we hold to be peculiar to Biblical Greek.

1) We attach no significance to words like the nautical euOu8poito which, though it has not yet appeared anywhere except in Philo, St. Luke, and much later, has no likelihood of being a Jewish or Biblical coinage; also ex.lux'rpgto (LXX, T 12 P, Luke, Church), and expoouy1o (LXX, Philo, Paul) and adreXey[6o (Acts xix 27 only).

2) New Testament Studies I (I955) p. 219. In BGU ii3917 (5 B.C.) oxmXiyXvov is used of the emotion of pity (= raha mim), as the plural is in Biblical texts.

3) New Peake, I962, sect. 579a.

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OLD WORDS WITH NEW MEANINGS

The distinctively Christian content which is given to many established words is undeniable 1). Light from the papyri on such old words as &X?0OeLa, ?xxX7]oa, v6Jo,; and rcappooX) (which has quite shed its secular meaning of story and through Biblical influence has become a maxim or a saying designed to camouflage a truth), is trivial and unhelpful for the NT, nor can such words be semantically assessed except in the richness of their Christian contexts 2). For instance, &XO0riec in Biblical Greek is the culmina- tion of a process in which by Christian usage the word means little less than "the knowledge of God", so that St. John's Christ could say, "I am the Truth." PROFESSOR DE LA POTTERIE shows how essential it is to look at the OT background, together with the apocalyptic and sapiential background, of the word to observe how different is the conception from that of the Hellenistic world 3).

The words for approval (86xLpo, aoxyl[,, 8oxct0o), innocent of all religious content in pagan Greek, now become pregnant with eschatological overtones through the Christian need for approval at the Parousia 4). In the case of important Christian words, especially those which are used in the context of salvation and the life of the redeemed, the secular papyri throw very little light on the background, and LXX study is the real key to under- standing 5).

Certain words, while radically changing their meaning in some contexts, have kept the old associations in others 6). In Mark i-iv, XoyoS is exclusively Christian ("the Message") while it bears the secular meaning in v-xvi 7); St. Paul has the secular meaning

1) E. C. HOSKYNS, N. DAVEY, The Riddle of the New Testament (London, 1931) insisted on this point, which had already been worked out by H. CREMER, Biblico-Theological Lexicon of New Testament Greek (4th. Engl. ed.; Edinburgh, I895). The ideas behind the KITTEL-FRIEDRICH, Theologisches W6rterbuch zum Neuen Testament (Stuttgart, I949 ff.) are described in G. KITTEL, Lexicographa Sacra ("Theology" Occasional Papers, no. 7; London, I938), in which tribute is paid to the pioneer thinking of Hoskyns.

2) Expos. T. lxxvi (I964) p. 46. 3) I. DE LA POTTERIE, "La Verith in San Giovanni," Rivista Biblica

(Brescia, xi [1963] pp. 2-24). 4) Lexicographa Sacra, p. 18. 5) Soteriological terms are dealt with in an exemplary way by DAVID

HILL, Greek Words and Hebrew Meanings (Cambridge, I967). 6) Cf. what is said on rapp?:aic below. 7) PROF. G. D. KILPATRICK points this out in "Some Notes on Markan

Usage," Bible Translator VII (I956) pp. 2-3.

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NEW TESTAMENT VOCABULARY

in I Thess. i 5 and the Christian one in verse 6. The same is true of o[ouvcaL, which retains the secular connotation authority in Rom.

xiii and has the Biblical meaning of rulers in the supernatural world (T 12 P, T Sol) in Eph. vi 1). There was Jewish rather than Christian influence at work here, however, and so there is in the case of [Laxpo0uLo(o of which the passive sense (be long-suffering) is a Biblical creation (LXX, Matt. xviii 26, 29; I Cor. xiii 4; I Thess. v I4; 2 Pet. iii 9; Church), while the active sense (= xapTrppco) wait patiently is the pagan meaning of verb and noun (Col. i II; Heb. vi 15; Jas v 8). Rarely however does `yysXos appear in the NT with its secular meaning of a human messenger (Matt. xi Io; Jas ii 25), but it usually has the Jewish or syncretistic-Jewish meaning of supernatural powers (mal'dkh), as also &pXayy?XoS and LacyyeXoq 2).

In such instances, Christians have kept the secular word, only half-baptizing it, as it were; but much more interesting are the instances where they deliberately rejected the established Hellenistic term almost altogether, and in its place installed a comparatively rare synonym, avoiding thereby the confusion of some Christian truth with pagan ideas 3). It has been pointed out, for instance, that in pre-Christian Judaism the true Jew was xxTYXou[Lvoq Zx roi v64tou (Rom. ii I8) and that St. Paul and St. Luke preferred to christen the xaTXZocsra-root (Luke i 4; Acts xviii 25; Gal. vi 6) rather than use 8LSaxr6k, from the more common secular and

philosophical 88aoxco- root 4). In secular Greek xCaroxog SaOLLovL (spirit-possessed), v0soco "A'Ap

(possessed by Mars), and ?vOua7aLoztou (to be god-possessed) were

phrases already to hand to express the Holy Spirit's influence, but these were avoided in favour of something quite new like eV SvatocteL 7rV?U Lao TO, xoLVOcVcx TcveUpaOoT, 'JV veSUcL, or simple preposition (e.g. 5v 7rvz4tLat). Moreover, the characteristic words of pagan morality, expressing virtue (0pse- and ra xacOqxovra)

1) W. FOERSTER in T.W.N.T. II p. 562: "Behorden" (Rom. xiii I); "Geistermachte" (Eph. iii IO; v. I2; etc.). Cf. also G. DELLING, T.W.N.T. I p. 487.

2) "AyyS?oq does have a sense other than human in some secular texts (e.g. Inscriptiones Graecae, xii, fasc. iii [1898] 933-974) but they go no further than a heroic Homeric sense or as spirits of the underwo Id.

3) If &yacrm and SrTLOuaGLo do occur (however rarely) in secular texts, they too should be included here, rather than in the previous section of this article.

4) H. W. BEYER, T.W.N.T. III p. 639.

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NIGEL TURNER

were avoided by Christians 1); they made T& & ayac and the new word &yo0ooa5v'v do service instead. KITTEL suggested that the very earliest Christians avoided &a6vacTo0, a term which one might suppose was central to their thinking, because the Christian resurrection had swallowed up all idea of mere "immortality" 2).

Moreover, they rejected xipu[, with its associations as Cynic preacher and "herald of the mysteries", preferring the rarer uayyXLaT7]S 3). By choosing exxXnaia, a neutral semi-political word,

the Christians deliberately avoided familiar words with religious associations, auvay^wyq (a Jewish congregation) and OLCxaL (a pagan religious guild or confraternity).

Still, Christians did not always fix on neutral words; some which they filled with new meaning beyond recognition had already done service to express something of the religious or moral concepts of paganism: aycv 4), O&8X(p6O, 8loxovo0, nt?aXOTxo, rUayyeXLov,

(O), XOLVc, xovropou , rpOCroapou, rp t) It, x T6azTXo , 7por'cpT, CtO)Tp, -ia, (cptotco. It may however be doubted whether the first Christians were aware that all these terms were already in religious use, for the occurrence of some of them is very slight indeed among all the vast surviving mass of papyrus literature and inscriptions; more likely they were oblivious of such tainted associations, where any existed. "Brother", "bishop", and "deacon" are found with religious significance in only two or three pre-Christian texts at most; it is doubtful how far the temple of Apollo at Rhodes would be significant for early Christians at Ephesus and Philippi, even assuming that the office mentioned there was at all parallel with that of a Christian "bishop" 5). "Apostle" was perhaps a Jewish official but its secular religious associations are at best indirect 6).

1) St. Paul's oy6v metaphor, states V. C. PFITZNER, includes "little of the Greek spirit of moral idealism." His rejection of the terms &aper, r&O7l,

ayxp'eLa, &OeLa, rocpa&a oc, a oyLx6v, XoyLao.6 (central pagan concepts) shows his concern to fill the Agon-motif with a completely new Christian content. Paul and the Agon Motif (Leiden, I967) pp. 6 f.

2) Lexicographa Sacra p. 17. 3) Evidently they were not aware of its being a suspected title for pagan

priests, in Inscr. Graec. xii, fasc. i 675. 4) On the filling of this word with new meaning by St. Paul, see V. C.

PFITZNER, op. cit. 5) A. DEISSMANN, Bible Studies (E. T., Edinburgh, I901) p. 23I. 6) Cf. Epicteti Dissertationes (ed. H. SCHENKL, ed. minor, Leipzig, 1898)

III 22, 23 (for the verb only); i&7rxox&v (III 22, 77) and xocrcaxortoq (I 24, 3) were the nearest in the Hellenistic world to the NT &r6a,o)Soq (i.e. the Cynic philosopher), and then, not to describe an office but a state of mind.

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NEW TESTAMENT VOCABULARY

The NT word for "fellowship" has virtually no secular parallels: tq xp6O 'ov ALoc xotv&ovta; (Epict. II I9, 27) falls short of community. "Parousia" in pre-Christian secular texts very rarely approaches a religious sense 1), and neither does "gospel" 2). "Walking" in the sense of spritual life is almost exclusively a Pauline usage, borrowed from the OT, rather than from the Stoics who occasionally spoke figuratively and somewhat differently of the "walk" of life. "Belief" (7atcs) in deities was a familiar conception, now to be filled out with new meaning as the trust which brings salvation; in pagan religions it failed to denote any relationship between man and God 3).

We would maintain that among pagans, npocp'n; was not the religious word, but that ,uoavCrt, -etl, had the inspired oracular sense; in spite of this, or because of it, Greek-speaking Jews and Christians used the stem exclusively for prophecy inspired by God's Spirit and even allowed the lowest form of true prophecy to share that stem (as eu8ospocp'r)t), whereas they gave to the [CVKq

- stem a bad sense of diviner or soothsayer 4). This was rather the reverse of the situation in the secular world, where the inspired giving of an oracle is regularly tavvT?uo[oc, while a npocpYs- is a (not necessarily inspired) interpreter of the will of the gods; .0vT,Vt, not npo?pqTys, was the religious term.

"Saviour" is used of gods and prominent men, but the nature of the salvation is so very different from that in Christ as to resemble it only in name: most often it is merely worldly and temporal help (healing with Asclepius), sometimes passage to life after death (e.g. Serapis and Isis), never salvation from sin and its penalties. "Enlightenment" and "life" too were features of certain mysteries, but how far Christianity borrowed from them it is impossible to say,

1) Diod. Sic. IV 3, 3 ("extol the presence of Dionysus"). W. DITTENBERGER, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum (Leipzig, 3rd. ed., I92I-24) II69,4 (of Asclepius, but post-Christian).

2) W. DITTENBERGER, Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae (Leipzig, I903) 45841 partly restored). Aelius Aristides (2nd. c. A.D.) 53 (as an adj.). Philo- stratus, V. Ap. I xxviii (not the noun, as cited by BAUER, but zsaYyeX?toga and not in any special sense, much less religious).

3) "Zu termini der religiosen Sprache sind die Bildungen mit xmar- im klassischen Griechisch nicht geworden." R. BULTMANN, T.W.N.T. VI p. I78. In Hellenistic religion and Stoicism, remarks BULTMANN, r,TTm; has no religious significance, "in dem Sinne, dass sie das Verhaltniss des Menschen zur Gottheit bezeichnete, dass die Gottheit und ihr Walten Gegenstand der waren." IV p. 182.

4) J. REILING, "The Use of TEYAOIIPODHTHI in the Septuagint, Philo and Josephus," Novum Testamentum XIII (I971) p. I54.

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even if the Hermetic texts and magical papyri in question antedate Christianity 1).

DEISSMANN made the most of such tenuous parallels as there are, but he never argued that Christians adopted these words because they were the religious terms of paganism. Probably the cultic associations were largely unknown to them.

SEMITIC INFLUENCE

Sometimes the change in meaning from secular to Biblical, or the addition of a new meaning, is due to Jewish rather than Christian influence. For example, 8co which in secular language is to bind came to have the additional meaning to forbid in NT Greek (Matt. xvi I9; xviii 18), because 'sr in rabbinical vocabulary meant bind and forbid 2); X?o also acquired the meaning permit. Sinner is added to the secular meaning of 6cp0XITq (debtor) in NT Greek (Luke xiii 4) because the Aramaic word hayydbh had the same double meaning; ocpanXtoa has the two meanings, debt and sin (Matt. vi I2) because the Aramaic hobh, ho6bha had a double

meaning too 3). Properly, yp'oc[crzuS6 is a secretary, clerk, or a

military officer, with no religious associations, but sopher was a Biblical scholar; hence ypap,c,TsuS appears in our Greek with a new meaning. PROFESSOR W. C. VAN UNNIK has examined 7rcpp7aia and found that the Semitic background gives the key to the word's true evaluation; secular Greek appears to know nothing of the real

meaning in John vii 4, which is "unconcealment" 4). It is not used here, as in the secular language, of "das Recht oder auch den Mut zur Offentlichkeit, die Redefreiheit oder Offenheit," but in the sense

1) Commenting on Corp. Herm. XIII 19, R. REIZENSTEIN pointed out that God was understood as [(oq xoal (p&q. "Scheint doch die Lichttheologie selbst, wenigstens in ihren spateren, ausgeprachten Form, erst aus den Iranischen in Judentum gedrungen." Die Hellenistischen Mysterienreligionen (3rd. ed., Stuttgart, 1927) p. 292. But C. H. DODD suggested Egyptian influence as equally likely for "life", while both "life" and "light" may be adequately explained by OT influence. Bible and the Greeks (London, 1935) PP. I34-I35.

2) M. JASTROW, Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yeru- shalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (London and New York, I903) vol. i p. 98.

3) CREMER, Biblico-Theological Lexicon p. 468. 4) W. C. VAN UNNIK, De Semitische Achtergrond van parresia in het Nieuwe

Testament (Mededelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen. Afd. Letterkunde N.R., Deel 25, No. II.I; Amsterdam, 1962).

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in which rabbinical Hebrew (beparhesyd) borrowed the word, publicly 1).

A slanderous person (8UlpoXoq) has become in Jewish and Christian Greek none other than Satan, the Devil, through the double meaning of the Hebrew equivalent shdatn: I. adversary, 2. Satan, a super- human and particular adversary. Through the equivalence of hlk and 7opsuo[aL the Biblical language acquired from the Hebrew the additional non-secular meaning, to die (Luke xxii 22). The non-secular metaphorical sense of xopvLoc (idolatry) is assumed from a Hebrew equivalent which itself had acquired the additional meaning through the influence of Deuteronomy and the Prophets.

In NT and early Christian language the present age (6 aL'v

ouToq) became a technical term through the influence of the Hebrew phrase hda'oldm hazze, and oaWv acquired the special sense ot dis- pensation. The resulting meaning of adWvLoq is thus belonging to the world to come (Luke xvi 9; 2 Cor. iv 17, 18; v i; Heb. xiii 20; Rev. xiv 6, etc.), a Semitic meaning quite foreign to secular Greek 2).

To refer to Trn6auTo ev is to revive an old controversy with shades of DEISSMANN over it, but on the plea that Hebrew usage significant- ly affected meanings in later Greek, we ought to reconsider whether the preposition should not be taken closely with the verb in accord- ance with the phrase 'mr (hiph.) b- or 1- (believe in). We would then translate Mark i I5 as "believe in the Gospel", instead of treating the verb absolutely with DEISSMANN ("believe, in the sphere of the Gospel"). In his Prolegomena (p. 67) MOULTON

considered that "there can be little doubt that DEISSMANN is right," but afterwards, under the influence of F. C. BURKITT, he changed his mind and accepted the phrase xmarLT?Gc v as translation-Greek 3). The LXX parallels incline us to the same opinion (Jer. xii 6; Ps. lxxviii 22, 32).

1) R. BULTMANN, Das Evangelium des Johannes (G6ttingen, I94I) p. 2I9 n. i. Yet the word retains the old meaning in John x 24 (plainly), after the way we saw with certain Christianized words above, having one meaning in one context, another in another (e.g. X6yos).

2) Outside the NT, "it never loses the sense of perpetuus." J. H. MOULTON - G. MILLIGAN, Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (London, 1930) p. I6. Cf. DAVID HILL, Greek Words, pp. I86-I89.

3) J. H. MOULTON-W. F. HOWARD, A Grammar of New Testament Greek (vol. II, Edinburgh, I919) p. 464.

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LXX INFLUENCE ON VOCABULARY

Often the change in meaning or the addition of a new meaning may be attributed to the particular use of a Greek word in the Bible of the early Christians. First, there are examples of the addi- tion of a new meaning.

The word for opinion, good repute (86Sa) became also visible splendour 1), because in the LXX it rendered kabhodh (honour, glory) and such words as hodh (splendour); and LXX influence (through ?iopXooy?oLxat) is apparent in the additional meaning of

W6oXoy?)co since 'dh (hiph.) is not only confess but praise (the latter

being absent in secular Greek; found in Philo and Heb. xiii I5). In secular Greek &x~T(co (seek, search out) has not the meaning to demand an account of (as in Luke xi 50, 51), for this additional

meaning entered the Biblical language by way of the LXX rendering of drsh which has both meanings 2). An et'oXov in secular Greek was a phantom, image, idea, anything unreal, in fact, but in the LXX it acquired the additional meaning of a false god (idol) because it rendered the words for those two ideas, viz., c'loah

(false gods) and gelilim (images). Tongues or languages (yoXaaL) becomes nations through its rendering in the LXX of leshnmm in the secondary sense (Gen. x 20, 3I; Isa. lxvi I8; Zech. viii 23), and NT Greek has enriched its vocabulary (Rev. v 9; vii 9; x 1I; xi 9; xiii 7; xiv 6; xvii I5). We do not find the sense of a manifesta- tion of the divine wrath or favour given to eclaxoxT (visitation) in contemporary secular Greek (though it is cited much later by Hesychius), but it has acquired this sense in the language of Luke

1) It had this meaning too in magical texts: e.g. K. PREISENDANZ, Papyri Graecae Magicae (Leipzig, 1928, 1931) I3 (Leiden magical papyrus W), I89 ("the brightness of the light"). The difficult question is, whether the Hermetic writings, magical papyri, and other products of Graeco-oriental sacramental cults, are pre-LXX in date, and whether they are free from Jewish or Christian influence. E.g. the third tractate of the Hermetic Corpus, which begins 86oca 7&vtcov 6 6065, shows "definite evidence of dependence on biblical sources" (C. H. DODD, Bible and the Greeks, p. 242). A Jew would find no difficulty with the phrase: a Stoic would (op. cit. p. 217 n. i). But we may in any case rule out the pagan texts, because it is not in the concept of "brightness" alone that the LXX has changed the basic idea of 86(a, but also by adding a large soteriological element; cf. L. H. BROCKINGTON, "The Septuagintal Background to the New Testament use of AOEA," Studies in the Gospels, ed. D. E. NINEHAM (Oxford, 1955) pp. I-8.

2) The secular instances in J. H. MOULTON-G. MILLIGAN, Vocabulary p. I94, should be discounted: the first two have the secular meaning search out, while the third is not the same verb.

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NEW TESTAMENT VOCABULARY

xix 44; i Pet. ii 12, through its rendering of pqd in the LXX. As the LXX rendering of berith, 8L&aOx7Y adds to the secular sense of will, testament, a new Biblical meaning of covenant 1) Because 88tcoJt was the obvious translation for ntn (give) in the LXX, there was a tendency to retain 88totpi when ntn meant to place, and so 8Igcow[ became a synonym for Ti7O[t in Biblical Greek (esp. Rev. iii 8) 2).

CREMER had claimed that pco,aco acquired the meaning request, entreat in Biblical Greek, through the influence of sh'l which meant to ask (interrogative) and also to entreat (= xIore) 3). The few cited instances of the verb with the latter meaning in the secular Koine 4) are not really decisive against CREMER, for probably the change had taken place in the Biblical language well before the earliest of these instances (84 B.C.) and it is likely that the usage had passed into Egyptian secular Greek. DEISSMANN'S examples from the Fayum are no earlier than the 2nd Christian century (BS. pp. I95-I96).

And now for examples of words which have not added a new meaning but have undergone a semantic transformation in Biblical Greek. In the NT E1p-lvy for instance, is no longer the absence of strife (secular language), but has the full meaning of shdlom, a state of security and well-being, through its use in the LXX 5). THACKERAY observed that a number of Greek words had gained a new meaning because the translators had deliberately chosen a homonym: 'Xs(o (understood as an abbreviation of iXs;o isCTo) 6 O6oq) has gone further and reversed its meaning from a plea for mercy to an execration through its resemblance in sound to hdlil (Matt. xvi 22); the meaning of auxopoavrTco is changed from the secular accuse falsely to the new Biblical meaning oppress because it resembled the sound of the roots 'shq and shqr 6). The importance

1) DEISSMANN dissented from this viewpoint, but MOULTON agreed. "Now we may fairly put aside the idea that in LXX testament is the in- variable meaning: it takes some courage to find it there at all." MOULTON- MILLIGAN, Vocabulary p. I48.

2) R. H. CHARLES, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Revelation of St. John (I.C.C., vol. i, Edinburgh, I920) p. cxlviii.

3) Biblico-Theological Lexicon, p. 716. 4) In papyri of A.D. 22, 25, c. 38, and 57; and an inscription of 84 B.C.

MOULTON-MILLIGAN, p. 255. 5) CREMER, Biblico-Theological Lexicon, p. 244. 6) H. S. JOHN THACKERAY, A Grammar of the Old Testament in Greek

(vol. i; Cambridge, 1909) pp. 36-38.

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NIGEL TURNER

of this is seen in Luke iii 14; xix 8, where we ought to eliminate the secular concept of false accusation in favour of the Biblical meaning oppress or defraud.

Formed from the adjective, rTO XocTnjpLov may have acquired the new meaning, the lid of the Ark, through its rendering of kappo- reth in the LXX, although DEISSMANN withstood this way of

taking the LXX 1). However, most exegetes would accept that meaning in Heb. ix 5. As it is not so certain in Rom. iii 25 2),

we should consider mercy-seat an additional meaning, rather than a transformed meaning.

Perhaps the meaning, daughter-in-law, for vu,cp7 passed into the modern language by way of Biblical Greek; and its presence in a post-Christian inscription from Asia Minor may draw from there too; otherwise it appears to be exclusively a Biblical word (Matt. x 35; Luke xii 53) originating with the LXX rendering of kalld (bride and daughter-in-law).

The transformation of the meaning of 7rap[oc3[coJuo (compel by force) was effected by confusion of similar stems in the verbs prs (compel byforce) andpsr (entreat). Both are rendered by orapapa3o- ot,ua so that in St. Luke's language the meaning has become entreat: Luke xxiv 29; Acts xvi 15. However, one of the most significant transformations was in the meaning of xX7povo[iLo (spiritual inheri-

tance); it came about through its employment in the LXX to render nahala. In Biblical Greek the word serves to express the whole concept of salvation, especially in Paul, while there is nothing to confirm this meaning in the secular language.

We conclude that both new words and new meanings have come upon the scene through religious influence, revolutionizing the language if not altogether creating a new dialect (as becomes even more credible when the semasiological changes are considered

alongside syntactical evidence). Incidentally, we hope that a survey of these words will indicate the uniqueness of the Biblical Greek vocabulary and will caution the NT exegete against neglecting the new meanings and against relying over much on secular parallels.

1) Bible Studies pp. 124 ff. 2) C. H. DODD, The Bible and the Greeks p. 94. Cf. also the discussion in

D. HILL, Greek Words pp. 36-48.

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