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- (vii) 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.