Bibleworks parts of speech greek new testament
What is the importance of this subject for our understanding of the New Testament? Chiefly, it means that translators and expositors must take into account not only the common usages of Koine Greek, but also the peculiarities of what we may call “Biblical” or Jewish Greek. notwithstanding all uncertianties and abatements, the general influence of the Septuagint upon New Testament Greek was indubitably great.” 2 This last explanation seems to have the most favor among scholars in the past century, but it remains an open question to what extent the Septuagint influenced not only the written Greek but also the commonly spoken Greek of Jews in the first century. As Joseph Thayer puts it, “beyond all question the idioms of this Greek reproduction of the earlier Scriptures, made familiar as they were by the religious use of the version for generations among the Jews of the Dispersion, must have had a great influence in forming the type of Greek current among people of Jewish stock. It is practically certain that the language of the Greek Old Testament exercised an influence on the religious discourse of Greek-speaking Jews, including the Jewish apostles and their fellow-workers. The idea that the Septuagint especially influenced the style of Jewish authors is inherently plausible when we consider how familiar devout Jews (and Gentiles also in the early Church) must have been with the Septuagint. It would be surprising if such a self-conscious and tight-knit ethnic group as the Jews would not have had some distinctive expressions. We can also easily imagine that Greek-speaking Jews in the first century used some Semitic idioms, comparable in some degree to the Jewish-German dialect known as Yiddish. But this would account for only a small portion of the Semitisms in the New Testament. It can hardly be doubted that at least some of the material included in the Gospels (especially the sayings of Jesus) was originally recorded or perhaps orally transmitted in Aramaic, and that at some point this Aramaic was translated into the Greek which we have in our New Testament. Probably there is some truth in all of these explanations. 1 Other scholars believe that the Semitic style of the New Testament is best explained as a kind of “Biblical” style which Jewish authors or preachers of the era would have used, not so much in their ordinary speech, but in their writing and in preaching, after the model of the Septuagint. Other scholars prefer to explain the Semitisms of the New Testament as a consequence of peculiarities in the Greek commonly spoken by bilingual Jews in the first century. Thus, the Semitisms of the New Testament are explained in the same way as we explain the Semitisms of the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, which often literally reproduces the Hebraisms of its Hebrew source. Some scholars are inclined to think that much of the New Testament was originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic, and that the Semitisms of the Greek text are a consequence of the translation of these original sources, in which Hebrew or Aramaic idioms were reproduced literally. There is also some disagreement as to why they are there. Nevertheless, all scholars agree that various Semitisms are abundantly present in the New Testament. One scholar may consider an expression to be a Semitism while another doubts whether it is right to classify it as such.
So there is a gray area, in which there is some room for disagreement in marginal cases. Although some Semitisms are of this stark and absolute nature, others are what we may call relative Semitisms, when there is an unusual strain against ordinary usage probably due to Semitic influence. It is not necessary for an expression to be ungrammatical or otherwise completely outlandish in the usage of the second language in order for it to be considered a Semitism. Particular examples of this style are called linguistic Hebraisms, or, more broadly, Semitisms (a term which covers Aramaic influences as well as Hebrew).Ī Semitism is defined as a linguistic usage, expression or construction typical of a Semitic language appearing in another language. This stylistic character may be seen in several areas, including the grammar, syntax, semantics, and rhetorical features of the text. The Semitic Style of the New Testament Bible Research > Biblical Greek > SemitismsĪlthough the language of the New Testament is fundamentally the koine or “common” Greek of the period in which it was written, the New Testament authors wrote in a Hebraic or Semitic style which is not entirely idiomatic Greek.