OL D FR I E N D S
It is a mistake to shun the lexicon as a graveyard haunted by columns of seman- tic ghosts or simply to fall back on it as on a codebook identifying words that did not appear in first-year-Greek vocabulary lists. The UBS dictionary (chap.
7) or Souter (chap. 7) will serve the latter purpose, but an interview with some- one like Bauer calls for more earnest purpose. Every beginning Greek student knows the “meaning” of the word &ova. Who would ever think of looking it up? But there is a fascinating discussion of this well-worn word in BAGD.
Under I.4 (s.v. &opa) this lexicon sketches the vivid associations made by the ancients between the name and the qualities possessed by a person or thing.
The implications of all phrases involving the name of God or of Jesus are weighty. The mighty acts of the Creator and Jesus Christ combine into a single personal projection. To be baptized into the name of Jesus, as in Acts 2:38, involves something more than an initiation ceremony into an elite club. It embraces the realization that God offers in Jesus Christ a most unexpected
rescue from the futility of rebellion and the breathtaking possibility of a new direction in life, guaranteed by Christ’s irresistible assault on sin and death.
The word &oya, it goes without saying, does not itself “mean” all these things, but the lexicon invites consideration of contexts in which the word takes on specific meaning beyond the mere gloss. Those who wish to probe even more deeply might well follow up the repeated reference to W. Heitmiiller, Im Namen Jesu (Gottingen, 1903). They will be surprised to learn that some of the
formulaic phrases in which the term hopa occurs are not necessarily of Semitic origin.
A word like “believe” may easily acquire a jaded ecclesiastical appearance, but Hebrew lexicons can do wonders for it. In its root form, I?% suggests activity that has to do with strengthening or being supportive in some way or other. In the gal only the participle is used, of one who gives support. The one who gives support may be a foster-mother or nurse. Thus, Naomi “takes care of” Obed, the son of Ruth and Boaz, and the kind of care that she gives is qualified in the context by a suggestion of tenderness. She held him close to her bosom (Ruth 4:16). The word may also be applied to pillars or door supports (2 Kings 18:16). The gal passive participle describes such as have found support and as a result have proved themselves steady. They can be said to be “faithful.” Thus the psalmist complains that “the faithful have disappeared from humankind” (Ps. 12:2; 12:l NRSV). In the hiphil the word means to
“feel safe” because one is standing firm, hence, “trust, believe.” The believers in God are the stable element in Israel. They have a firm support. Their stability comes not from their own resolute and unyielding obstinacy, but from the immovable undergirding of their covenant Redeemer. Out of this relationship develop faithfulness in disposition and reliable social conduct (niphal). Since context makes a large contribution to meaning, the Hebrew has no difficulty conveying it with a term that we are able to nuance with a variety of resources in English.
Almost everyone associates the expression “wait on tables” (Acts 6:2 NRSV) with food, but a look at BAGD under rp&ceca suggests the very strong proba- bility that the apostles were entangling themselves in time-consuming book- keeping. The apostles are then rejecting the role of bankers and not simply that of butlers.
LOCAL COLOR
One ought not only remain open to new and augmented appreciation of old friends; it is equally rewarding to understand their environment. The primary function of MM is to recreate the world in which the New Testament vocab- ulary was employed. This work is not a comprehensive lexicon but a discrim- inating selection of words that shed fresh light on the New Testament. In Acts 132
134 Multipurpose Tools for Bible Study The Use of Grammars and Lexicons 135 20:30 the apostle Paul views with agitation the inevitable arrival of false
teachers. He says that people will rise within the group, speaking perversethings in an attempt to draw the disciples into their own following. The word &xoma&
used in this passage, rendered “entice” by NRSV, is found, according to MM, in a papyrus of the third centuryB.c. The papyrus reads: “You wrote me not to withdraw the gang (of workmen engaged in the copper mines) from Philoteris before they had finished the work.” The editors go on to note that
“withdraw” in the sense of “breach of contract” is found in numerous formal documents. Between the lines of Acts 20:30, then, we note the suggestion that the disciples are under contract to serve the Lord Jesus Christ and that false teachers will urge them to break that contract. No new definition is attached to the word, but Paul’s word undergoes rejuvenation and suggests to the expositor an appropriate contemporary legal illustration.
In Rom. 15:28 Paul informs the Roman congregation that he intends to com- plete the collection he has undertaken and will stop by on his way to Spain after he has made delivery to God’s people in Jerusalem. The word used here for “making delivery” is acppayicw. The papyri suggest customs similar to the sealing of railroad boxcars. In one papyrus a shipmaster is instructed to write a receipt for grain shipped on a government transport, and he is to “seal a sample”
to prevent the grain from being tampered with during transit. In another a merchant writes: “If you come, take out six artabae of vegetable seed, sealing it in the sacks in order that they may be ready.” Paul will take all steps to ensure proper delivery of the collection and eliminate any cause for scandal.
The problem of the disorderly people or loafers in the Thessalonian congre- gations is sharpened by the material under &ax& in MM. In a papyrus dated
A.D. 66 a contract of apprenticeship stipulates that the father must make good any days during which his son “plays truant” or “fails to attend.” Similarly a weaver’s apprentice must make up any days he is absent owing to idleness or ill health beyond the three-week vacation and sick leave allowed during the year. These papyri parallels to 2 Thess. 3:ll suggest that some Thessalonian employers were fuming at a message which in their judgment was capsizing the economic order.
Moffatt renders Gal. 3:l as follows: “0 senseless Galatians, who has bewitched you-you who had Jesus Christ the crucified placarded before your very eyes?” The NRSV reads: “It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly exhibited as crucified?” How does Moffatt arrive at the meaning
“placarded” for rcpoyp&+o ? Moulton-Milligan cites a papyrus in which a father, after the manner of our personal columns, requests that a public proclamation be posted to the effect that he will no longer be responsible for his son’s debts.
St. Paul’s expression becomes transparent: “How in the world,” he asks, “can you Galatians possibly pay any attention to these Judaizers? I practically set up before your eyes a billboard spelling out the love of the crucified Jesus.
How much clearer could I put it?”
The world of the New Testament comes alive in the pages of this lexicon.
The world of shopkeepers, of lonely widows, of traveling salespeople, of the lovelorn, of bankers, of merchants, and of politicians-in short, the dramatis personae of the New Testament-appears here. And because it is the same workaday world as that of our own century, with mainly names and places changed, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament is a volume that more effec- tively than many others can bridge the chasm between pulpit and pew.
Find out where your friends are living!
PE D I G R E E
Words are like people. To know them well one must meet them on their own level, in their own environment. In different circumstances they react differently.
Like a face they take on varying expressions. Some of them move from place to place; some never return to their earlier familiar surroundings. But to know their past is to know a little better what makes them act as they do in the present. And the present that is our concern in this chapter is the hellenized world of the New Testament.
The Bauer lexicon is not intended to be a historical survey of New Testa- ment Greek. It confines itself principally to citations from the New Testament.
Moulton-Milligan deals only with the papyri, and to some extent with inscriptions. To see the family portrait one must go to LSJM (see chap. 7).
Some conception of LSJM’s usefulness in Bible exposition may be gained from the study of a word such as xaxo@a. St. Paul uses this word in a catalog of vices (Rom 1:29). BAGD offers the glosses “malice, malignity, craftiness.”
It is true that it submits Aristotle’s definition, “xaxojlhta means always to assume the worst,” but the reader must supply the translation. In LSJM similar information is presented, but under the cognate xaxo@q< it is stated that the adjective is especially used in the sense of “thinking evil, prone to put the worst construction on everything.” Might this be more illuminating than “malig- nity” in both Moffatt and the RSV, or “craftiness” in NRSV?
The very common word bp,ap&vo and its cognates provide another instruc- tive study. In the Iliad 5.287 it is used of a spear missing its mark. In general it is used of failure to achieve one’s purpose. Thus Odysseus in the under- world assures Achilles that Neoptolemus did not err in his words, and only Nestor and Odysseus were a match for him (Odyssey 11.511). Religious significance is attached to the word already as early as Homer. In the Iliad 24.68 Zeus alerts Hera to the fact that Hector never failed to offer pleasing gifts to the gods. The concept of actual wrongdoing and indiscretions com- mitted against the gods appears in the Iliad 9.501. In biblical documents the implications of “sin” are more clearly defined in direct ratio to the increased understanding of God’s moral nature and humanity’s created responsibility,
136 Multipurpose Tools for Bible Study The Use of Grammars and Lexicons 1 3 7
but the original idea of failure to achieve one’s purpose sharpens the contrast between moral expectations and actual achievements. Ancient Hellenes had other ways of dealing with matters of behavior. In the Sacred Scriptures prophets unanimously proclaim that apart from an understanding of God’s redemptive activity life is bound to end in disappointment and failure. Human endeavor without atonement is one long ramble. It lacks direction and orien- tation. Unless all of life is steered toward God and conditioned by God’s designs, it goes off course, no matter how swift the speed or determined the direction. Again, byapr&v.vo by itself does not “mean” all these things, and there is nothing specifically “theological” about the term, but when a given context indicates awareness of divine interests, the student searches for resources in the receptor language that will express the meaning in a specific passage. Moved into the contemporary scene, strong are some of the warnings to humans who hurtle off along their own trajectory, swearing companionship to the wind.
The implications of Peter’s choice of the word &rco~oxr~~~w in 1 Peter 2:4, 7 can only be detected with the aid of LSJM, unless the student is fortunate enough to find a commentator who incorporates the material found in LSJM.
Selwyn, who rarely leaves anything worth saying unsaid, omits discussion of the word in his commentary! The first citation given in LSJM is Herodotus 6.130. In this account Cleisthenes addresses the suitors who seek the hand of his daughter. He has sent a proclamation throughout Greece announcing a contest for his daughter’s hand. He has made trial of the suitors’ manly bear- ing, their disposition and accomplishments. Now the time has come to declare his choice of a son-in-law. Of all the suitors Hippocleides impresses him most favorably, but on the night of the feast Hippocleides overbids his hand and in a shameless demonstration literally dances his wife away. Cleisthenes then silences the company and declares his reluctance to choose one and disqualify the others. But he must make a choice, and after announcing handsome con- solation prizes he declares Megacles winner. The word used for disqualifica- tion in this account is &roSoxty&&. The rest of the suitors did not meet the specifications set by Cleisthenes.
Lysias 13.10, listed immediately after the Herodotus references, speaks of a certain Theramenes who had been disqualified for the office of general. From these parallels, as well as those listed under “2,” one can with reasonable cer- tainty assess the implications in Peter’s choice of diction. Jesus is the candidate i G. H. R. Horsley, New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, vol. 5: Linguistic Essays (Macquarie University, N. S. W., Australia: Ancient History Documentary Research Centm, 1989), 93, thinks that the secondary literature in Bauer should be dropped in favor of other material but fails to consider the fact choice older studies might be overlooked were students dependent on current abstracts. Besides, the bibliographies in BAGD are extra. They do not preempt space.
The book merely became a bit larger. It should also be noted that the second index volume of TWNT does not cite much literature before 1950, and insufficient accoum is taken of contribu- tions this side of the Atlantic.
for Israel’s highest office; nevertheless, humans declare him unworthy, unfit for the messianic task. Like a stone that does not pass the supervisor’s scrutiny, he is rejected.
Of the making of many etymologies there was no end at the turn of the century, and often the resemblance of the word under discussion to its alleged ancestor was purely coincidental. But etymologies carry their own inherent fascination and often limn the meaning of a word in bold relief. That the word ,rappr$a is composed of the two words r@ and @jcr~c and therefore literally means “saying everything” might not be recognized without the help of LSJM, in which we discover the components entered in parentheses. The references to the Athenian love of free speech help accent the type of fearlessness displayed by the apostles in Acts 4. They spoke the word as people who laid claim to the right of freedom of expression.
Learn to know the family tree!
A NO T A B L E AS T E R I S K
The more comprehensive a lexicon becomes, the more complete is its listing of words. Koehler-Baumgartner signals the occurrences of certain words and forms with numbers in parentheses. BAGD simply places a single asterisk at the end of articles in which all occurrences in the New Testament and apostolic fathers have been noted, and a double asterisk when only New Testament passages are listed in full. Thus the student is spared the need for checking in an additional volume, in this case a concordance. At a glance one can see, for example, that ya&lrpLa occurs only once in the New Testament (Acts 9:36).
No other woman is described by this term in the New Testament. Even as her description so is Tabitha’s character. She stood out as one rich in kind deeds and in almsgiving. She was an outstanding advertisement of Christian discipleship at its unselfish best.
RE S O U R C E MA T E R I A L
One of the most valuable incidental features of BAGD is the bibliographical data found at the end of many of the articles. Enterprising use of the entries cited will open the door to a vast treasure trove of critical monographs, disser- tations, and journal articles, as well as pages and chapters in significant books.
If the subject is soteriology, a look at &ro&poor~, o@‘o, and eraup& will yield more than twenty-five titles. The entries under ‘I~ao~~, oi&, xpt&, eoz#lp reveal references that illuminate with an almost enviable degree of com- prehensiveness nearly every aspect of Christology. If a term paper calls for a study on miracles, consult the long list of titles under erjp.eSov. For pros and
138 Multipurpose Tools for Bible Study The Use of Grammars and Lexicons 139 cons of the North versus the South Galatian controversy, see the literature under
I’aXazia. A check of cpopko reveals that Mark 16:9-20 is rarely considered a part of the Mark autograph; Walter Bauer, Frederic G. Kenyon, and Colin H.
Roberts debate the possibility of a lost ending. Julius Wellhausen, Alfred Firman Loisy, and Ernst Lohmeyer are among those who conclude that the Gospel of Mark terminated originally with tcpopo~vro y&p. Theodor Zahn and others were convinced that the evangelist was prevented from finishing his work. With the help of these and other discussions cited under cpoBQo and y&p students can more circumspectly weigh their own conclusions concerning the ending of Mark. Yet pragmatic considerations should not be the prime stimulus to more intensive and extensive investigation. One cannot describe the sheer edification provided by a trip through the realms of &j&a at the hand of Rudolf Bultmann’s article in ZNW (see BAGD, S.V. and the list of abbrevia- tions at the front of the lexicon). Some may object that space could have been saved for more lexical discussion by eliminating references to secondary literature, on the ground that current bibliographic aids can amply supply such information.2 But the fact remains that many of the conclusions reached in the lexicon are based on some very informative exegesis done decades ago.
Further, it is amazing how many cries of “eureka” are uttered by exegetes for
“discoveries” that were made decades earlier by scholars listed under entries in BAGD. In a craft like ours the motto of the state of California ought to be used with practiced parsimony.
The reference to ZNW prompts a word of counsel. Lexicons like BAGD and BDB reflect the complicated structures of our times. Special signs and abbreviations are indispensable to a lexicon’s system of communication. A little time spent pondering the introductory pages will spare users much unnecessary frustration, increase their enjoyment of the tightly wedged contents, and create a feeling of good will engendered by the knowledge that dollars were saved through decreased publishing costs.