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Grammars, Turner, Koine etc.




Some of Nigel Turner's views on Hellenistic Greek need to be compared
carefully with those of his critics.  See for example some very fierce
comments in Greg Horsley's pages in the Macquarie New Documents series
Volume 5.  I have also expressed some more cautious disquiet about
the tendency to underestimate the normal Greek component in LXX and NT
writings when I compared Luke with the style of some Hellenistic Historians
in an article in ZNTW about 1991.

Briefly a number of idioms and usages which Turner and others claim to be
Semitisms or peculiar Biblical Greek can actually be found in writers like
Polybius.  The most flagrant case is the claim in a number of books that
legw with pros is Semitic.  Unfortunately for this theory there are examples
of this usage in Demosthenes.

I do not wish to be dismissive of earlier scholarship - the tools we have
are the result of a great deal of careful hard work.  But they are not
infallible.  We have better resources - such as the TLG - and can amplify and
correct the older reference works.  This is a major task which could
be undertaken by people who know enough Greek and can use the TLG.  It needs
to be done.

David M. 
**************************8/1994********************************************
David L. Mealand            *    E-mail: David.Mealand@ed.ac.uk
University of Edinburgh     *    Office Fax: (+44)-31-650-6579
Scotland, U.K.  EH1 2LX     *    Office tel.:(+44)-31-650-8917 or 8921