Development of Greek Terms in the NT

A. Lukaszewski all1 at st-and.ac.uk
Fri Sep 20 21:33:49 EDT 2002


Dear Kent,

The first coined phrase that comes to mind is "QEOPNEUSTOS" IN 2Tim 3:16.  
This is a NT hapax legomenon and is, I think, found only 2-3x in the Greek 
corpus as a whole.

Another term is "XRISTOS", which is spun from a term of disrespect to a term 
of honor, comparable to the Hebrew "Messiah".  For more on this, I would 
refer you to K.H. Rengstorf's article on "XRISTOS" (under "Jesus Christ, 
Nazarene, Christian) in the New International Dictionary of New Testament 
Theology.

As much of NT theological jargon (e.g., SOTER) is used in other Jewish 
writings which occur in Greek, I do not think one can readily say particular 
theological nuances are born of the early (Jewish) Christian writers.  In my 
view, early Christianity is very much a product of its apocalyptic, Jewish 
environment.  So many of the apocalyptic theological concepts will be carried 
over.  However, as Rengstorf points out, one may be able to build on the 
christological spin of many concepts to determine their unique usage in the 
early kerygma.

Hope this helps.

Yours,
Al







On Saturday 21 September 2002 04:19, kentdclarke at hotmail.com wrote:
> Dear Colleagues:
>
> I was discussing with my students yesterday the author of Mark and his
> particular use of the Greek language. This lead into a discussion of
> grammatical etymology (and particularly the "etymological fallacy"), where
> we also touched upon the idea that, at times, the New Testament authors
> (and the early church fathers for that matter) use Greek terms in new
> contexts and often with differing nuances from past usages; the idea being
> that languages develop and change over time. The ancillary idea being that
> the writings of the biblical authors (and the author's themselves) were, in
> many ways, products of a culture (or cultures) and language (this being a
> primary argument of much of Deissmann's work--especially his "Light from
> the Ancient East"; and I believe Moulton's research on vocabulary within
> non-biblical papyri).
>
> My actual question pertains to this development of languages. Can any one
> think off the top of their heads of any instances where the New Testament
> authors "coin a new phrase" or develop new terminology? I believe that
> Paul, at least, does this in several places (especially where he is
> developing a theological thought or concept) but I am unable to put my
> finger on any of these instances. Failing this, can any one think of
> examples where a Greek term is used in the New Testament but in a
> relatively new sense without earlier precedent? My interest here is not to
> show any type of "inspired" development of a "sanctified language"; but
> rather to display the fluidity of the Greek language and, in some manner,
> the innovation of the biblical authors. I would be pleased to learn of any
> specific Greek New Testament examples you might be able to bring to light;
> and if any one knew of any monographs, book chapters, or journal articles
> dealing with such issues, I would be grateful.
>
>
> Warm Regards;
>
> Kent D. Clarke (Ph.D. Bristol)
> Trinity Western University
> 7600 Glover Road
> Langley, British Columbia
> Canada
> V2Y 1Y1
>
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Albert Lukaszewski
University of St. Andrews
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