[B-Greek] Re: Papyri

ann nyland nyland at tsn.cc
Sun Jan 30 18:10:18 EST 2005


(We are talking word studies here - not text.)

Yes, I am very serious, and I am of course in agreement with the statement 
you quote, "Since its appearance many new papyri have been found, the 
vocabulary of which sheds a new light on several terms of the Septuagint." 
There is no contention between my statements and this quote. It is the 
Ptolemaic papyri which are of use in the LXX, not the **huge** body of 
papyri of use in the NT. Again, the huge amounts of papyri found relevant to 
NT studies aren't of help with the LXX, and the Ptolemaic papyri don't 
really help with the NT.

Papyri are geographically most specifically focused. Egypt has yielded 
papyri from the Ptolemaic right through to Byzantine times, but this is 
highly unusual. Of course there were papyri around in LXX times- the 
earliest Greek papyrus is dated much earlier, to the late 4th c BC, and of 
course papyri are likely to be of help with any literature with which they 
are contemporaneous, but just becuase papyri and a work happen to be 
contemporaneous does mean such papyri have had a huge impact on such a work. 
It is the the NT in which the papyri have had the huge impact.

That is the whole point - certain limited papyri have shed light on a LXX 
term *here and there* (as I have already stated clearly), whereas the 
influence of the **huge** and **varied** body of papyri on NT lexicography 
has been earth shattering, to say the least - but not so for the LXX - far 
from it. That is my point. (And again, it is the Ptolemaic papyri which are 
relevant to the LXX.) See the following references which point out that 
words which appear in the NT and the LXX have different meanings in both 
(and thus the papyri of NT times are not really relevant to the LXX):
"The vocabulary that the LXX and NT have in common is less than is often 
supposed. In particular it is to be noted that words common to both vary 
considerably in their uses." J.A.L. Lee, A Lexical Study of the LXX Verison 
of the Pentateuch (SCS 14; Chico, 1982); Silva, NTS 22 (1976) 109-110; P. 
Ghiron-Bistagne in C. Froidefond (ed) Melanges E. Delebecque (Aix en 
provence, 1983) 157-74. Lexicographer GHR Horsley points out the debt of the 
LXX translators to "Egyptian" Greek - NDIEC 5.72. Deissmann also pointed 
this out - pp. 69f.

Deissmann himself, who showed the greatest interest in documentary sources 
(i.e. papyri and inscriptions) for the LXX, said that the "preculiarities of 
the LXX arose quite incidentially" (p. 69). Deissmann also wrote (p. 81), 
"Just as we must set our printed Septuagint side by side with the Ptolemaic 
Papyri, so must we read the New Testament in the light of the opened folios 
of the inscriptions."

Certain documentary sources are of course of use in LXX, but not so much for 
lexicography, but for syntactical and other reasons (also, obviously, 
textual). For example, CIJ 1, 693a is a bilingual inscription of a Samaritan 
synagogue from Thessalonike. Most of the inscription is a quote from Num. 
6:22-7. The inscription follows the Hebrew verse order. The verbal 
differences betwen the inscription and the LXX have been found to be 
deliberate. It has been argued that the Samaritan Greek of the Pentateuch is 
a more accurate rendering of the Hebrew than the LXX. It has also been 
argued that, to the contrary, the text is part of the LXX tradition showing 
evdience of revision of the LXX. This is the type of thing where documentary 
sources are used in LXX studies.

The huge amounts of papyri were of use in NT, not LXX studies, as I have 
stated. In the late 1880s, large amounts of papyri were discovered in 
separate finds, labelled by scholars as "sensational" and "dramatic." Large 
numbers of previously uncommon words found in the NT thus appeared commonly 
in everyday documents as well as on inscriptions, thus solving many 
mysetries of word meaning. This is most certainly *not* the case with the 
LXX.
In 1895 Deissmann published a large body of papyri, and between 1914 and 
1929 Moulton and Milligan published documentary vocabulary in 8 volumes in 
their Vocabulary of the Greek Testament. Nevertheless, MM had no entry for 
about 17% of NT words. Of the words they did include, there were 800 words 
for which no documentary attestation was given. Due to ongoing discoveries, 
the work was out of date before the last volume had been published. Nearly 
every recent NT dictionary and concordance is based on this old work while 
older ones are based on work prior even to that of MM.
The subsequent discovery and editing of papyrus fragments revolutionized our 
understanding of NT words. Several thousand Greek inscriptions and papyri 
were published for the first time, or reissued, in 1976. In that year alone, 
15 volumes of new papyri were published. Light was thrown on a large number 
of NT words previously unattested. Again, this is *not* the case with the 
LXX!! Finds are ongoing: several thousand new inscriptions come to light 
each year. In the last 2 decades, 4,000 inscriptions have been found at 
Ephesos alone.

Even in recent years, Greek documentary sources have been neglected for the 
illustration of NT vocab. Three of the major lexical works which have 
appeared in the contemporary era  are C. Brown (ed)., The New International 
Dictionary of NT Theology, 3 vols, Exeter, 1975-78, a translation with 
extensive revisions and additions, of L. Coenen et al. (edd.), Theologisches 
Begriffslexikon zum Neuen Testament (Wuppertal, 1965-71); N. Turner, 
Christian Words, Edinburgh, 1980 and C. Spicq, Notes de lexicographe 
nevo-testamentaire (2 vols, plus Suppl. vol; Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 
22.1-3; Gottingen, 1978-1982. Lexicographer GHR Horsley, NDIEC 5.68-69, 
states that Spicq has an admirable collection of documentary examples, and 
theological perspectives have not biased his philological judgments. 
However, Spicq has shown no appreciation of sociolinguistics or newer 
linguistic scholarship for New Testament studies. G.D. Kilpatrick, in his 
review of Turner's Syntax and Style (at TLZ 104 [1979] 10), notes that 
Turner's work ignores modern developments in research. On Turner's work, 
Horsley, NDIEC 5.68, 71, states, "Turner...begins his entry with a bald and 
inaccurate statement... Turner's decision to take little account of 
non-literary evidence is borne out strikingly by his bibliography...The 
impression left with the reader is that Turner's reading of documentary 
texts had ceased before the Second World War."

My original contirbution to this thread was a two-word answer (as I wished 
to avoid lengthy comments due to time constraints) which was a comment on 
Zodhiates' work In my own view, his ideology pervades his "word studies". At 
any rate he has not taken account of the last few decades of work on 
documentary sources. I don't wish to debate the impact or otherwise of 
Zodiates' ideology on his "word studies" - the reader can decide for 
themselves with very little research.

Ann Nyland

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Wieland Willker" <willker at chemie.uni-bremen.de>
To: "B-Greek" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2005 9:08 PM
Subject: [B-Greek] Re: Papyri


> Ann Nyland
>> That was out of context. Clearly, as I stated, "the
>> papyri" as a corpus used in NT lexicography are not
>> relevant to the LXX lexicography. That is my point.
>
>
> You cannot be serious.
>>From the preface of "A Greek English Lexicon of the Septuagint" by Lust
> et al.:
> "Since its appearance many new papyri have been found, the vocabulary of
> which sheds a new light on several terms of the Septuagint, and numerous
> lexicographic studies have been published which have refined our
> knowledge of biblical and Koine Greek."
>
> On what is "LXX lexicography" based, if not (to a large extent) on the
> papyri? This is so obvious that I still think you must mean something
> else.
>
> Best wishes
>    Wieland
>      <><
> ------------------------
> Wieland Willker, Bremen, Germany
> mailto:willker at chemie.uni-bremen.de
> http://www.uni-bremen.de/~wie/
> Textcritical commentary:
> http://www.uni-bremen.de/~wie/TCG/index.html




More information about the B-Greek mailing list