I wrote this study for Advanced Greek Grammar (New Testament 705) at Bob Jones University in the spring of 2005.
For centuries grammarians have deliberated over the nature of the language of the NT. Several viewpoints have prevailed throughout the history of its study, and not without significant debate. In recent years, however, the debate has narrowed. And while a consensus is yet to be reached,1 certain viewpoints formerly held have been disproved and are no longer legitimate options. As a result we are nearer the truth than before.
Post Reformation Period
Important works on the study of the grammar of the NT were few during the century following the Reformation. In the first half of the 17th century Caspian Wyss (1650) produced a notable work on the language of the NT, but it failed to have significant influence on exegetical studies. George Pasor (1655) gets the credit for publishing the first real grammar of the NT (DM, iv). Salamanda Glass (1656) also did some commendable work with NT diction, but his treatment was not without its problems.2 According to Winer the early period after the Reformation was “comparatively free from such perversions” as would characterize the following generations of grammarians and exegetes (Winer, v).
Holy Ghost Language
The notion that prevailed early on was that the language of the NT was a unique language prepared by God specifically for the inspiration of the NT Scriptures and that no parallels existed in other Greek literature (DM, 9). It was true that this Holy Ghost language was markedly different from the literary documents then available. This uniqueness of the language of the NT was handled variously. Most grammarians were not satisfied with this naïve approach and sought to find a basis for NT Greek. Consequently, this viewpoint was displaced by two rival opinions, the Hebraists and the Purists.3
Purists Approach
The Purists were not content with the absence of parallels for the Greek of the NT and sought to compare it to the standard of the classical Attic (DM, 9). They attempted to find parallels for the lexical and syntactical anomalies of the NT. When they could not, these divergences from Attic standards were regarded as imprecision or irregularity.
Hebraists Approach
The rival Hebraist viewpoint eventually became the majority opinion, essentially winning out over the Purists (ISBE, 1826). Rather than finding the parallels in the old classical Greek, they saw everything in terms of Semitic influence. The Greek of the NT was a Judaic Greek. The secret to understanding this “Biblical Greek” was to find the Jewish mind that lay behind the Greek words. The explanation for every peculiarity in the language was its Semitic character. This viewpoint generally prevailed until the end of the 19th century.
Empirical Philology
The general philological approach to NT Greek grammar during the 18th and early 19th centuries was almost entirely empirical (Winer, 8). The relationship of one mood to another or one tense to another had not been clearly distinguished. If a certain tense or case was not thought to be contextually appropriate, it was simply changed. Ellipses were used in great abundance to make sense of difficult portions of text. Storr is the preeminent example of such unscientific exegesis (Winer, 8).
Winer’s Philological Approach
These viewpoints did not go unchallenged. Several men largely avoided these abuses,4 but the most significant example was G. B. Winer who “made a new epoch in NT grammatical study by his Neutestamentliches Sprachidiom” (R, 3). Winer challenged all the previous viewpoints, denying that Greek was a totally independent language or that its explication was to be found in either the Attic or Hebraic literature and mind. The Greek of the NT would only be understood in light of the common Greek of the day. He did not come to these conclusions on the basis of papyri or other discoveries of the vernacular Greek, as Deissmann would later do. His approach was philological in nature. He evaluated grammatical studies through Herrmann’s philological methods (Winer, v). Before Winer few had approached the language of the NT from this kind of a scientific approach, and no one to this degree. Winer proposed that the NT should be understood in its own terms and that the language of the NT was a living idiom (Winer, 9). Prior to Winer “uncritical empiricism” governed philology and exegesis (R, 30). This new enlightened approach rendered the average commentaries obsolete. Winer was not without his problems. As later discoveries would demonstrate, Winer did not go far enough.5 Comparative philology was in its early stages and the archaeological discoveries of the 20th century were soon to revolutionize the study of NT Greek. But none of this should diminish the significant influence that he had on NT Greek by the application of a thoroughly scientific philology.
Deissmann and the Papyri
Even more significant than the new philological method first applied to the study of the NT by Winer was the discovery of Egyptian papyri at the beginning of the 20th century. These great archaeological finds of men such as Flinders-Petrie, Grenfell, and Hunt were revolutionary (R, 18). What Winer began, the papyri discoveries ended. No more could the old point of view be defended. The most significant discoveries were the records of the common Greek language of the day. Prior to these findings many of the lexical and syntactical elements of the NT found no parallels in the extant Greek literature, primarily because the available documents were of a higher literary class. These discoveries demonstrated that the majority of NT Greek was simply the spoken Greek of the common man. Prior to these discoveries, the knowledge of such a language was purely speculative. These papyri were everyday documents such as wills, private letters, receipts, shopping lists, contracts, government documents, etc. (DM, 11; Moulton 3). They represent a wide range of literary quality, but by far the majority was not formal literature (DM, 11).6
Deissmann led the way in revolutionizing the studies of NT Greek, primarily by analyzing lexical similarities between the NT and the papyri. Deissmann freed hundreds of words from the category of “Biblical” by finding examples of them used in the everyday speech of the common man. These discoveries shed light on the meanings of scores of words that had been formerly misunderstood (Moulton, 4). Moulton picked up where Deissmann left off. Deissmann’s contribution was almost entirely lexical. He did little with syntactical parallels. Moulton demonstrated that it was not just the vocabulary that was the colloquial language of the day, but the syntax and morphology as well (Wallace, 25).
The Modern Consensus?
The days following Deissmann, Moulton, and Robertson7 were characterized by a virtual equation of Koine and the Greek of the NT. Most grammarians held this to be indisputable fact. Any talk of a “Biblical Greek” was thought obsolete according to the new point of view. Hebraisms were denied, except where it was evident that the Greek was translation Greek from the LXX or possibly from some Aramaic source. The grammarians who led the revolution of the turn of the century may have swung the pendulum too far in reaction against of the abuses of the old viewpoints. Their main contribution is not disputed, but the issue of Semitic influence has not been solved to everyone’s satisfaction. How much NT Greek is like the vernacular is also a matter of disagreement. Turner may represent a more balanced approach, although some feel that he may go too far in the direction of seeing Biblical Greek as “a unique language with a unity and character of its own” (Turner, 4). Modern grammarian Daniel Wallace argues that there are still three viewpoints represented today: (1) NT Greek as vernacular Greek, (2) NT Greek as vernacular Greek with some portions heavily semitized, and (3) NT Greek as a distinct dialect (25–26). In his normal fashion he proposes a novel view that builds upon the others, seeing (1) the lexical stock as coming from the vernacular, (2) the style as being essentially Semitic, and (3) the syntax reflecting primarily the literary Koine. It seems that, while a consensus has not yet been reached, the contributions of Winer, Deissmann, and Moulton were certainly epical and have forever changed the face of NT studies.
Bibliography: Birdsall, “Language of the NT” in NBD (669–71); Dana and Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the Greek NT (iii-15); Deissmann, Bible Studies (63–85); Harris, “Papyri and Ostraca” in NBD (862–67); Moulton, Prolegomena (1–5); Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek NT in the Light of Historical Research (3–30); Robertson, “Language of the NT” in ISBE (3:1826–32); Turner, Syntax (1–9); Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics (12–30); Winer, A Grammar of the Idiom of the NT (v-viii, 1–19).
Notes
1. See Wallace, 24–29. ↩
2. Dana and Mantey assert that Glass’s work “seem[s] to have been of but slight consequence” (DM, iv). ↩
3. Dana and Mantey argue, “When the fallacy of this conception [Holy Ghost language] began to grow evident, two opposing schools developed” (9). ↩
4. In addition to Glass, Wyss, and Pasor, who antedated most of the abuses, Haab also avoided some of the errors prevalent in his day. He published a grammar in 1815, but, as later discoveries would demonstrate, his work was too consumed with Hebraisms (DM, iv). ↩
5. Moulton argues that Winer, in spite of all the good he did, was guilty of “admitting enough Semitisms to make the Biblical Greek essentially an isolated language still” (Moulton, 3). Robertson agrees with Moulton that Winer’s view of NT Greek was still too Jewish not yet seeing the “practical identity of the NT Greek with the vernacular Greek” (ISBE, 1826) ↩
6. Inscriptions and ostraca discoveries also proved helpful. For Deissmann the inscriptions were the most important. He gave a secondary status to the papyri. Moulton argued, however, that it was the papyri that proved most significant (DM, 13). The recognition that Modern Greek bears fascinating similarities to the Greek of the NT has also proved helpful (DM, 12). ↩
7. Along with Moulton and Robertson, Turner, Blass-Debrunner-Funk, Dana and Mantey, Young, and Wallace are all important grammatical works. ↩