Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T21:19:37.538Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Greek as the Vehicle of Early Christianity*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Gerard Mussies
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It is a curious fact that very often the official and administrative language of foreign rulers, even where they were seen as oppressors, keeps being used by their former subjects for a long period after these rulers themselves have gone, however unwelcome their rule otherwise may have been. In our own time and age we have witnessed, for instance, how English until 1980 has been India's second official language after Hindi, in accordance with the Official Language Act of 1963, how English was chosen as the official language of the state of Ghana, rather than one of the fifty languages and dialects spoken there, how French was maintained in the same function in Togo, Benin, Cameroon and several other countries, and Portuguese stayed in use in Angola after the factual repatriation of the former colonizers. And all this happens for obvious reasons.

Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , July 1983 , pp. 356 - 369
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

[1] Cross, F. M. Jr., ‘The Discovery of the Samaria Papyri’, in: Campbell, E. F. Jr. – Freedman, D. N. (edd.), The Biblical Archeologist Reader III (Garden City, 1970 repr.), pp. 227–39.Google Scholar

[2] A. Cowley, Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century B.C. (Osnabrück, 1967 repr.), nr. 26 (412 B.C.).

[3] Inscription at Kandahar, first published by G. Levi della Vida, ‘Un editto bilingue Greco Aramaico di Aśoka’, Serie Orientate Roma XXI (1958); Cf. F. Altheim – R. Stiehl, Die aramäische Sprache unter den Achaimeniden (Frankfurt am Main, 1963), I, 21ss.

[4] Altheim – Stiehl o.c. 243ss.; the inscription is at Mchet'a, West of Tiflis.

[5] Quinn, J. D., ‘Alcaeus 48 (B 16) and the Fall of Ascalon’, BASOR 164 (1961), pp. 19–20.Google Scholar

[6] Perowne, S., The Life and Times of Herod the Great (London, 2 1957), pp. 115–42.Google Scholar

[7] For the latest over-all survey of the languages in first century Palestine we refer to E. M. Meyers – J. F. Strange, Archaeology, the Rabbis & Early Christianity (Abingdon-Nashville, 1981), ch. 4, pp. 62–91.Google Scholar

[8] Negev, A., ‘The Nabatean Necropolis at Egra’, RB 83 (1976), pp. 203–36, esp. 223–7.Google Scholar

[9] IEJ 11 (1961), p. 42.Google Scholar

[10] Geraty, L. T., ‘The Khirbet el-Kôm Bilingual Ostracon’, BASOR 220 (1975), pp. 55–61Google Scholar; cf. IEJ 28 (1978), pp. 106–8.Google Scholar

[11] Biran, A., ‘Tell Dan; Five Years Later’, Bibl. Archeologist 43 (1980), pp. 168–82, esp. 171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

[12] Merker, I. L., ‘A Greek Tariff Inscription in Jerusalem’, IEJ 25 (1975), pp. 238–44.Google Scholar

[13] SEG 26 (1976–1977), nr. 1665;ZDPY 92 (1976), 168ss;IEJ 20 (1970), 97s.Google Scholar

[14] IEJ 22 (1972), p. 173.Google Scholar

[15] Frézouls, E., ‘La toponymie de l'orient syrien et l'apport des éléments macédoniens’, in: La toponymie antique (Actes du Colloque de Strasbourg 12–14 juin 1975) (Leiden, 1977), pp. 219–48, esp. 241.Google Scholar

[16] Mussies, G., Greek in Palestine and the Diaspora, CRJNT II (Assen, 1976), p. 1052.Google Scholar

[17] BASOR 230 (1978), pp. 45–56Google Scholar; ZDPV 96 (1980), p. 59.Google Scholar

[18] Cf. Fitzmyei, J. A., ‘The Languages of Palestine in the First Century A.D.’, CBQ 32 (1970), pp. 501–31, esp. 529.Google Scholar

[19] for instance, CII 1394 (Heb.); 1362 and 1389 (Ar.), cf. J. A. Fitzmyer – D. J. Harrington, A Manual of Palestinian Aramaic Texts (Rome, 1978), nrs. 67–70.

[20] O.c. p. 73.

[21] O.c. pp. 528; 531.

[22] Rabin, Ch., Hebrew and Aramaic in the First Century, CRJNT II (Assen, 1976), p. 1036.Google Scholar

[23] Rosén, H. B., ‘Die Sprachsituation im römischen Palestina’, in: Neumann, G. – Untermann, J. (edd.), Die Sprachen im römischen Reich der Kaiserzeit (Kolloquium vom 8. bis 10. April 1974) (Beihefte der Bonner Jahrbücher 40) (Köln – Bonn, 1980), resp. pp. 236, 228, 225s.Google Scholar

[24] Yadin, Y., Bar-Kokhba. The Rediscovery of the Legendary Hero of the Last Jewish Revolt against Imperial Rome (London, 1971), pp. 124 and 181.Google Scholar

[25] O.c. note 34 (p. 187) ad p. 77.

[26] IEJ 11 (1961), p. 50 (Y. Yadin).Google Scholar

[27] Fitzmyer – Harrington o.c. nr. 51;DJD II nr. 103a.

[28] Rabin o.c. p. 1032 note 4; p. 1036.

[29] Levine, L. I., Caesarea under Roman Rule (Leiden, 1975), pp. 36–8.Google Scholar

[30] Welles, C. B., Royal Correspondence in the Hellenistic Period. A Study in Greek Epigraphy (Studia Historica 28) (Rome, 1966 repr.), nr. 75. For Seleucia on the Tigris see G. Mussies, ‘Grieks als taal van het Nieuwe Testament’ (Greek as the Language of the New Testament), in: M. J. Mulder etc. (edd.), Bijbels Handboek (Kampen, 1981), I, p. 212.Google Scholar

[31[ Testini, P., Archeologia Cristiana (Rome, 1958), p. 494.Google Scholar

[32] Bardy, G., La question des langues dans l'église ancienne (Paris, 1948), I, p. 161Google Scholar; King, A. A., Liturgy of the Roman Church (London, 1957), p. 54.Google Scholar

[33] Siegert, H., Griechisches in der Kirchensprache (Heidelberg, 1950), 234 pp.Google Scholar

[34] King o.c. p. 234.

[35] Coseriu, E., ‘Der griechische Einfluss auf das Vulgärlatein’, in Festschrift H. Meier (München, 1971), 135ss; cf. L. Zgusta, ‘Die Rolle des Griechischen im römischen Kaiserreich’, in: Neumann – Untermann o.c. p. 140s.Google Scholar

[36] Zgusta o.c. p. 138.

[37] Gsell, S., Histoire ancienne de l'Afrique du Nord (Paris, 1930), 8, pp. 219; 236; 241–4; 252; 261.Google Scholar

[38] King o.c. p. 53.

[39] See Quispel, G., ‘African Christianity before Minucius Felix and TertuUian’, in: Boeft, J. den – Kessels, A. H. M. (edd.), Actus. Studies in Honour of H. L. W. Nelson (Utrecht, 1982), pp. 257–335, esp. 257–77.Google Scholar