jewish koine greek

8/9/2019 Jewish Koine Greek

1/3

Jewish Koine Greek

Jewish Koine Greek, or Jewish Hellenistic Greek, isthe variety of Koine Greek or “common Attic” foundin a number of Alexandrian dialect texts of HellenisticJudaism, most notably the Septuagint translation of theHebrew Bible and associated literature, as well as GreekJewish texts from Palestine. The term is largely equiv-alent with Greek of the Septuagint as a cultural andliterary rather than a linguistic category. The minorsyntax and vocabulary variations in the Koine Greek ofJewish authors are not as linguistically distinctive as the

later language Yevanic, or Judeo-Greek, spoken by theRomaniotes Jews in Greece.

The term “Jewish Koine” is to be distinguished from theconcept of a “Jewish koine” as a literary-religious not lin-guistic concept.[1]

1 History of scholarship

Primary work on this area was conducted byscholars suchas Henry Barclay Swete in chapter 4 of his Introduction tothe Old Testament in Greek .[2] Though Swete’s emphasison the peculiarity of the Greek of the Septuagint com-pared to other Greek texts of the period has largely beenretracted by later scholars as plentiful non-Jewish Koinedomestic and administrative papyri and inscriptions havebeen better recovered and studied. Since Swete the equa-tion of Jewish common Attic with the “Greek of the Sep-tuagint” has also been broadened, placing the Septuagint

in the context of a wide range of Jewish texts of the pe-riod, most recently including the Greek texts among theDead Sea scrolls.[3]

No ancient or medieval writer recognizes a distinct Jewishdialect of Greek.[4] General academic consensus is thatthe Greek used in the Jewish Koine Greek texts does notdiffer significantly enough from pagan Koine Greek textsto be described as “Jewish Greek.” This also applies tothe language of the New Testament.[5][6][7][8] Due to thedominant influence of the Septuagint the first documentsof “Christian Greek” and early “Patristic Greek” are bothan extension of classical Greek on the one hand, and of

biblical and Jewish-Hellenistic Greek on the other.

[9][10]

Only a thousand years later did there arise a true Jewishdialect of Greek, Yevanic.[11][12]

2 Grammar

Koine Greek grammar alreadydeparts from earlier Greekgrammar in several areas, but the Jewish texts are gener-ally consistent with Gentile texts, with the exception ofa small number of grammatical semitisms.[13] As wouldbe expected many Jewish texts show virtually no depar-tures from the Koine or “common Attic” used by Gentileauthors. Authors writing for Gentile audiences such asJosephus and Philo of Alexandria observe a standard of

Greek grammar well above that of many surviving pagansources.

3 Neologisms

A major difference between the Septuagint, and associ-ated literature, and contemporary non-Jewish Koine textsis the presence of a number of pure neologisms (newcoinages) or new usage of vocabulary.[14][15][16] How-ever hapax legomena maynot always indicate neologisms,given the specialist subject matter of the Septuagint.[17]

Also some of the “neologisms” of the Septuagint are nottotally new coinages and may be combinations of exist-ing terms as Neubildungen in German, such as the largenumber of compound words representing two or moreHebrew words.[18]

3.1 Examples

• sabbatizo (σαββατίζω): “to keep the sabbath”

• pseudoprophetes (ψευδοπροφῆτες/ψευδοπροφῆται):“false prophet” (classical texts use pseudomantis)

4 See also

• Koine Greek phonology

5 References

[1] Matthew Kraus How should rabbinic literature be read inthe modern world? 2006 Page 214 “It is suggestive of a“Jewish koine” that stretched beyond the frontiers of Jew-

ish Palestine.50 Interpretations of biblical narrative sceneshave also been discovered in the Land of Israel. The visitof the angels to Abraham was found at Sepphoris "

1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koine_Greek_phonologyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_wordhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hapax_legomenahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neologismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philo_of_Alexandriahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephushttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koine_Greek_grammarhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koine_Greek_grammarhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevanichttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Fathers#Greek_Fathershttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostolic_Fathershttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostolic_Fathershttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_of_the_New_Testamenthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_scrollshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Barclay_Swetehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanioteshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judeo-Greekhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevanichttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_Biblehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septuaginthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenistic_Judaismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenistic_Judaismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koine_Greek


2/3

2 5 REFERENCES

[2] Henry Barclay Swete Introduction to the Old Testament inGreek Chapter 4: The Greek of the Septuagint

[3] W. D. Davies, Louis Finkelstein The Cambridge Historyof Judaism: Volume 2, The Hellenistic Age 1990 Page105 “Even in the expression of central theological con-cepts, such as that of love or that of the 'people' (of God),the LXX commonly uses the general terminology of itsown time.1 Good examples of fairly colloquial Jewishkoine can also be found in non-canonical writings likeJoseph and Asenath or the Testaments of the Twelve Pa-triarchs... Nevertheless the LXX has something of a lo-cal atmosphere belonging to Alexandria. Some terms,especially those representing things and places known inEgypt, are rendered with customary words of the contem-porary Egyptian linguistic usage; ... in Egypt, has effectedthe viability of certain choices of rendering in the LXX;1but these are essentially a minor element in the ... Muchmore important is theSemitic influenceupon theGreek ofthose biblical books which were translated from Hebrew

(or Aramaic)"[4] A.-F. Christidis A History of Ancient Greek: From the

Beginnings to Late Antiquity – Page 640 2007 “No an-cient or medieval writer recognizes a distinct Jewish di-alect of Greek. In particular, Jews themselves have noname for any “Jewish- Greek” idiolect (contrast laterterms like Yiddish [Judeo-German] or Judezmo [Judeo-Spanish]).”

[5] Adam B. Jacobsen– Proceedings of the20th InternationalCongress of Papyrologists Page 57 1994 “Mark does re-flect Semitic interference in certain regards (loan-wordborrowings, semantics), but his syntax and style are largely

free of it.39 While the editor of P.Yadin does not speakof a 'Jewish dialect' of Greek, I believe that in his ...”

[6] Chang-Wook Jung The Original Language of the LukanInfancy Narrative 2004– Page 11 "... or at other times 'aspecial Jewish dialect of Greek'. Cadbury declares withcertainty that no spoken Greek by the Jews existed which'differed extensively and uniformly from the language ofother nationals’. He concedes that there are some ...”

[7] Henry Joel Cadbury The making of Luke-Acts – Page116 1968 “Septuagint and other Jewish Greek writingsas well, seemed to represent a distinct dialect of Greek.The differences between the sacred writers were less thanthose which existed between all of them taken togetherand pagan Greek, whether the ... there is no evidencethat Jews spoke a Greek that differed extensively and uni-formly from the language of other nationals.”

[8] John M. Court -Revelation – Page 87 1995 “It is a first-century CE Jewish dialect of Greek, as used in Pales-tine ('distinguishable dialect of spoken and written Jew-ish Greek' — Nigel Turner; 'while he writes in Greek, hethinks in Hebrew' — R.H. Charles; 'Greek language... lit-tle more ...”

[9] Natalio Fernández Marcos The Septuagint in Context: In-troduction to the Greek Version of ... Page 343- 2000“Christian Greek has to be studied as an extension of clas-

sical Greek on the one hand, and of biblical and Jewish-Hellenistic Greek on the other. Generally, it seems clearthat it has fewer neologisms than Christian Latin.24

[10] Christine Mohrmann Études sur le latin des chrétiens –Volume 3 Page 195 1965 “Early Christian Greek has, aspoint of departure, the Jewish-Hellenistic Greek of theSeptuagint. During the first two centuries, Early ChristianGreek develops very rapidly, and is distinguished from thegeneral koinè by numerous semantic "

[11] E. A. Judge, James R. Harrison The First Christians in theRoman World Page 370 " ... powerful Jewish commu-nity in Alexandria imprinted itself on the koine as seen inEgyptian papyri should also be carefully checked in thelight of these cautions.9 A thousand years later there didarise a true Jewish dialect of Greek, Yevanic, ...”

[12] Steven M. Lowenstein The Jewish Cultural Tapestry: In-ternational Jewish Folk Traditions – Page 19 – 2002 “From

3000 to 5000 Jews in the Yanina region (Epirus) of north-

ern Greece who spoke a Jewish dialect of Greek, unlike the

other Greek Jews, who spoke Judeo-Spanish (see group 3).

9. From 1500 to 2000 Jews of Cochin in southern India,

...”

[13] Jacob Milgrom, David Pearson Wright, David NoelFreedman Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Bib-lical, Jewish, and ... 1995 Page 808 “On the pronouncedparatactic character of the Jewish Koine, influenced byboth popular Greek and Semitic Hebrew and Aramaic,see F. Blass and A. Debrunner, A Greek Grammar of theNew Testament (trans. and rev. R. W. Funk: Chicago:...”

[14] Katrin Hauspie, Neologisms in the Septuagint of Ezekiel.17–37. JNSL 27/1 in Journal of Northwest Semitic Lan-guages – Universiteit van Stellenbosch

[15] Johan Lust, Erik Eynikel and Katrin Hauspie. Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint 2008 Preface

[16] T. Muraoka A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint 2009 ISBN 978-90-429-2248-8 Preface to the 3rd Edi-tion

[17] The Greek and Hebrew Bible: Collected Essays on theSeptuagint – Volume 72 – Page 140 ed. Emanuel Tov“There is another reason for a cautious use of the label'neologism': a word described as a neologism on the basisof our present knowledge may, in fact, be contained inan as yet unpublished papyrus fragment or the word maynever have been used in written language.”

[18] Tov "...Neubildungen is more precise...”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9789042922488https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paratactichttp://christianbookshelf.org/swete/an_introduction_to_the_old_testament_in_greek_additional_notes/chapter_iv_the_greek_of.htm#1https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Barclay_Swete


3/3

3

6 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

6.1 Text

• Jewish Koine Greek Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish%20Koine%20Greek?oldid=649746763 Contributors: Thanatos666, Inictu oculi, John of Reading, Informationskampagne, Lfdder and Anonymous: 2

6.2 Images

6.3 Content license

• Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish%2520Koine%2520Greek?oldid=649746763

jewish koine greek

Documents