Papyri and Word Meaning in the New Testament
In the late 1880s, large amounts of papyri were discovered in separate finds.
These impacted New Testament scholarship to such a degree that academics labeled the finds "sensational" and "dramatic".
The papyri were written at the time of the New Testament, and touched upon all aspects of life, from everyday private letters from ordinary people, contracts of marriage and divorce, to tax papers, official decrees, birth and death notices, and business documents.
Prior to this discovery, the meanings of numerous New Testament words had remained unknown, and the translators had simply made educated guesses.
In 1895 the German scholar Deissmann published a large body of papyri, and between 1914-1929 Moulton and Milligan published documentary ("documentary" meaning papyri and inscriptions) vocabulary in eight volumes in their Vocabulary of the Greek Testament.
Although this was an enormous advance, Moulton and Milligan still had no entry for around 17% of New Testament 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Due to ongoing discoveries, the work was out of date before the last volume had been published.
In July 1910, James Hope Moulton made a statement which could be marked as one of history's "famous last words": "I do not think that papyrology will take us much further.
New papyrus collections will only add details now.
" But this was not to be.
Scholars had thought the previous finds of papyri sensational and dramatic, yet the subsequent discovery and editing of papyrus fragments revolutionized New Testament scholarship.
Several thousand Greek inscriptions and papyri were published for the first time, or reissued, in 1976.
In that year alone, fifteen volumes of new papyri were published.
Light was thrown on a large number of words previously unattested.
Finds are ongoing: several thousand new inscriptions come to light each year.
In the last two decades, four thousand inscriptions have been found at Ephesus alone.
Sadly, while these have greatly excited New Testament scholars and lexicographers, and have prompted numerous academic papers and technical books, they have been largely overlooked by Bible translators.
The layperson is unaware of the scholarship, tucked away as it is in technical journals.
Thus the dictionary work we see in today's Bible translations is based on centuries-old scholarship, following Tyndale's translation of 1534 and the King James Version of 1611.
Much of the scholarship which would benefit New Testament translation is recent.
The work on Greek healing words of the New Testament was published as recently as 1998, and a definitive work on the 1 Timothy 2 passage as recently as 2000.
Professors Horsley and Lee of Australia have been working on the lexicon (dictionary) of New Testament words since 1986 and are years from publishing the work.
They are working to replace the industry standard dictionary, Moulton and Milligan, which is well and truly out of date.
Yet, while nearly every recent New Testament dictionary cites some documents which are found in the outdated Moulton and Milligan, they have largely ignored the work for word meaning.
For example, in Mark 14:41 Jesus uttered an expression which is translated in Bibles as "It is finished!" or "It is enough".
However, the expression turns out to be a very well-known standard formula of receipt, used in the commercial context in the papyri and ostraca (that is, potsherds, mainly tax-receipts) as the technical expression in a receipt, "Paid in full".
Matthew 11:12 has caused problems for translators for centuries.
The King James Version translates, "And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.
" The New International Version translates, "From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.
" Here is a correct translation based on the recent papyri evidence: "From the time of John the Baptizer until now, Heaven's Realm is being used or even robbed by people who have no legal right to it.
This stops those who do have a legal right to it from enjoying their own property.
" The verse discusses the infringement of someone's basic rights as a Christian.
For example, some churches might enjoy worshiping God in their services, but deny membership to certain groups.
Only in recent times was it discovered that the Greek word bia refers to illegal "forcible acquisition", and is a technical legal term referring to the act of hindering an owner or lawful possessor from their enjoyment of property.
The use of actual physical force is not required under the term.
From the papyri, there is now firm evidence to show that the words used in this verse were legal terms used with reference to unlawful acquisition.
This has revealed that the verse has nothing to do with heaven suffering violence or forcefully advancing, but to people hindering Christians from enjoying their rights.
These impacted New Testament scholarship to such a degree that academics labeled the finds "sensational" and "dramatic".
The papyri were written at the time of the New Testament, and touched upon all aspects of life, from everyday private letters from ordinary people, contracts of marriage and divorce, to tax papers, official decrees, birth and death notices, and business documents.
Prior to this discovery, the meanings of numerous New Testament words had remained unknown, and the translators had simply made educated guesses.
In 1895 the German scholar Deissmann published a large body of papyri, and between 1914-1929 Moulton and Milligan published documentary ("documentary" meaning papyri and inscriptions) vocabulary in eight volumes in their Vocabulary of the Greek Testament.
Although this was an enormous advance, Moulton and Milligan still had no entry for around 17% of New Testament 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.
In July 1910, James Hope Moulton made a statement which could be marked as one of history's "famous last words": "I do not think that papyrology will take us much further.
New papyrus collections will only add details now.
" But this was not to be.
Scholars had thought the previous finds of papyri sensational and dramatic, yet the subsequent discovery and editing of papyrus fragments revolutionized New Testament scholarship.
Several thousand Greek inscriptions and papyri were published for the first time, or reissued, in 1976.
In that year alone, fifteen volumes of new papyri were published.
Light was thrown on a large number of words previously unattested.
Finds are ongoing: several thousand new inscriptions come to light each year.
In the last two decades, four thousand inscriptions have been found at Ephesus alone.
Sadly, while these have greatly excited New Testament scholars and lexicographers, and have prompted numerous academic papers and technical books, they have been largely overlooked by Bible translators.
The layperson is unaware of the scholarship, tucked away as it is in technical journals.
Thus the dictionary work we see in today's Bible translations is based on centuries-old scholarship, following Tyndale's translation of 1534 and the King James Version of 1611.
Much of the scholarship which would benefit New Testament translation is recent.
The work on Greek healing words of the New Testament was published as recently as 1998, and a definitive work on the 1 Timothy 2 passage as recently as 2000.
Professors Horsley and Lee of Australia have been working on the lexicon (dictionary) of New Testament words since 1986 and are years from publishing the work.
They are working to replace the industry standard dictionary, Moulton and Milligan, which is well and truly out of date.
Yet, while nearly every recent New Testament dictionary cites some documents which are found in the outdated Moulton and Milligan, they have largely ignored the work for word meaning.
For example, in Mark 14:41 Jesus uttered an expression which is translated in Bibles as "It is finished!" or "It is enough".
However, the expression turns out to be a very well-known standard formula of receipt, used in the commercial context in the papyri and ostraca (that is, potsherds, mainly tax-receipts) as the technical expression in a receipt, "Paid in full".
Matthew 11:12 has caused problems for translators for centuries.
The King James Version translates, "And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.
" The New International Version translates, "From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.
" Here is a correct translation based on the recent papyri evidence: "From the time of John the Baptizer until now, Heaven's Realm is being used or even robbed by people who have no legal right to it.
This stops those who do have a legal right to it from enjoying their own property.
" The verse discusses the infringement of someone's basic rights as a Christian.
For example, some churches might enjoy worshiping God in their services, but deny membership to certain groups.
Only in recent times was it discovered that the Greek word bia refers to illegal "forcible acquisition", and is a technical legal term referring to the act of hindering an owner or lawful possessor from their enjoyment of property.
The use of actual physical force is not required under the term.
From the papyri, there is now firm evidence to show that the words used in this verse were legal terms used with reference to unlawful acquisition.
This has revealed that the verse has nothing to do with heaven suffering violence or forcefully advancing, but to people hindering Christians from enjoying their rights.