Introduction: The Greek Language and the New Testament

I. History of the Development of the Greek Language

Linear B

The history of the Greek language begins, as far as the texts we have today are concerned, with the Mycenaean civilization, at least as early as the 13th century BC. The first texts are written in a script called Linear B. After the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization (around 1200 BC), writing disappeared from Greece. From the late 9th to the early 8th century BC, a script based on the Phoenician syllabary was introduced, with some consonant symbols being reused to represent Greek vowels. The oldest surviving alphabetic inscriptions are written using this new system and date from the late 8th century BC.

Classical Period

In the classical or Hellenistic period, Greek existed in several major dialects (Doric, Ionic, Attic, etc.), each of which has its own significance for the history of the language, but the most influential of them would ultimately be the one spoken in Athens, called Attic. Well into the Hellenistic period, however, Attic and Ionic—the form of the language spoken mainly in the Greek city-states along the Aegean Sea—exercised significant influence upon one another as the preferred forms of the language for oratorical and philosophical prose, eventually producing a dialect now called Attic-Ionic.

When one thinks of "Classical Greek," reference is normally made to the Attic dialect, spoken in the city of Athens and used by famous writers in the second half of the first millennium before Christ: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Thucydides, Xenophon, Demosthenes, Plato, etc.

Hellenistic Koine

The terms "Hellenistic Greek" and "Koine Greek" are used interchangeably for the language spoken during this period. Some Christian scholars also use the terms "Biblical Greek" and "New Testament Greek" to refer to the language as it appears in the earliest copies of the New Testament. Later in this text, this designation will be questioned.

Following the conquests of Alexander the Great (c. 336-323 BC), the Greek language underwent far-reaching changes. Alexander brought the Attic-Ionic form of the language, along with Greek culture in general, to the Near East, where it became the standard language of commerce and government, existing alongside many local languages. Greek was adopted as a second language by the native peoples of these regions and eventually transformed into what came to be called Hellenistic Koine or Common Greek. This new form of the language remained essentially a further development of the Attic-Ionic synthesis.

The term "Koine" (κοινή) is a feminine adjective meaning "common," qualifying the noun dialektos (διάλεκτος). Those who spoke Greek as a second language were called "Hellenists" (Acts 6:1) because they spoke "Hellenistic" Greek, the result of the Hellenization process of much of the East since the time of Alexander the Great.

Hellenistic Koine brought significant changes in vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar, and some of these changes persisted into Modern Greek. The era of rapid change initiated by Alexander, however, lasted from about 300 BC to AD 300.

It can be said that compared to Classical Greek, Koine brought a simplification in both morphological and syntactic aspects. Thus, there were changes in the spelling of terms, including verb forms. Furthermore, there is a tendency to use shorter sentences, with a preponderance of coordinate clauses and the use of direct rather than indirect discourse. In short, there was a tendency to simplify the language, which can be explained both by the fact that Koine assimilated aspects of different dialects and because it became the second language for various peoples conquered by Alexander.

Atticism

During the Hellenistic period, some purists strongly reacted against Koine. They developed a movement called Atticism, which treated classical Attic as the only acceptable standard for prose writing. This movement would continue to influence Greek writing well into the modern era, restricting the production of literature in the normal language of everyday speech.

Byzantine Greek

Atticism dominated literature production throughout the Byzantine era from the establishment of Constantinople in 330 until 1453, when the city was defeated by the Turks. The development of the language used in daily life during this period is extraordinarily difficult to reconstruct, since vernacular speech was considered improper for literary production. As Greece entered a prolonged period of Turkish subjugation lasting four hundred years, its literary production was drastically reduced given the characteristics of Atticism.

Development of Modern Greek

Crete managed to resist Turkish control until 1669. Poetry produced in the local dialect near the end of this period would contribute significantly to the development of modern Demotic literature, as would folk songs produced on the mainland.

When Greece finally won its freedom in the 1820s, a new kingdom was formed with Athens and the Peloponnese at its core. The dialects spoken in these regions became the basis for the standard spoken language of contemporary Greek society. At least two forms of Modern Greek can be identified. One is the literary form of Greek, Katharevousa (καθαρεύουσα), an attempt to return to the Attic dialect. The other form—Demotic—is the language spoken in Greece today and can be considered the direct descendant of Koine Greek.

II. Particularities of the Koine Used by the New Testament

The discovery of Greek papyri in the late 19th century showed that the Greek used by the New Testament, with which there were many similarities, was spoken Greek, not that used in literature, although there are texts in the New Testament that closely approximate Hellenistic texts of a literary character. Strictly speaking, there is no single "New Testament Greek," as there is variety in the use of the language when comparing the various apostolic writings.

There are texts, exemplified by the writings of John (e.g., 1 John 1:8 – 2:3), that present a simpler structure of the language (for example, with sentences using the most direct order: subject-verb-object), with a smaller number of participles (which would normally be used for subordinate, more complex clauses), in addition to other characteristics demonstrating the use of simpler Greek, as spoken by the people.

Other texts, such as the Gospel according to Matthew, also present a simple structure, but with some more elaborate syntactic development, for example, using participles to introduce the sentence, connecting to the main verb (e.g., Matt 2:11, 12).

To an even greater degree of linguistic complexity are the writings of Luke (the Gospel and Acts) and Hebrews, which utilize very well-elaborated grammatical structures and present greater difficulty for readers less accustomed to the Greek language. In addition, many passages of the New Testament exhibit strong characteristics present in the LXX (Septuagint—the Greek translation of the Old Testament).

It is important to emphasize that such linguistic differences are also found in Hellenistic writings outside the New Testament, which demonstrates that the language used by the New Testament authors is basically the language used in the ancient Near East following the Hellenization process promoted by Alexander the Great.

Another important aspect of the Greek used by New Testament writers, beyond its Hellenistic characteristics, is its Semitic features. It is known that the inhabitants of Palestine used three languages: Greek, especially in the context of commerce and in dialogues with people of Gentile origin; Hebrew, as the language of worship; and Aramaic, the language used at home. The fact that Hebrew and Aramaic were spoken languages among the Jews, as well as the importance of the Old Testament to those people, also influenced the spoken Greek language in Israel. And this is reflected in the New Testament writings.

Semitic influence in the Greek of the New Testament writings appears basically in two ways: through the use of new words—that is, words not used in Hellenistic Greek in general—imported from Aramaic or Hebrew (for example, the terms pascha = Passover; rabbi = master), and through grammatical constructions that are not common in the Greek language. In this latter category are some grammatical structures that would be completely foreign to a native Greek speaker.

However, most common are syntactic constructions that resemble an Aramaic or Hebrew structure, yet would be fully understandable to a native Greek speaker, though they would notice the external influence on their original language. An example is the use of nouns in the genitive case to express quality (as if they were adjectives); for instance, in the construction "man of lawlessness" (2 Thess 2:2), meaning: "a lawless person"; or in Jesus' favorite self-designation, "Son of Man," which would be a way of saying "The Man," that is, the ideal man, the representative (substitute) of humanity in the work of salvation before God.