Possibly, however, we may be more successful with the question regarding the provincial idiom of the biblical writers, if we examine the syntactical features, as the MS tradition would be less likely to infringe upon the original text in that respect. A noteworthy fact, observed by Radermacher,t is that the use of the article as a relative — a usage authenticated in Attic inscriptions of the 4th cent. A.D. and here and there in Koine texts — seems to be foreign to the NT. Further, the final infinitive, w'hich is a favourite construction in the Ionic of Homer, but is seldom used in Attic, appears with great frequency in the NT, tliough the substitution of 'iva for the infinitive in other constructions had developed in a marked degree. Now it is a re- markable fact that the final infinitive is found to depend upon verbs of the same class alike in the NT, in the early Byzantine author Malalas of Syria, and in the Pontic dialect of to-day (the only dialect that still retains the infinitive). This suggests the inference that there was an eastern Koine dialect marked inter alia by its retention of the infinitive, and that the language of the NT was more closely akin to that dialect than to the other branches of the Koine, which discarded the infinitive altogether, and in this respect paved the way for Modern Greek usage. Another and per- haps even more characteristic phenomenon is that the Fourth Gospel makes very frequent use of the adjectival pronoun ifibs, and that similarly the Acta Johannis and Acta Philippi prefer the ad- jectival ffo^, while the rest of the NT writings, like Modern Greek, usually employ the genitives i^ov and <jov. As the adjectival possessives are now re- tained only by the dialects of Pontus and Cappa- docia, we may regard the authors of the Fourth Gospel and the other two works just named-— in view of their preference for ifioi and a6s — as having belonged to Asia Minor.
It is therefore possible, with the aid of gram- matical characteristics, to assign a particular book of the Bible to a definite portion of the Koine area. We thus at the same time trench upon, and, in principle at least, give an affirmative answer to, the question whether the various constituent parts of the Greek Bible may — not only as regards their style but also as regards their grammar — be dis-
* ' Essai sur le Grec de la Septante,' in Revue de$ itv4e$ juives. 1908, p. 164 f.
t Neutest. Grammatik, Tiibingen, 1911, p. 62.
558 HELLE2s^ISTIC & BIBLICAL GREEK HELLENISTIC & BIBLICAL GREEK
tinguished from one another in such a way as to warrant us in associating their writers with different districts. Investi.eation of the local varieties of the Koine (see above) has not yet yielded such results as would enable us to deal with the problem on a comprehensive scale. So far as individuality of diction has as yet been noted in the various biblical ^^Titers, it would seem to involve nothing more than differences in culture and in stylistic tendencies : compare, e.g., the Gospels, the Pauline Epistles, and tlie Epistle to the Hebrews. J. H. Moulton has called attention to such differences,* while H. St. J. Thackeray t has successfully utilized the occurrence or non-occurrence of certain words as a means of breaking up the Greek version of the OT into groups which must have come from distinct hands. The next task of the investigator, however, will be to examine the syntax and voca- bulary of the several parts of the Greek OT and NT with reference to the question whether they cannot be brought into relation also with local and chronological modifications of the Koine. A begin- ning has been made in the works of Thieme and Rouffiac already named.
9. The more important grammatical peculi- arities of Biblical Greek. — The definition of Biblical Greek as a monument of the Koine is in no way affected by the discussions of the foregoing paragraph, and a grammatical study of the former gives us a good idea of the Koine in general as contrasted with Attic Greek. J
(A) Phonetics. — (1) Itacism had become a fairly common feature of Greek pronunciation in Asia Minor and Egypt by the beginning of the 2nd century ; et was pronounced as i, at as e (a), and 01 as V (a sound resembling u, but incapable of being more precisely determined).§ The ij was still an e sound, but in the countries named was sometimes confused with i (i, ei), as the latter had there a very open pronunciation. The itacistic development is reflected in such biblical modes of spelling as i5ov [eWov), Aavel8, avaireipo'i^d.va.Tnfipo's, paidr] (also p^di]), dviiyu) (also dvoiyuj). Probably av and ev were still pronounced as true diphthongs, i.e. as an, eu. Of the consonants, <p, x, ^3, and y still retained their original values, viz. p + h, k + h, b and g ; the native Egyptians and Asiatics made no distinction between these and the corresponding unvoiced explosives^ and k (see above), though the Modern Greek aspirate pronunciation of /3 and y had already found a footing : cf. dvoiet for dvoiyei in LXX ; and for 5 and 6, the English pronunciation of voiced and voiceless th would seem to have prevailed in NT times, f was like the English z (voiced s) ; cf. the MS form *Z/j.iJpva. (2) The distinction between long and short vowels was no longer maintained in colloquial speech ; but in the LXX o and w are seldom confused. (3) Peculiarities in the usage of vowels : *Te<T(X€pdKovTa (for Teaa-apdKovra) ; *7rtdfw ( = 7ri^fw), 'I seize'; *Tafj.e7ov = Tafiie'iot> ; *iryeia = vyUia; *vocr(r6s = v€0(7(r6s. (4) Consonantal peculi- arities : *yivotJ.ai, and *yLi'iIi(TKU} ; Kad'iros, *Ka9'l8iav ; 4(f>€Xiri5a (i(pri\in<T€v , LXX) ; *d<pi5elv (the spiritus asper is transferred from rjiiipa, d<popdw). The relation of *&pKos to dpKTos is obscure. Examples of oi'^et's (ovdeis also used) are more frequent in the LXX than in the NT, and this corresponds to the usage of tlie Koine in their respective periods.