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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
George W. Knight III has continued the scholarly inquiry into the word αὐθεντέωand its use in 1 Tim 2. 12 with his well researched 1984 NTS article ‘ΑϒΘΕΝΤΕΩ in Reference to Women in 1 Timothy 2. 12’. It is a study using what scholars have used until now as their main reference tools, that is, Greek lexicons and their referenced citations. Since that time, however, there has opened up an additional tool for linguistic scholarship, the computer database. The ‘Thesaurus Linguae Graecae’ computer database project (developed and housed at the University of California – Irvine) is presently becoming available for scholarly use and it has been consulted on the strange philological development of this same Greek word αὐθεντέω (with its cognates αὐθέντης and αὐθεντία and its solitary NT usage in 1 Tim 2. 12.
[1] Knight, George W. III, ‘ΑϒΘΕΝΤΕΩ in Reference to Women in 1 Timothy 2. 12’, NTS 30 (1984) 143–157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar I am indebted to Biola University for a faculty fellowship to pursue this computer study and to Dr. Jay Shanor, Associate Professor of Classical Languages, for his assistance with the TLG computer database, debate over translations, and a new translation of the fragment from Philodemus' Rhetorica.All translations are ultimately my responsibility.
[2] As the TLG project is an incomplete project at this time, there are some omissions. There are a few sources that are not, at this date, available for user access. I would like to thank Dr. Theo-dore F. Brunner, the director of the TLG project, along with other members of his staff, who helped me procure some of the unverified material.
[3] As examples for this definition, Hazpocration uses two speeches by Lysias (445-c.380 BC). The word itself cannot be found in the specific addresses mentioned by Harpocration. The extant citations in Lysias will be dealt with later in this study.
[4] Knight, , ‘ΑϒΘΕΝΤΕΩ’, 143Google Scholar, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament being Grimm's revision of Wilke's Clavis Novi Testamenti translated, revised and enlarged by Thayer, J. H. (Edinburgh, 4th ed. 1901)Google Scholars.v. Bauer, W., Arndt, W. F., Gingrich, F. W., Danker, F. W., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago, new rev. ed., 1979).Google Scholar One wonders why Bauer did not include literary sources in his citations. In his ‘An Introduction to the Lexicon of the Greek New Testament’, he does speak of ‘a number of authors who were more or less able to avoid the spell of antiquarianism which we know as “Atticism” ’. In this group he puts Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Plutarch, Epictetus, Artemidorus, Pseudo-Apollodorus and Vettius Valens. He also speaks highly of the works of Jewish Hellenism as aids to an interpretation of the NT vocabulary; Philo, Josephus, the epistle of Aristeas and the Septuagint. He also makes reference to the use of Atticisms in the NT. BAGD xi-xxviii.
[5] Knight, , ‘ΑϒΘΕΝΤΕΩ’, 144–5.Google ScholarHubbell, H. H., ‘The Rhetorica of Philodemus, Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences 23 (1920) 306.Google Scholar A translation is to be preferred over a paraphrase. The relevant passage reads ‘Αλλ’ εἰ δε[ī τἰ-/ληθη κα[ἰ γι]νóμενα [λέ-/γειν οἰρ[ήτ]ορες καἰ μ[εγά-/λα βλάπτ[οσι] πολλοὐς [κὠ/ μεγάλους καὠ περὠ των [δει-νοīς ερωσι το[ξ]ευομέ-/νων πρòς έπιφαν[εοτάτους ὐκάστοτε διαμά-/χονται καὠ σὐν αὐθεντ[ου-σν αν[αξι]ὐπὐρτων ìμοί-/ων ὠσ[αύτως Sudhaus, S., ed., Philodemi: Volumina Rhetorica 3 (Leipzig, 1896) 133 lines 6–16.Google Scholar My colleague Dr. Jay Shanor offers as a translation ‘But if one is to speak the truth, the rhetoricians do greatly harm many (and) great men, and they do contend earnestly both with distinguished personages – concerning those things (ambitions) which are “aimed at with strong desires” – and also “with authorized rulers’ – to similar ends.’ The first quote seems to be a para-phrase of part of a saying from a fragment from the works of Euripides (Nauck, , Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta 850).Google Scholar The TLG can find no parallel paraphrase for the second quotation other than the one usage of the word αὐθεντέωin the Euripidean fragments. In fragment 645 there is the phrase ‘sharing the house with murdered children’ η παισιν αθνταισι κοινωνη δόμων ). The meaning of αθεντ[ου]σσιν αν[αξιν]may be questioned if this is indeed an additional paraphrase from Euripides.
[6] Knight, , ‘ΑϒΘΕΝΤΕΩ’, 145.Google Scholar
[7] Knight, , ‘ΑϒΘΕΝΤΕΩ’, 145.Google ScholarPreisigke, F., Wörterbuch dergriechischen Papyruskunden (Berlin, 1925)Google ScholarI s.v., Liddell, H. G., Scott, R., Jones, H. S., McKenzie, R., A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford, 9th ed. 1940)Google ScholarI s.v., DrWerner, John R. unpublished letter to G. W. Knight III, March 18, 1980. A more exact translation would be ‘since I came to have authority over him’.Google Scholar
[8] Knight, , ‘ΑϒΘΕΝΤΕΩ’, 145–6.Google ScholarSophocles, E. A., Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine Period (From B.C. 146 to A.D. 1100) (New York, 1900) 276.Google Scholar
[9] Knight, , ‘ΑϒΘΕΝΤΕΩ’, 150.Google Scholar
[10] Knight, , ‘ΑΤϒΘΕΝΤΕΩ’, 154.Google Scholar Cf. footnote 53 where he mentions Moulton and Milligan, Moulton and Howard and Robertson, A. T. as accepting Kretschmer's argument. Pierre Chantraine, Dictionnaire Étymologique de la Langue Grecque, Histoire des Mots (Paris, 1968) 138–9.Google ScholarKretschmer, Paul, ‘Griechisches 6. αθέντης, Glotta, Zeitschrift für griechische und lateinische Sprache 3 (Gottingen, 1912) 289–93.Google Scholar
[11] Knight, , ‘ΑϒΘΕΝΤΕΩ’, 154.Google Scholar
[12] Moulton, J. H. and Milligan, G., The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament Illustrated from the Papyri and other Non-literary Sources (Grand Rapids, 1930, 1972) 91.Google Scholar
