BHMA and other classical issues
kdlitwak (kdlitwak@concentric.net)
Thu, 13 Mar 1997 08:43:02 -0800
I accept correction by Edgar Krentz on the non-use of BHMA in 1
OCrinthians. Brain fad from too much of that nasty clasical stuff. On
the toher hand, I would point out that the sense of BHMA in 2 COr seems
defintely to be thatof a "judgment seat" or "place of judgment." Below
is the LSJ entry for BHMA. WHile one might get this idea out of
"tribunal" I don't see anything in this definition that closely matches
what Paul is talking about. That was my point, though Edgar made it
even better with DOXA. As for whether the better analogy between
classical Greek and NT Greek (to be more specific) should be Shakespeare
to modern English, that would depend upon two factors. How well one
knows both and one's perception of how different they are. I ain't no
classicist, and I don't doubt that Edgar Krentz knows classical Greek
better than I so the differences may not appear the same to him as they
do to me. I can only say that when I read Shakespeare, there are words
I don't know, but it still seems like English to me. When I read
Lucian, it seems like a language I've never seen in my entire life. I
havent' done statistical analysis to validate this, but given the sets
of classical Greek vocab. I've encountered (including a huge number of
hapax legomena inLucian) and NT vocab., I'd say that at least in what
I'm reading, there's about a 5% overlap and that's all. I'm sure most
NT words are used somewhere else in Greek but I haven't really seen them
in what I've read this semester or if I have, their meaning is so
radically different that they might as well be new words, like CHARIS.
I still have to look that stuff up because CHARIS in Lucian and CHARIS
in Paul couldn't be much more unrelated for using the same word.
Ken Litwak
GTU
bêma, Aeol. and Dor. bama, atos, to, (bainô) step, pace, HH 4.222,
au=h.Merc. 345, Pind. P.
3.43, Aesch. Lib. 799 (lyr.); spoudêi . . bêmatôn poreuetai Eur. Andr.
880; tosonde b. diabebêkôs
Aristoph. Kn. 73; footfall, eraton bama Sapph. Supp.5.17; Dios euphroni
bêmati molein to journey
under the kindly guidance of Zeus, Soph. El. 163 (lyr.); gait, b. ouk
orthon Hippiatr.27.
2. step, as a measure of length, = au=Hippiatr. 10 palaistai, about
au=Hippiatr. 2
au=Hippiatr. 1/au=Hippiatr. 2 feet, Hero *Deff. au=Hero 131.
3. metaph., step, 'moment', proodos en trisi b. diistamenê
Dam.Pr.258.
II. = bathron , step, seat, Soph. OC 193 (lyr.).
2. raised place or tribune to speak from in a public assembly,
etc., Thuc. 2.34, LXX
Ne.8.4, etc.; in the Pnyx at Athens, epi to b. anabênai enter
public life, Dem. 18.66; hai apo
tou b. elpides IDEM=Dem. 4.45; also in the lawcourts, IDEM=Dem.
48.31, Aeschin.
3.207; of a suppliant, epi tou b. kathedoumenon Aristoph. Pl. 382;
in the bouleutêrion,
Antiph. 6.40.
b. tribunal of a magistrate, tou hêgemonos b. PTeb.434 (ii A.
D.).
3. = thumelê , Poll.4.123; b. theêtrou IG3.239.
4. base, pedestal, OGI219.36 (Ilium, iii B. C.), au=OGI 299.15
(Pergam., ii B. C.).