VOCABULARY OF THE GREEK TESTAMENT

J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan

Hendrickson Publishers

P. O. Box 3473

Peabody, MA 01961-3473

ISBN 1-56563-271-0

Second printing Hendrickson Publishers’ edition, August 2004

Original one-volume edition

© 1930 Hodder & Stoughton

338 Euston Rd.

London NW1 3BH.

Reprinted by arrangement.

PREFATORY NOTE

Upwards of twenty years ago Professor J. H. Moulton asked me to join with him in an effort to illustrate the Vocabulary of the Greek Testament from recently discovered non-literary texts. First came a series of joint articles in the Expositor during 1908 to 1911 dealing with certain representative words. In 1914 we found it possible to publish the First Part of the Vocabulary: Part II followed in the next year. Our collaboration was then cut short by Dr. Moulton’s tragic death, though I have done my utmost to utilize any notes or references that he left behind him. The grasp and range of Dr. Moulton’s Greek scholarship are too well known to require acknowledgment here, but I may be allowed to record my own deep sense of personal loss in the removal at the height of his powers of one who was always the truest of friends and the most loyal of colleagues.

It may be well, perhaps, to emphasize that it was in no way our aim to provide a complete Lexicon to the Greek New Testament, but rather to show the nature of the new light cast upon its language by the rich stores of contemporary papyri discovered in recent years. (See further the General Introduction to the present volume.) Apart from the papyri, considerable use has been made of the Greek inscriptions, and evidence from other non-literary sources has been freely cited, wherever it seemed likely to be useful. Very often words have been included for which our non-literary sources provide no illustration, in order to show from literary evidence, if forthcoming, or from its very absence, the relation of such words to the popular Greek.

The use of Professor J. H. Thayer’s monumental edition of Grimm’s Lexicon (Edinburgh, 1886), has been assumed throughout. Professor Souter’s Pocket Lexicon to the Greek New Testament (Oxford, 1916), a marvellous multum in parvo, and the excellent Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament by Professor G. Abbott-Smith (Edinburgh, 1922) have been of the utmost value. In the later Parts of the Vocabulary frequent reference has also been made to W. Bauer’s revised and enlarged edition of E. Preuschen’s Griechisch-Deutsches Wörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments (Giessen, 1928), and to F. Preisigke’s comprehensive Wörterbuch der griechischen Papyrusurkunden, I.–III. (Berlin, 1925–1930). Other books of reference will be found detailed in Abbreviations I. General.

In a book such as this, whose publication has extended over a number of years, it is inevitable that many new examples of the words treated should have come to light. To have included these in the present volume would have seriously delayed publication and added considerably to cost. ...