New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology

Colin Brown

GENERAL EDITOR

Translated, with additions and revisions, from the German

THEOLOGISCHES BEGRIFFSLEXIKON ZUM NEUEN TESTAMENT

Edited by Lothar Coenen, Erich Beyreuther and Hans Bietenhard

Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530

The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology

Originally published in German under the title:

theologisches begriffslexicon zum neuen testament

©1967, 1969, 1971 by Theologisher Verlag Rolf Brockhaus, Wuppertal. English Language edition volume 1 copyright ©1975,1986, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S.A., and The Paternoster Press, Ltd. Exeter, Devon, U.K.

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Main entry under the title:

The new international dictionary of New Testament theology

“Translated, with additions and revisions, from the German Theologishes Begriffslexkon zum Neuen Testament, edited by Lothar Coenen, Erich Beyreuther and Hans Bietenhard.”

“Companion volume: The new international dictionary of the Christian Church.”

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

ISBN 0–310–33200–1 (vol. 1)

ISBN 0–310–33238–9 (4 volume set)

1. Bible. N.T.—Theology—Dictionaries. 2. Bible. N.T.—Dictionaries.

I. Brown, Colin.

BS2397.N48

230′.03 75–38895

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Table of Articles

Contributors

Abbreviations

Transliteration

Glossary of Technical Terms

Articles

Appendix

Indexes

Preface

Bury yourself in a dictionary and come up in the presence of god. This improbable-sounding piece of advice of the late Sir Edwyn Hoskyns contains a wisdom born of experience. At first sight a dictionary may appear to contain nothing but a mass of antiquarian information. But to those who know where and how to look, the forbidding mass of material is not a barrier between the individual and real life but a bridge to a richer appreciation of it. It is when we ask, “What is the writer getting at?”, “Why did he say this?”, “Why did he put it like that?”, “What lies behind that remark?”, that we begin to see things in a new light.

A theological dictionary is not a collection of prepackaged sermons or an anthology of predigested devotion. It is more like an invitation to join in the collective enterprise of quarrying and building. (The picture itself is not without affinities with the apostle Paul’s picture in 1 Cor. 3:10 ff. of Christian work as a collective building enterprise.) It is as one quarries among the mass of data and tries to build something out of it that the data become alive. What was perhaps previously flat and featureless takes on new perspective and meaning. One ...