Hellenistic Historians and the Style of Acts

Mealand, David L.

doi:10.1515/zntw.1991.82.1-2.42

Cited by 4 publications

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“…The inferences that are made here are, of course, dependent on the evidence of the chosen set of words and word-endings in the selected samples of text. Content words were included in a selection of lexical and other linguistic features used in an earlier study (Mealand 1991) along with some discussion of the over diagnosis of Semitisms. The divergent character of Hellenistic and Attic verb forms has also been discussed elsewhere, 15 so these have not been overlooked.…”

Section: Other Aspects Of the Statistical Outputmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hellenistic Greek and the New Testament: A Stylometric Perspective

Mealand

2012

Journal for the Study of the New Testament

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New Testament texts are compared with texts from the Septuagint and from writers of Standard Hellenistic Greek (SHG). The aim is to identify which texts are similar in style to which, and which texts differ most from each other. The criteria which are used are 30 very common words and word-endings: prepositions, conjunctions, connectives, particles and some genitive endings. Such items are good stylistic markers in Greek and other languages. Results show first that texts in a more Semitic Greek (Revelation, 4 Kingdoms) differ most from Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Polybius, who make much more use of  , ,  and the genitive endings. Some might call this a difference of dialect. Luke-Acts lies between these extremes. There is also a second major type of difference between narratives and argumentative epistles, as the latter make much greater use of   , , ,  , , . Speeches and treatises lie between these extremes. This second difference is one of genre or register.

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Section: Other Aspects Of the Statistical Outputmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hellenistic Greek and the New Testament: A Stylometric Perspective

Mealand

2012

Journal for the Study of the New Testament

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“…Several examples will suffice. First, differences in Septuagintalisms are a contested issue and some of the lxx stylistic features of acts are found in other Hellenistic historians (Mealand 1991). Second, the redactional tendency of the implied author of Luke to minimize or eliminate repetitions found in Mark does not obviate the presence of repetition in the narrative discourse (Green 1997b).…”

Section: B Narrative Coherence: Connections and Echoesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Unity of Luke—Acts: A Four-Bolted Hermeneutical Hinge

Spencer¹

2007

Currents in Biblical Research

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Nearly every scholarly investigation of Luke—Acts today must address the question of unity. It is a hermeneutical hinge and the answer to the question has wide-ranging interpretive implications. The call to dissolve the unity of Luke and Acts—and the `hyphen' Cadbury inserted—focuses on four `bolts': (1) genre, (2) narrative, (3) theology, and (4) reception history. Despite far-reaching argument over the past twenty years favoring removal of the four `bolts', the hinge remains securely fastened. In addition, there is significant coalescence around certain issues such as the presence of an intermixing of genre types in Acts and an intertwining of the narrative and theological themes in Luke and Acts. And questions about unity have led to new avenues of exploration and the identification of trajectories that crisscross both volumes and tie them together.

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“…Related to this broader discussion is the growing lack of clarity in terms of defining the relationship between sources, redaction, and the actual narrative substance of Acts. A serious engagement of these issues is made no easier by the fact that we are, if nothing else, dealing with one of the more sophisticated and literate writers of the early Christian literary corpus (on the stylistic associations with Hellenistic historians, see Mealand 1991;; someone adept at varying style and wording (Mussies 1991;; practiced in the skill and art of ancient rhetoric (Morgenthaler 1993;Satterthwaite 1993;Parsons 2003); and steeped in the ability to imitate and reconfigure the Septuagint (Johnson 2002), as well as Greco-Roman traditions (Palmer Bonz 2000;MacDonald 2003b). The situation is further complicated if we take seriously the notion that the textual traditions of Acts were rather free-floating, being recalibrated and edited over a longer period of time, possibly by more than one writer and/or scribe.…”

Section: Disciplinary Mattersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Madness in the Method? the Acts of the Apostles in Current Study

Penner

2004

Currents in Biblical Research

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Scholarship on the book of Acts frequently proceeds under the 'no final con flict' slogan when it comes to employing a diversity of methods. In this essay, however, some of the fundamental assumptions and approaches to Acts in recent scholarship are examined and challenged, raising questions related to the proliferation of method in New Testament and early Christian studies, the underlying methodological assumptions of particular interpre tive approaches, and the sublimation of theology and ideology in scholar ship. The past 15 years of Acts scholarship provides the context for this broad survey and interaction. The essential contours of the discussion are focused around matters related to genre, the nature of Acts as 'text', the book's connections to its broader socio-cultural and historical worlds, and, finally, to matters related to post-critical interactions with Acts. No easy solutions are offered in this essay; rather, the broad discussion of method in current Acts scholarship pushes for a return to greater methodological awareness and reflection in the discipline.

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Hellenistic Historians and the Style of Acts

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Hellenistic Greek and the New Testament: A Stylometric Perspective

Hellenistic Greek and the New Testament: A Stylometric Perspective

The Unity of Luke—Acts: A Four-Bolted Hermeneutical Hinge

Madness in the Method? the Acts of the Apostles in Current Study

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