Listing the Hellenistic Corpus

Other Greek writings of the New Testament era, including papyri and inscriptions
Forum rules
Please quote the Greek text you are discussing directly in your post if it is reasonably short - do not ask people to look it up. This is not a beginner's forum, competence in Greek is assumed.
Post Reply
Jonathan Robie
Posts: 4158
Joined: May 5th, 2011, 5:34 pm
Location: Durham, NC
Contact:

Listing the Hellenistic Corpus

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Where can I find lists of texts considered part of the Hellenistic Corpus?
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
MAubrey
Posts: 1090
Joined: May 6th, 2011, 8:52 pm
Contact:

Re: Listing the Hellenistic Corpus

Post by MAubrey »

You could probably create such a list if you had access to TLG. I'm not aware of anything in particular, however.
Mike Aubrey, Linguist
SIL International
Koine-Greek.com
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: Listing the Hellenistic Corpus

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Are you asking about the list of what was on the bookshelf (equ. Shakespeare, the Bible, etc.), or what was on the best-seller list and perhaps sold in quantity in the markets, or what specialist treatises that were copied on demand. Including personal letters and private letters that were part of individuals' lives, but never read by others? The inscriptions on temples and other buildings that may or may not have been read?

The list in the front of BDAG may serve as a starting point
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Jonathan Robie
Posts: 4158
Joined: May 5th, 2011, 5:34 pm
Location: Durham, NC
Contact:

Re: Listing the Hellenistic Corpus

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Stephen Hughes wrote:The list in the front of BDAG may serve as a starting point
That's a helpful idea.

Rick Brannan offered advice in a couple of tweets (1, 2), pointing to Matt O'Donnell's book Corpus Linguistics and the Greek of the New Testament. You can get a 500K word corpus using the GNT, some Apostolic Fathers, some Josephus, Philo, and Papyrii.

He notes that a lot of LXX is translation Greek, but some of the LXX could be used. I suspect Ecclesiastes is out, Genesis is in ... is there any agreement on which books of the LXX are representative Hellenistic Greek?

GNT+LXX is a little shy of 800,000 words. I think I'd like a representative sample of at least that size.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
cwconrad
Posts: 2112
Joined: May 5th, 2011, 5:52 pm
Location: Burnsville, NC 28714
Contact:

Re: Listing the Hellenistic Corpus

Post by cwconrad »

I was thinking that Stephen H had initiated this ahead, but I see it's Jonathan R. I'm one who has felt uncomfortable about using the GNT or even the Greek Bible in the fullest sense as a corpus for vocabulary and usage. I'm inclined to think that for Hellenistic vocabulary and usage one ought to determine chronological terminal points and include everything in the TLG for the era. For questions like that of ἀνακαθίζειν as sitting up from a sick bed, I'd certainly want to looking into Hellenistic medical texts.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
Jonathan Robie
Posts: 4158
Joined: May 5th, 2011, 5:34 pm
Location: Durham, NC
Contact:

Re: Listing the Hellenistic Corpus

Post by Jonathan Robie »

cwconrad wrote:I was thinking that Stephen H had initiated this ahead, but I see it's Jonathan R. I'm one who has felt uncomfortable about using the GNT or even the Greek Bible in the fullest sense as a corpus for vocabulary and usage. I'm inclined to think that for Hellenistic vocabulary and usage one ought to determine chronological terminal points and include everything in the TLG for the era. For questions like that of ἀνακαθίζειν as sitting up from a sick bed, I'd certainly want to looking into Hellenistic medical texts.
In my case, the goal is to understand the GNT+LXX, so those should probably be included in the corpus. After all, GNT writers probably knew the LXX, so LXX usage is instructive. But some of the LXX isn't exactly normal Greek, and that can skew things.

But my question is really mostly about what other texts should be included, e.g. which Hellenistic medical texts?

And also, is there a list of LXX books generally considered "normal" Hellenistic Greek?
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
S Walch
Posts: 274
Joined: June 13th, 2011, 4:27 pm
Location: Manchester, UK

Re: Listing the Hellenistic Corpus

Post by S Walch »

Jonathan Robie wrote:And also, is there a list of LXX books generally considered "normal" Hellenistic Greek?
I'd presume that those generally considered to be of Hellenistic-Greek composition, rather than Translational Greek:

Wisdom of Solomon
2 Maccabees
3 Maccabees
4 Maccabees (?)
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: Listing the Hellenistic Corpus

Post by Stephen Hughes »

cwconrad wrote:I was thinking that Stephen H had initiated this ahead, but I see it's Jonathan R. I'm one who has felt uncomfortable about using the GNT or even the Greek Bible in the fullest sense as a corpus for vocabulary and usage. I'm inclined to think that for Hellenistic vocabulary and usage one ought to determine chronological terminal points and include everything in the TLG for the era.
I think that Shakespeare, the King James Bible, Chaucer, Homer, etc. are 21st century books. We read "conversation" and we know that it doesn't mean "talking", or "silly" and that it has a mild connotation, but we don't use the words like that ourselves. I think that there are two corpora - the read and the written, the understood and the produced.
cwconrad wrote:For questions like that of ἀνακαθίζειν as sitting up from a sick bed, I'd certainly want to [be] looking into Hellenistic medical texts.
I have replied to this in the Composing with ἀνακαθίζειν thread.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Post Reply

Return to “Koine Greek Texts”