Listing the Hellenistic Corpus

[Jonathan Robie]

Where can I find lists of texts considered part of the Hellenistic Corpus?

[MAubrey]

You could probably create such a list if you had access to TLG. I'm not aware of anything in particular, however.

[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

[Jonathan Robie]

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.

[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.

[Jonathan Robie]

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?

[S Walch]

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]

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.

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.