594 NEW TESTAMENT 



plished by him; but in others for example, in reference to the 

 syntax of the verb he can wisely build upon the foundation already 

 laid by the classical scholar. 



To state in a word the inclusive problem pertaining to the language 

 of the New Testament, what is required is the more complete applica- 

 tion of the historical method, and this both in the sense that the basis 

 of historical induction shall be broadened and that the historical point 

 of view shall be more rigidly maintained. He who would write the 

 grammar which New Testament students need, must do it upon the 

 basis of a more thorough knowledge of the results of comparative 

 philology than has usually been possessed hitherto, and must also 

 add a wide knowledge both of Semitic philology and of the usage 

 of later Greek writers, as well as an equipment of psychological insight 

 which will enable him as a true interpreter to discern for what forms 

 of thought those whose language he is studying employed this or that 

 form of word. In the realm of lexicography it is required, not alone 

 that there shall be produced from contemporary and approximately 

 contemporary literature vouchers for the meanings which are ascribed 

 to a word, but that the whole historical development of the usage of 

 the word and of the idea for which it stood, shall be traced, and the 

 word as it is used in New Testament times be seen from the angle of 

 vision from which the New Testament writer, as the heir of this 

 historical development, viewed it. The last quarter of a century has 

 seen steady advance both in the widening of the field of induction to 

 include not simply classical writers, the Septuagint, and the New 

 Testament, but all accessible Jewish literature, and now also the 

 inscriptions and newly discovered papyri, and in the more thorough 

 recognition of the genetic nature of the process by which meanings 

 develop, and the consequent necessity of employing a genetic method 

 in investigation. But much remains to be done, and the field is open 

 and inviting. ' 



(3) The history of New Testament times. In the history of New 

 Testament times, so far as it pertains to the record of external events, 

 whether in the Jewish or Grseco-Roman world, there is little reason 

 to expect great progress in the immediate future. On the Jewish 

 side, Schiirer, Hausrath, Oscar Holtzmann, and others have so 

 thoroughly employed the now available material as to leave little for 

 others to do; and the historians of the Roman Empire may be trusted 

 to furnish to New Testament students all the accessible information 

 in this field. But in the history of thought, the situation is quite 

 different. It would be too much to say that we are here only upon the 

 threshold of our task; the work of the writers already named, and 

 of Charles, Conybeare, Weber, Bousset, and others scarcely less emi- 

 nent, has carried us well beyond the entrance to the territory. But 

 that much remains to be done in the dating, analyzing, and interpret- 



