acrostic·. Composed alphabetically, successive verses beginning with successive Hebrew letters (some psalms, sections of Proverbs, Lamentations, etc.).
anacoluthon: Grammatical non sequitur in which the first part of a thought is not completed as expected.
antithetical: Describing poetic parallelism characterized by the pairing of an assertion and its contrast.
Aquila: Translated Hebrew Bible into Greek literalistically around AD 140; included in Hexapla; replaced parts of LXX.
Aramaism: Word or idiom used in Hebrew, supposedly Aramaic in origin, therefore late in date. (Almost all have proved to be Semitisms, not late, and therefore not properly used for dating OT books late.)
assimilation: Replacement of an original text reading by a reading from another document.
asyndeton: Absence of conjunctions or other linking/coordinating words. (“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”) The reader must figure out the relationship of the concepts expressed.
autograph: The original, first copy of a biblical book or portion.
bifid: Organized into two discrete parts. (Many OT books are bifid; their two parts are not early and late respectively, or the products of different authors. They are just convenient ways of organizing the material thematically.)
chiasm (also chiasmus, inverted parallelism, etc.): A pattern of words or concepts in which the first and last are similar, the second and next to last are similar, and so forth, making memorization easy (e.g., Isa. 6:10; Zech. 14; Matt. 7:6a). The middle of a chiasm is not necessarily more
important than any other part. Most short chiasms are just stylistic van-ations within synonymous parallelisms. codex: An ancient manuscript in book (bound pages) form rather than scroll form.
collate: To compare manuscripts of a given text in order to reconstruct the original.
colon: A single verse unit of poetry. (Usually people mean “one line of a couplet or triplet” by colon, but not always.) colophon: Title or other summary at the end or beginning of a unit of text.
(10 times in Genesis; Lev. 26:46; etc.) conflation: Combining two variant readings, producing a reading not the same as either of them.
daughter translation: A translation of a translation, usually referring to a translation of the LXX into another language. deuterograph: Secondary writing/rewriting. (1-2 Chronicles contains deuterographs of 1 Samuel-2 Kings; cf. Pss. 14 and 53; etc.) dittography: Copy error repeating something accidentally. doublet: A supposedly parallel narrative, allegedly resulting from retelling in oral tradition (e.g., Gen. 12; 20; 26). formula: A set of words commonly used in a particular kind of context.
(“Thus says the Lord” is a messenger formula.) hapax legomenon: A word or term that occurs only once in the OT (often making its definition hard to pin down). haplography: The loss of something during copying (letters, words, sentences, and other units that the copyist accidentally skips). hendiadys: Expressing a single concept by two or more words or expressions linked by “and” (lord and master; arise and go). (In translating accurately you often have to eliminate or subordinate one of the words, e.g., lord; get going; etc.)
Hexapla: Origen’s six-column OT containing (1) the Hebrew, (2) the Hebrew transliterated into Greek; (3) Aquila, (4) Symmachus, (5) the LXX, and (6) Theodotion. (The LXX he produced was highly conflated, with asterisks used to indicate what he had added to the original LXX and obeli used to indicate what he had subtracted from it.) homoioarchton: Similar beginnings in two words (thus causing the scribe accidentally to skip from the one to the other). homoioteleuton: Similar endings in two words (thus causing the scribe accidentally to skip from the one to the other). inclusio: Literary device in which the end and the beginning of a passage are similar, thus sandwiching the rest.
Kethib and Qere: Kethib = inferior reading that the Masoretes included in the text by writing only its consonants. Qere = superior reading that the Masoretes imposed over the Kethib consonants by using only its vowels.
lacuna: A physical gap in a manuscript.
meter: The pattern of accents and/or total syllables in a passage of poetry. All musical poetry has meter.
metonymy: A word substitution (e.g., “juice” for electricity; “heaven” for God in Matthew; “crown” for Caesar or emperor in Rev. 12:3). paleography: Study of ancient writing/penmanship. For example, the style of the letters can tell the age of a document. parallelism: The logical balances and correspondences between lines of poetry (e.g., synonymous, antithetical, synthetic). paronomasia: A pun or play on words or word roots (pleasing to the ear, aids memorization).
Peshitta: The most common Syriac version of the OT. prostaxis: The tendency to start all the clauses in a language in the same way. Hebrew uses prostactic W (we, and).
Qinah meter: Supposedly a three-accent + two-accent pattern used in dirges (a misunderstanding of the meter in Lamentations). rib form: A literary form ( ריב) by which a nation is imagined to be taken to court, usually to be tried and found guilty.
Septuagint: Greek translation of the Hebrew OT originally made between about 250 and 100 BC, modified often.
Symmachus: Independent, freestyle translation of the OT into Greek around AD 175; influenced Vulgate.
synecdoche: A part used for the whole, or vice versa (“Nice threads!” “Got wheels?” “turning the world upside down”). synonymous: Describing poetic parallelism in which the same essential concept is conveyed by two different wordings that are parallel to each other.
synthetic: Describing poetic parallelism in which the first half of a complete assertion is paralleled and completed by the second half.
Talmud : Huge Jewish rabbinical teaching collection: Mishnah (traditions) and Gemara (commentary on Mishnah), third to fifth centuries AD.
Targum: Aramaic translation of the OT. There are various sections, produced at various times, probably second to fifth centuries AD. terminus a quo: The earliest possible date for something. terminus ad quem: The latest possible date for something.
Theodotion·. Greek revision of the LXX toward the Hebrew, around AD 175; replaced the old LXX in most Daniel manuscripts. variant: A different reading (thus requiring the text critic to consider whether it represents the original or not).
Vulgate: Free translation of the OT into Latin by Jerome, completed AD 405 (replaced the older and often better Old Latin).