The Sound Aspects of the Greek New Testament -- By: Roger F. H. Pugsley

Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 38:2 (Winter 1976)
Article: The Sound Aspects of the Greek New Testament
Author: Roger F. H. Pugsley


The Sound Aspects of the Greek New Testament

Roger F. H. Pugsley

The Sather lectures, which Professor W. B. Stanford delivered at the University of California, make up six of the seven chapters of his recent book, The Sound of Greek.1 The basic premise which underlies much of the argument is the author’s conviction (and most Greek scholars would agree with him) that the modern practice of reading the text with the eye alone was scarcely known in the classical period of Greek literature and that the classical writers therefore paid the closest attention to the effect which their works would have when read aloud.

In the study of any “dead” language there is inevitably a main emphasis on the written word. But it is well to remember that writing was secondary to speech, and, however much it may deviate from it, has speech as its ultimate basis. It is therefore in a sense misleading to speak of written symbols as being pronounced—rather it was the other way around, the symbols represented spoken elements. Professor George Kennedy further elucidates this by reminding us that Greek Society relied on oral expression, and that both the mechanics of ancient civilization and its primary expression remained oral:

The oral nature of the society is evident in Greek literature which flourished long before it was written down. The Homeric poems are undoubtedly the pinnacle of an oral tradition of epic verse that had sung of the deeds of the Trojan War and heroic Greece for generations. The beginnings of philosophy are to be found in the traditional folk maxims and cosmologies which made the transition to writing in the poetry we attribute to Hesiod, and history reaches back to the beginnings of time through the tales told around a camp fire,

the genealogies real or fictitious, of famous families, and the advice imparted or the wonders reported by one traveler to another.2

The earliest readers understood the written surface (whether stone or parchment) as most comprehend a page of music. They recognize the notes as conveying indications of time and pitch. They may be familiar with the whole scheme of musical notation and perhaps have some ability to execute with the voice or an instrument. But nevertheless the mere sight of a page of music will convey nothing to them until a skilled artist translates the characters into sound, so to convey the composer’s intention. It is like most people are toward an orchestral score that the ancient Greeks were toward the written word. It conveyed meaning only as it was sounded and heard.

With this and other substanti...

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