Scripture
VIEW:25 DATA:01-04-2020
SCRIPTURE.1. The word Scripture (Lat. scriptura, a writing, something written) is used for the Bible as a whole, more often in the plural form Scriptures, and also more properly for a passage of the Bible. It appears as tr. [Note: translate or translation.] of the Greek graphç, which is used in the singular for a portion of the OT (e.g. Mar_12:10), and also for the whole OT (Gal_3:22), and more frequently in the plural (haigraphai). The specific idea of Scripture contains an element of sanctity and authority. Thus it becomes usual to refer to Holy Scripture, or the Holy Scriptures (en graphais hagiais, Rom_1:2).
2. This specific conception of Scripture as distinguished from ordinary writing is due to the reception of it as a record of the word of God, and is therefore associated with inspiration. The earliest reference to any such record is in the narrative of the finding of the Book of the Law by Hilkiah the scribe in the time of Josiah (2Ki_22:3 ff.). Since this book is now known to have been Deuteronomy or part of it, we must reckon that this was the first book treated as Scripture. Still greater sanctity was given to the enlarged and more developed Law in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, and from that time the whole Pentateuch, regarded as the Law given by God to Moses, is treated as especially sacred and authoritative. The special function of the scribes in guarding and teaching the Law rested on this Scriptural character attached to it, and in turn rendered it the more venerable as Scripture. Later the reception of the Hagiographa and the Prophets into the Canon led to those collections being regarded also as Scripture, though never with quite the authority attached to the Law.
The Rabbis cherished great veneration for Scripture, and ascribed to it a mechanical inspiration which extended to every word and letter. Philo also accepted plenary inspiration, finding his freedom from the bondage of the letter in allegorical interpretations.
Unlike the Jerusalem Rabbis, in this respect followed by most of the NT writers, who quote the various OT authors by name, Philo quotes Scripture as the immediate word of God, and in so doing is followed by the author of Hebrews. Thus, while St. Mark says, as it is written in Isaiah, the prophet (Mar_1:2), and St. Paul David saith (Rom_11:9), in Hebrews we read, He (i.e. God) saith (Heb_1:7), the Holy Ghost saith (Heb_3:7), or, more indefinitely, it is said (Heb_3:15), which is quite in the manner of Philo. Still, the technical expression It is written (gegraptai) is very common both in the Gospels and in St. Pauls Epistles. As a Greek perfect, it has the peculiar force of a present state resulting from a past action. Thus it always conveys the thought that Scripture, although it was written long ago, does not belong to the past, but is in existence to-day, and its inherent present authority is thus emphasized as that of a law now in force. The impersonal character of the passive verb also adds dignity to the citation thus introduced, as something weighty on its own account.
3. No NT writings during the Apostolic age are treated as Scripturea title, with its associated authority, always reserved by the Apostles for the OT. There is an apparent exception in 2Pe_3:15-16, where the Epistles of our beloved brother Paul are associated with the other scriptures; but this is a strong argument in favour of assigning 2Peter to a late period in the second century. Apart from this, we first meet with the technical phrase It is written attached to a NT passage in Barn. iv. 4; but here it is a Gospel citation of a saying of Christ: As it is written. Many are called but few chosen. Thus the authority of Christs words leads to the record of them being cited as Scripture. In Polycarp (Phil. xii. 1) we have the title Scripture applied to the source of a NT quotation, but only in the Latin tr. [Note: translate or translation.] (his scripturis). In 2 Clem. ii. 4 a saying of Christ is cited as Scripture. But, apart from these rare instances, no writer previous to the second half of the second century appeals to the NT as technically Scripture. Clement of Rome, Barnahas (with the one exception referred to), Hermas, and even Justin Martyr use the title for the OT only. Theophilus of Antioch (c [Note: circa, about.] . 180) cites passages from St. Paul as the Divine word (ad Autol. iii. 14). Irenæus (180), on the other hand, constantly treats NT passages as the word of God and authoritative Scripture. For an explanation of this remarkable development, see Canon of NT.
W. F. Adeney.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
Scripture. See Bible.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863
a term most commonly used to denote the writings of the Old and New Testament, which are sometimes called The Scriptures, sometimes the sacred or holy writings, and sometimes canonical scripture. See BIBLE.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.
skrip?t̬ū́r (ἡ γραφή, hē graphḗ, plural αἱ γραφαί, hai graphaı́): The word means ?writing.? In the Old Testament it occurs in the King James Version only once, ?the scripture of truth,? in Dan_10:21, where it is more correctly rendered in the Revised Version (British and American), ?the writing of truth.? The reference is not to Holy Scripture, but to the book in which are inscribed God's purposes. In the New Testament, ?scripture? and ?scriptures? stand regularly for the Old Testament sacred books regarded as ?inspired? (2Ti_3:16), ?the oracles of God? (Rom_3:2). Compare on this usage Mat_21:42; Mat_22:29; Mar_12:10; Luk_4:21; Luk_24:27, Luk_24:32, Luk_24:45; Joh_5:39; Joh_10:35; Act_8:32; Act_17:2, Act_17:11; Rom_15:4; Rom_16:26, etc.; in Rom_1:2, ?holy scriptures.? See BIBLE. The expression ?holy scriptures? in 2Ti_3:15 the King James Version represents different words (hierá grámmata) and is properly rendered in the Revised Version (British and American) ?sacred writings.? In 2Pe_3:16, the term ?scriptures? is extended to the Eppistle of Paul. In Jam_4:5, the words occur: ?Think ye that the scripture speaketh in vain? Doth the spirit which he made to dwell in us long unto envying?? The passage is probably rather a summary of Scripture teaching than intended as a direct quotation. Others (e.g. Westcott) think the word is used in a wide sense of a Christian hymn.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.
Scripture (Holy), or Scriptures (Holy), the term generally applied in the Christian Church since the second century, to denote the collective writings of the Old and New Testaments.
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.
(כְּתָב, kethtab, Dan_10:21, writing, as elsewhere rendered; in the New Test. γραφή, of the same signification, but always rendered "Scripture"). The chief facts relating to the books to which, individually and collectively, this title has been applied, will be found under SEE BIBLE; SEE CANON; and SEE SCRIPTURES, HOLY. It will fall within the scope of this article to trace the history of the word, and to determine its exact meaning in the language of the Old and New Tests., with whatever elucidation modern researches and speculations have thrown upon the subject.
1. It is not till the return from the Captivity that the word meets us with any distinctive force. In the earlier books we read of the law, the book of the law. In Exo_32:16, the commandments written on the tables of testimony are said to be the writing of God" (γραφὴ Θεοῦ), but there is no special sense in the word taken by itself. In the passage from Dan_10:21 (בִּכְתַּב אֶמֶת, Sept. ἐν γραφῆ ἀληθείας), where the A.V. has "the Scripture of truth," the words do not probably mean more than "a true writing." The thought of the Scripture as a whole is hardly to be found there: the statement there given was certainly not a quotation from any Biblical book. The allusion doubtless is to the divine purposes, which are figuratively represented as a book of destiny (comp. Psa_139:16; Rev_5:1). SEE BOOK.
This first appears in 2Ch_30:5; 2Ch_30:18 (כַּכָּתוּב, Sept. κατὰ τὴν γραφήν, A. V. "as it was written"), and is probably connected with the profound reverence for the sacred books which led the earlier scribes to confine their own teaching to oral tradition, and gave therefore to "the writing" a distinctive pre-eminence. See attunes. The same feeling showed itself in the constant formula of quotation, "It is written," often without the addition of any words defining the passage quoted (Mat_4:4; Mat_4:6; Mat_21:13; Mat_26:24). The Greek word, as will be seen, kept its ground in this sense. A slight change passed over that of the Hebrew, and led to the substitution of another. The כְּתוּבִים (kethublm =writings), in the Jewish arrangement of the Old Test., was used for a part, and not the whole, of the Old Test. (the Hagiographa [q.v.]), while another form of the same root (kethib) came to have a technical significance as applied to the text, which, though written in the MSS. of the Hebrew Scriptures, might or might not be recognised as keri, the right intelligible reading to be read in the congregation. Another word was therefore wanted, and it was found in the Mikra ( מִקְרָאNeh_8:8). or "reading," the thing read or recited, recitation. (The same root, it may be noticed, is found in the title of the sacred book of Islam [Koran=recitation].) This, accordingly, we find as the equivalent for the collective γραφαί. The boy at the age of five begins the study of the Mikra, at ten passes on to the Mishna (Pirke Aboth, v, 24). The old word has not, however, disappeared, and הַכָּתוּב, '" the writing,'' is used with the same connotation (ibid. iii, 10).
2. With this meaning the word γραφή passed into the language of the New Test. Used in the singular, it is applied chiefly to this or that passage quoted from the Old Test. (Mar_12:10; Joh_7:38; Joh_13:18; Joh_19:37; Luk_4:21; Rom_9:17; Gal_3:8, et al.). In Act_8:32 (ἡ περιοχὴ τῆς γραφῆς) it takes a somewhat larger extension, as denoting the writing of Isaiah; but in Act_8:35 the more limited meaning reappears. In two passages of some difficulty, some have seen the wider, some the narrower, sense.
(1.) Πᾶσα γραφὴ θεόπνευστος (2Ti_3:16) has been translated in the A. V. "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God," as if γραφή, though without the article, were taken as equivalent to the Old Test. as a whole (comp. πᾶσα οἰκοδομή, Eph_2:21; πᾶσα Ιεροσόλυμα, Mat_2:3), and θεόπνευστος, the predicate asserted of it. This is doubtless the correct construction. Even if we should retain the narrower meaning, however, we might still take θεόπνευστος as the predicate. "Every Scripture sc. every separate portion is divinely inspired." It has been urged, however, that this assertion of a truth, which both Paul and Timothy held in common, would be less suitable to the context than the assigning of that truth as a ground for the further inference drawn from it; and so there is a large amount of authority in favor of the rendering, "Every γραφή, being inspired, is also profitable..." (comp. Meyer, Alford, Wordsworth, Ellicott, Wiesinger, ad loc.). But this renders the latter clause unbalanced, and the rag is evidently intended as a copulative, and not as :a mere expletive adverb. There does not seem any ground for making the meaning of γραφή dependent on the adjective θεόπνευστος (" every inspired writing"), as if we recognised a γραφή not inspired. The usus loquendi of the New Test. is uniform in this respect, and the word γραφή is never used of any common or secular writing.
(2.) The meaning of the genitive in πᾶσα προφητεὶα γραφῆς (2Pe_1:20) seems at first sight, anarthrous though it be, distinctly collective. "Every prophecy of (i.e. contained in) the Old-Test. Scripture." A closer examination of the passage will perhaps lead to a different conclusion. The apostle, after speaking of the vision on the holy mount, goes on, "We have as something yet firmer, the prophetic word" (here, probably, including the utterances of New Test. προφῆται, as well as the writings of the Old Test.). So ὁ προφητικὸς λόγος is used by Philo of the words of Moses (Leg. Al-leg. iii, 14; i, 95, ed, Mango. He, of course, could recognise no prophets but those of the Old Test. Clement of Rome (2:11) uses it of a prophecy not included in the canons. Men did well to give heed to that word, They needed one caution in dealing with it. They were to remember that no προφητεία γραφῆς, no such prophetic utterance starting from, resting on, a γραφή, came from the ἱδία ἐπίλυσις, the individual power of interpretation of the speaker, but was, like the γραφή itself, inspired. It was the law of προφητεία, of the later as well as the earlier, that men of God spake "borne along by the Holy Spirit." So in the only other instance in which the genitive is found (Rom_15:4), ἡ παράκλησις τῶν γραφῶν is the counsel, admonition, drawn from the Scriptures. Λόγος παρακλήσεως appears in Act_13:15 as the received term for such an address, the sermon of the Synagogue. Παράκλησις itself was so closely allied with προφητεία (comp. Barnabas = υἱὸς προφητείας = υἱὸς παρακλήσεως) that the expressions of the two apostles may, be regarded as substantially identical.
3. In the plural, as might be expected, the collective meaning is prominent. Sometimes we have simply γραφαί (Mat_21:42; Mat_22:29; Joh_5:39; Act_17:11; 1Co_15:3). Sometimes πᾶσαι αἱ γραφαί (Luk_24:27). The epithets gigtat (Rom_1:2), προφητικαί (Rom_16:26), are sometimes joined with it. In 2Pe_3:16 we find an extension of the term to the epistles of Paul; but it remains uncertain whether at αἱ λοιπαὶ γραφαί are the Scriptures of the Old. Test. exclusively, or include other writings then extant dealing with the same topics. There seems little doubt that such writings did exist. A comparison of Rom_16:26 with Eph_3:5 might even suggest the conclusion that in both there is the same assertion that what had not been revealed before was now manifested by the Spirit to the apostles and prophets of the Church, and so that the "prophetic writings" to which Paul refers are, like the spoken words of New-Test. prophets, those that reveal things not made known before, the knowledge of the mystery of Christ.
It is noticeable that in the 2d Epistle of Clement of Rome (ch. 11) we have a long citation of this nature, not from the Old Test., quoted as ὁ προφητικὸς λόγος (comp. 2Pe_1:19),and that in the 1st Epistle (ch. 23) the same is quoted as ἡ γραφή. Looking to the special fulness of the prophetic gifts in the Church of Corinth (1Co_1:5; 1Co_14:1), it is obviously probable that some of the spoken prophecies would be committed to writing; and it is a striking coincidence that both the apostolic and the post-apostolic references are connected, first with that Church, and next with that of Rome, which was so largely influenced by it.
4. In one passage, τὰ ἱερὰ γράμματα (2Ti_3:15) answers to "The Holy Scriptures" of the A.V. Taken by itself, the word might, as in Joh_7:15; Act_26:24, have a wider range, including the whole circle of Rabbinic education. As determined, however, by the use of other Hellenistic writers, Philo (Leg. ad Caium, ii, 574, ed. Mang.), Josephus (Ant. Proem. 3, 10:10, § 4; Cont. Apion. i, 26), there can be no doubt that it is accurately translated with this special meaning.
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.
2. This specific conception of Scripture as distinguished from ordinary writing is due to the reception of it as a record of the word of God, and is therefore associated with inspiration. The earliest reference to any such record is in the narrative of the finding of the Book of the Law by Hilkiah the scribe in the time of Josiah (2Ki_22:3 ff.). Since this book is now known to have been Deuteronomy or part of it, we must reckon that this was the first book treated as Scripture. Still greater sanctity was given to the enlarged and more developed Law in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, and from that time the whole Pentateuch, regarded as the Law given by God to Moses, is treated as especially sacred and authoritative. The special function of the scribes in guarding and teaching the Law rested on this Scriptural character attached to it, and in turn rendered it the more venerable as Scripture. Later the reception of the Hagiographa and the Prophets into the Canon led to those collections being regarded also as Scripture, though never with quite the authority attached to the Law.
The Rabbis cherished great veneration for Scripture, and ascribed to it a mechanical inspiration which extended to every word and letter. Philo also accepted plenary inspiration, finding his freedom from the bondage of the letter in allegorical interpretations.
Unlike the Jerusalem Rabbis, in this respect followed by most of the NT writers, who quote the various OT authors by name, Philo quotes Scripture as the immediate word of God, and in so doing is followed by the author of Hebrews. Thus, while St. Mark says, as it is written in Isaiah, the prophet (Mar_1:2), and St. Paul David saith (Rom_11:9), in Hebrews we read, He (i.e. God) saith (Heb_1:7), the Holy Ghost saith (Heb_3:7), or, more indefinitely, it is said (Heb_3:15), which is quite in the manner of Philo. Still, the technical expression It is written (gegraptai) is very common both in the Gospels and in St. Pauls Epistles. As a Greek perfect, it has the peculiar force of a present state resulting from a past action. Thus it always conveys the thought that Scripture, although it was written long ago, does not belong to the past, but is in existence to-day, and its inherent present authority is thus emphasized as that of a law now in force. The impersonal character of the passive verb also adds dignity to the citation thus introduced, as something weighty on its own account.
3. No NT writings during the Apostolic age are treated as Scripturea title, with its associated authority, always reserved by the Apostles for the OT. There is an apparent exception in 2Pe_3:15-16, where the Epistles of our beloved brother Paul are associated with the other scriptures; but this is a strong argument in favour of assigning 2Peter to a late period in the second century. Apart from this, we first meet with the technical phrase It is written attached to a NT passage in Barn. iv. 4; but here it is a Gospel citation of a saying of Christ: As it is written. Many are called but few chosen. Thus the authority of Christs words leads to the record of them being cited as Scripture. In Polycarp (Phil. xii. 1) we have the title Scripture applied to the source of a NT quotation, but only in the Latin tr. [Note: translate or translation.] (his scripturis). In 2 Clem. ii. 4 a saying of Christ is cited as Scripture. But, apart from these rare instances, no writer previous to the second half of the second century appeals to the NT as technically Scripture. Clement of Rome, Barnahas (with the one exception referred to), Hermas, and even Justin Martyr use the title for the OT only. Theophilus of Antioch (c [Note: circa, about.] . 180) cites passages from St. Paul as the Divine word (ad Autol. iii. 14). Irenæus (180), on the other hand, constantly treats NT passages as the word of God and authoritative Scripture. For an explanation of this remarkable development, see Canon of NT.
W. F. Adeney.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
Scripture. See Bible.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863
a term most commonly used to denote the writings of the Old and New Testament, which are sometimes called The Scriptures, sometimes the sacred or holy writings, and sometimes canonical scripture. See BIBLE.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.
skrip?t̬ū́r (ἡ γραφή, hē graphḗ, plural αἱ γραφαί, hai graphaı́): The word means ?writing.? In the Old Testament it occurs in the King James Version only once, ?the scripture of truth,? in Dan_10:21, where it is more correctly rendered in the Revised Version (British and American), ?the writing of truth.? The reference is not to Holy Scripture, but to the book in which are inscribed God's purposes. In the New Testament, ?scripture? and ?scriptures? stand regularly for the Old Testament sacred books regarded as ?inspired? (2Ti_3:16), ?the oracles of God? (Rom_3:2). Compare on this usage Mat_21:42; Mat_22:29; Mar_12:10; Luk_4:21; Luk_24:27, Luk_24:32, Luk_24:45; Joh_5:39; Joh_10:35; Act_8:32; Act_17:2, Act_17:11; Rom_15:4; Rom_16:26, etc.; in Rom_1:2, ?holy scriptures.? See BIBLE. The expression ?holy scriptures? in 2Ti_3:15 the King James Version represents different words (hierá grámmata) and is properly rendered in the Revised Version (British and American) ?sacred writings.? In 2Pe_3:16, the term ?scriptures? is extended to the Eppistle of Paul. In Jam_4:5, the words occur: ?Think ye that the scripture speaketh in vain? Doth the spirit which he made to dwell in us long unto envying?? The passage is probably rather a summary of Scripture teaching than intended as a direct quotation. Others (e.g. Westcott) think the word is used in a wide sense of a Christian hymn.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.
Scripture (Holy), or Scriptures (Holy), the term generally applied in the Christian Church since the second century, to denote the collective writings of the Old and New Testaments.
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.
(כְּתָב, kethtab, Dan_10:21, writing, as elsewhere rendered; in the New Test. γραφή, of the same signification, but always rendered "Scripture"). The chief facts relating to the books to which, individually and collectively, this title has been applied, will be found under SEE BIBLE; SEE CANON; and SEE SCRIPTURES, HOLY. It will fall within the scope of this article to trace the history of the word, and to determine its exact meaning in the language of the Old and New Tests., with whatever elucidation modern researches and speculations have thrown upon the subject.
1. It is not till the return from the Captivity that the word meets us with any distinctive force. In the earlier books we read of the law, the book of the law. In Exo_32:16, the commandments written on the tables of testimony are said to be the writing of God" (γραφὴ Θεοῦ), but there is no special sense in the word taken by itself. In the passage from Dan_10:21 (בִּכְתַּב אֶמֶת, Sept. ἐν γραφῆ ἀληθείας), where the A.V. has "the Scripture of truth," the words do not probably mean more than "a true writing." The thought of the Scripture as a whole is hardly to be found there: the statement there given was certainly not a quotation from any Biblical book. The allusion doubtless is to the divine purposes, which are figuratively represented as a book of destiny (comp. Psa_139:16; Rev_5:1). SEE BOOK.
This first appears in 2Ch_30:5; 2Ch_30:18 (כַּכָּתוּב, Sept. κατὰ τὴν γραφήν, A. V. "as it was written"), and is probably connected with the profound reverence for the sacred books which led the earlier scribes to confine their own teaching to oral tradition, and gave therefore to "the writing" a distinctive pre-eminence. See attunes. The same feeling showed itself in the constant formula of quotation, "It is written," often without the addition of any words defining the passage quoted (Mat_4:4; Mat_4:6; Mat_21:13; Mat_26:24). The Greek word, as will be seen, kept its ground in this sense. A slight change passed over that of the Hebrew, and led to the substitution of another. The כְּתוּבִים (kethublm =writings), in the Jewish arrangement of the Old Test., was used for a part, and not the whole, of the Old Test. (the Hagiographa [q.v.]), while another form of the same root (kethib) came to have a technical significance as applied to the text, which, though written in the MSS. of the Hebrew Scriptures, might or might not be recognised as keri, the right intelligible reading to be read in the congregation. Another word was therefore wanted, and it was found in the Mikra ( מִקְרָאNeh_8:8). or "reading," the thing read or recited, recitation. (The same root, it may be noticed, is found in the title of the sacred book of Islam [Koran=recitation].) This, accordingly, we find as the equivalent for the collective γραφαί. The boy at the age of five begins the study of the Mikra, at ten passes on to the Mishna (Pirke Aboth, v, 24). The old word has not, however, disappeared, and הַכָּתוּב, '" the writing,'' is used with the same connotation (ibid. iii, 10).
2. With this meaning the word γραφή passed into the language of the New Test. Used in the singular, it is applied chiefly to this or that passage quoted from the Old Test. (Mar_12:10; Joh_7:38; Joh_13:18; Joh_19:37; Luk_4:21; Rom_9:17; Gal_3:8, et al.). In Act_8:32 (ἡ περιοχὴ τῆς γραφῆς) it takes a somewhat larger extension, as denoting the writing of Isaiah; but in Act_8:35 the more limited meaning reappears. In two passages of some difficulty, some have seen the wider, some the narrower, sense.
(1.) Πᾶσα γραφὴ θεόπνευστος (2Ti_3:16) has been translated in the A. V. "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God," as if γραφή, though without the article, were taken as equivalent to the Old Test. as a whole (comp. πᾶσα οἰκοδομή, Eph_2:21; πᾶσα Ιεροσόλυμα, Mat_2:3), and θεόπνευστος, the predicate asserted of it. This is doubtless the correct construction. Even if we should retain the narrower meaning, however, we might still take θεόπνευστος as the predicate. "Every Scripture sc. every separate portion is divinely inspired." It has been urged, however, that this assertion of a truth, which both Paul and Timothy held in common, would be less suitable to the context than the assigning of that truth as a ground for the further inference drawn from it; and so there is a large amount of authority in favor of the rendering, "Every γραφή, being inspired, is also profitable..." (comp. Meyer, Alford, Wordsworth, Ellicott, Wiesinger, ad loc.). But this renders the latter clause unbalanced, and the rag is evidently intended as a copulative, and not as :a mere expletive adverb. There does not seem any ground for making the meaning of γραφή dependent on the adjective θεόπνευστος (" every inspired writing"), as if we recognised a γραφή not inspired. The usus loquendi of the New Test. is uniform in this respect, and the word γραφή is never used of any common or secular writing.
(2.) The meaning of the genitive in πᾶσα προφητεὶα γραφῆς (2Pe_1:20) seems at first sight, anarthrous though it be, distinctly collective. "Every prophecy of (i.e. contained in) the Old-Test. Scripture." A closer examination of the passage will perhaps lead to a different conclusion. The apostle, after speaking of the vision on the holy mount, goes on, "We have as something yet firmer, the prophetic word" (here, probably, including the utterances of New Test. προφῆται, as well as the writings of the Old Test.). So ὁ προφητικὸς λόγος is used by Philo of the words of Moses (Leg. Al-leg. iii, 14; i, 95, ed, Mango. He, of course, could recognise no prophets but those of the Old Test. Clement of Rome (2:11) uses it of a prophecy not included in the canons. Men did well to give heed to that word, They needed one caution in dealing with it. They were to remember that no προφητεία γραφῆς, no such prophetic utterance starting from, resting on, a γραφή, came from the ἱδία ἐπίλυσις, the individual power of interpretation of the speaker, but was, like the γραφή itself, inspired. It was the law of προφητεία, of the later as well as the earlier, that men of God spake "borne along by the Holy Spirit." So in the only other instance in which the genitive is found (Rom_15:4), ἡ παράκλησις τῶν γραφῶν is the counsel, admonition, drawn from the Scriptures. Λόγος παρακλήσεως appears in Act_13:15 as the received term for such an address, the sermon of the Synagogue. Παράκλησις itself was so closely allied with προφητεία (comp. Barnabas = υἱὸς προφητείας = υἱὸς παρακλήσεως) that the expressions of the two apostles may, be regarded as substantially identical.
3. In the plural, as might be expected, the collective meaning is prominent. Sometimes we have simply γραφαί (Mat_21:42; Mat_22:29; Joh_5:39; Act_17:11; 1Co_15:3). Sometimes πᾶσαι αἱ γραφαί (Luk_24:27). The epithets gigtat (Rom_1:2), προφητικαί (Rom_16:26), are sometimes joined with it. In 2Pe_3:16 we find an extension of the term to the epistles of Paul; but it remains uncertain whether at αἱ λοιπαὶ γραφαί are the Scriptures of the Old. Test. exclusively, or include other writings then extant dealing with the same topics. There seems little doubt that such writings did exist. A comparison of Rom_16:26 with Eph_3:5 might even suggest the conclusion that in both there is the same assertion that what had not been revealed before was now manifested by the Spirit to the apostles and prophets of the Church, and so that the "prophetic writings" to which Paul refers are, like the spoken words of New-Test. prophets, those that reveal things not made known before, the knowledge of the mystery of Christ.
It is noticeable that in the 2d Epistle of Clement of Rome (ch. 11) we have a long citation of this nature, not from the Old Test., quoted as ὁ προφητικὸς λόγος (comp. 2Pe_1:19),and that in the 1st Epistle (ch. 23) the same is quoted as ἡ γραφή. Looking to the special fulness of the prophetic gifts in the Church of Corinth (1Co_1:5; 1Co_14:1), it is obviously probable that some of the spoken prophecies would be committed to writing; and it is a striking coincidence that both the apostolic and the post-apostolic references are connected, first with that Church, and next with that of Rome, which was so largely influenced by it.
4. In one passage, τὰ ἱερὰ γράμματα (2Ti_3:15) answers to "The Holy Scriptures" of the A.V. Taken by itself, the word might, as in Joh_7:15; Act_26:24, have a wider range, including the whole circle of Rabbinic education. As determined, however, by the use of other Hellenistic writers, Philo (Leg. ad Caium, ii, 574, ed. Mang.), Josephus (Ant. Proem. 3, 10:10, § 4; Cont. Apion. i, 26), there can be no doubt that it is accurately translated with this special meaning.
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.
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