Ancient Musical Instruments
“Sounding Brass” and Hellenistic Technology
Ancient acoustical device clarifies Paul’s well-known metaphor
You have already read your free article for this month. Please join the BAS Library or become an All Access member of BAS to gain full access to this article and so much more.
Already a library member? Log in here.
Institution user? Log in with your IP address or Username
Footnotes
The fullest treatment of the scholarly background is to be found in Hans Conzelmann’s A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1975. For the history of the words involved, the standard source is Liddell and Scott Lexicon in the Stuart-Jones and MacKenzie revision of 1940; virtually all of this material is taken in a condensed form from Stephanus’ Thesaurus in the 19th century Firmin-Didot edition.
Endnotes
M. T. Thrall, The 1st and 2nd Letters of Paul to the Corinthians (Cambridge University Press, 1965).
Hans Conzelmann, A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians (Fortress Press: Philadelphia, 1975), p. 221.
Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, revised and edited Sir Henry Stuart Jones and Roderick Mackenzie (Oxford University Press, 1940).
The inverted vases are supported on cunei “wedges,” not blocks. My colleague Professor R. Gould, Department of Physics, Middlebury College, has pointed out the possibility of fine-tuning Helmholz resonators by restriction at the mouth, and this makes the function of the elevating wedges clear.