Endnote 9 – “More Than Any Man Has Ever Done”

Ernest Cadman Colwell, “Greek Language,” in The Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962), vol. 2, p. 486. According to Colwell, differences between New Testament Greek and other forms of the language were “explained as ‘Hebraisms’ due to the Semitic background of the Scriptures” and were thought to relate to “the sacredness of [the text’s] content…Thus, for example, in the matter of syntax a German scholar explained the peculiarities of NT usage as due to the influence of the Holy Spirit, so that NT Greek could be called the ‘language of the Holy Ghost.’ This scholar argued that the Holy Spirit changed the language of any people who receive a divine revelation and that this adequately explained deviations in NT Greek from the usage of the classical period.”