Michael E. Stone

Theodore A. Bergren

"This book provides an entrée into the vast and fascinating field of biblical figures in extra-biblical literataure." -- book jacket

Biblical Figures Outside the Bible

The present volume is a "reader's edition" of 1 Clement, an important early Christian epistolary writing in Greek that probably dates from the late first century CE. The volume is designed for rapid reading and for classroom use. On each left-facing page is printed a running, sequential section of the Greek text. Next to that, on each right-facing page, are recorded all of the more unusual words in that section of Greek text, with dictionary form, part of speech, and definition(s). All of the more common words in that same section of Greek text are included in a comprehensive glossary at the end of the book. This system, then, is designed so that the reader of the Greek text will not have to stop to look up every unusual Greek word in a printed or online dictionary. He or she will simply have to look to the facing page. Such constant lookups in a printed or online dictionary are tedious and time-consuming, and have little pedagogical value. Since in the present edition the words recorded on the right-facing page are not parsed, the reader is still faced with the challenge of parsing the word and determining its place in the overall structure of the sentence. It is this process that does serve a useful pedagogical purpose, and the present system preserves the challenge of this process. The introduction to the volume covers (1) 1 Clement’s genre, date, setting in life, purpose, sources, and main themes; (2) the compositional outline of the book; (3) the book’s authorship, history of reception, and textual attestation; (4) discussion of the present “reader’s edition”; (5) a list of scriptural quotations and allusions; and (6) a comprehensive bibliography on the text of 1 Clement.

A Reader's Edition

1 Clement

“Scholars who work with Latin materials that have been or might have been translated from Greek originals are often frustrated by the lack of reference tools that can aid in determining accurately translational equivalences between the two languages. Greek-Latin or Latin-Greek lexica are inadequate, for they tend to give ‘ideal’ translational equivalences rather than ones actually attested in some text. The problem is acute, for example, in the study of the Vulgate New Testament, for which no reference tool has existed by which one could determine quickly the entire range of Greek translational equivalents for a given Latin word. The present work is intended to go some distance toward fulfilling this need.” — from the introduction

A Latin-Greek Index of the Vulgate New Testament

1999 Biblical Archaeology Society Publication Award for the category Best Book Relating to the Old Testament. Explores the evolution of the biographical traditions of some fifteen biblical figures

Theodore A. Bergren

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