Scriptural Mormonism: Joseph Fitzmyer on Potential Hebraisms (vs. Septuagintisms) in the New Testament

Thursday, May 22, 2025

Joseph Fitzmyer on Potential Hebraisms (vs. Septuagintisms) in the New Testament

Hebraisms are less frequently found in New Testament Greek, but they too have to be scrutinized more carefully than they have been in the past, since many of them are really Septuagintisms. The construction και εγενετο / εγενετο δε, followed by a temporal clause, lit., “and it happened, while . . ., that . . .,” has often been called a Hebraism. But there are really three forms of this construction: one found in Hellenistic Greek papyri, one that can be called a Septuagintism, and one possibly a Hebraism. (a) εγενετο δε + an infinitive (with a subject accusative): και εγενετο αυτον εν τοις σαββασιν παραπορευσθαι δια των σποριμων, “he happened one sabbath to be making his way along sown fields” (Mark 2:23). This construction is found in Greek papyri and is an extension of the more usual συνεβη with an infinitive (see Acts 21:35). See further Luke 3:21; 6:1, 6, 12; 16:22; and often in Acts (e.g. 4:5; 9:3, 32, 37, 43). (b) εγενετο δε + a finite verb (indicative) without an intervening conjunction: και εγενετο εν τω σπειρειν ο μεν επεσεν παρα την οδον . . . , “and as he sowed, some happened to fall upon the path” (Mark 4:4). This construction is often found in the Septuagint (Gen 4:3; 8:6; 11:2; 35:17, 18; Exod 32:30), where it translates the Hebrew ויהי . . . ו-(+ a finite verb), but without the intervening conjunction. See further Mark 1:9; Luke 1:8; 2:1, 6, 15, 46; 7:11 (hardly ever used in Acts). (c) εγενετο δε + και + a finite verb (indicative): και εγενετο εν μια των ημερων και αυτος ην διδασκων, “on one of those days he happened to be teaching” (Luke 5:17). This construction is likewise found in a literal translation of Hebrew ויהי . . . ו (with the second conjunction rendered by και). Because this instance differs from the preceding, one may perhaps be allowed to regard the foregoing as a Septuagintism and this one a Hebraism (even though the latter also occurs in the Septuagint). (Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “Problems of the Semitic Background of the New Testament,” in The Yahweh/Baal Confrontation and Other Studies in Biblical Literature and Archaeology: Essays in Honour of Emmett Willard Hamrick—When Religions Collide, ed. Julia M. O’Brien and Fred L. Horton, Jr. [Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity 35; Lewiston, Maine: Mellen Biblical Press, 1995], 84-85)