Apostolic Fathers and Syntactic Analysis

A mock-up of the syntax graph for the Cascadia Syntax Graphs of the Apostolic Fathers

Most folks who have been around Logos for awhile know that I’m pretty excited about the writings of the Apostolic Fathers. I mean, I am spending a large chunk of my “free” time working on an interlinear of the Greek portions of these writings (it’s getting closer, thank you for asking).

Just think about it: these are guys who lived and wrote shortly after the time of the apostles (Peter, Paul, James, John, etc.), let’s say between 90–200 AD. Tradition reports some of them were direct disciples of apostles. For instance, Polycarp of Smyrna is reputed to have been a student of John (reported by Irenaeus, a student of Polycarp). Clement of Rome, according to tradition, also has ties to Peter and Paul due to them all having ties to Rome.

I get excited about these writings because they are some of the earliest records we have of Christians writing, thinking and putting the gospel into practice. They’re working out the issues. And they get some stuff wrong, just like we do. But the early church took these writings seriously. After all, the Epistle of Barnabas and Shepherd of Hermas were part of Codex Sinaiticus (one of the oldest manuscripts containing the complete Bible text, dating to the fourth century) and Codex Alexandrinus (another early Bible codex, dating in the fifth century, likely) had First Clement and Second Clement after the New Testament.

I was reminded about this again at BibleTech:2011 as two different presenters (not to mention other folks I spoke with) mentioned in their presentations how useful it would be to have more and deeper analyses of the Apostolic Fathers available.

The texts are clearly important. They help us understand early Christianity a little better and they help us understand Greek (both words and grammar/syntax) a little better. BDF (a standard reference grammar for Hellenistic Greek) references the Apostolic Fathers frequently, as does BDAG. It is rumored that Daniel Wallace, in an upcoming revision to his Exegetical Syntax, will extensively supplement his material with references to the Apostolic Fathers (see here for details).

With all of this stuff happening, it seemed like a good time to remind people that we at Logos (myself included) would absolutely love to do a Cascadia-style syntactic analysis of the Greek writings of the Apostolic Fathers. It’s been on Pre-Pub for over a year now and has languished.

If you think this would be beneficial to you in your studies, you could help bring it closer by subscribing to the Pre-Pub. While useful for searching, I find these analyses useful for reading too. They help me get an idea of how each clause is put together. Over time this has helped me immensely. Now when I consult Greek text in a format that isn’t graphed (like, on my iPod on Sunday mornings during church) I can see the structures even better as I work through the text.

Oh, yeah: If you’re really into this stuff, we have proposed doing a Cascadia-style syntactic analysis of the Septuagint as well (more info in a previous blog post).

Share
Written by
Rick Brannan

Rick Brannan is a Data Wrangler for Faithlife. He manages a team that creates and maintains linguistic databases and other analyses of the Hebrew Bible, the Greek New Testament, the Septuagint, and writings of the Second Temple era. He resides in Bellingham with his wife, Amy, their daughter, Ella, and their son, Lucas.

View all articles

Your email address has been added

Written by Rick Brannan
All Deals Live: Save up to 60% on March Matchups commentaries and more.
This is default text for notification bar