7 - The witness terminology of the New Testament

Summary

The New Testament, like the LXX and secular Greek, makes considerable use of words relating to the idea of witness. In fact |idpTUS and its fourteen cognates appear over two hundred times in the New Testament. The most frequent use is in the Johannine writings, where witness terms are found about eighty-three times. Witness terms are also used some thirty-nine times in Acts and about thirty-five times in the Pauline literature, counting twelve references in the Pastorals. It is appropriate to begin the specifically New Testament part of our study with a philological consideration of pApTUs and its cognates. Other words pertaining to the New Testament concept of witness will be dealt with at the relevant places in the succeeding chapters.

THE USE OF McipTUS

The noun n&pnrus appears thirty-five times in the New Testament. It is most prominent in the Book of Acts, where it is found thirteen times, but it also appears six times in the Pauline Epistles, five times in the Apocalypse, three times in the Pastorals, twice in Matthew, Luke and Hebrews and once in Mark and I Peter.

The Acts passages raise no special philological problems. The only exception is Acts 22: 20, where n&pTVS is used, as in Rev. 2: 13 and 17: 6, ^cas a designation of those who have suffered death in consequence of confessing Christ… This, however, must not be misunderstood (as in ecclesiastical Greek) to denote that their witness consisted in their suffering death, - cf. Constit. Apos. v.9.923… -it refers rather to the witnessing of Jesus, which was the cause of their death.'