'Thickly studded with rugged forceful words taken from the popular

idiom, it is perhaps the most brilliant example of the artless, though

not inartistic colloquial prose of a travelled city resident of the

Roman Empire, its wonderful flexibility making it just the very Greek

for use in a mission to all the world'.

The discovery of the papyri is a providential answer to the prayer of Bishop

Lightfoot who said:

'If we could only recover letters that ordinary people wrote to each

other without any thought of being literary, we should have the

greatest possible help for the understanding of the language of the New

Testament  generally'.

Hebrews 11:1 which says, 'Faith is the substance of things hoped for' uses a

word hypostasis, and from the papyri we learn  that this word referred to the

'title deeds' of a property, a pointed and apt reference, especially with the

unseen yet very real Heavenly City in view.

Paregoreite 'comfort', (from the word paregoria, used by Paul in

Colossians 4:11), is a term used in medical language in the sense of

'alleviation' and retained to the present time in the name of the drug

Parousia ('Coming' Matt. 24:3).  In the papyri parousia has become a

technical term denoting the visit of a royal personage.  We cannot, however,

reproduce here the lists of words that shine with intenser light since the

common meaning has been discovered in these ancient papyrus letters and

documents; they are too numerous.  All we can do is to acquaint the reader

with the fact of their evidence, and to refer him to the writings of those

who have given this great subject a careful study.

Light from the Ancient East and Bible Studies (Deissmann).

Greek Papyri (G. Milligan).

From Egyptian Rubbish Heaps (Moulton).

These volumes will provide a good basis upon which the reader can

build, as richer and fuller finds are made public.  In closing let us say

that any attempt to translate the Greek of the New Testament which ignores

the aid thus so providentially preserved is not only unwise but unmoral.

Paradise.  Contrary to popular teaching, Paradise has nothing to do with

heaven.  It is the name given to 'a garden planted with trees'.  The word has

come through the Greek from the ancient Sanscrit.  Socrates says that the

king of Persia, wherever he is, takes particular care 'to have gardens and

enclosures, which are called paradises, full of everything beautiful and good

that the earth can produce'.  The original Persian word pardes occurs in

Nehemiah 2:8; Ecclesiastes 2:5 and Song of Solomon 4:13.  The LXX almost

constantly renders the Hebrew gan 'garden' when it relates to the garden of

Eden by paradeisos.  Such is the language and testimony of Holy Writ.  We

have to go to Josephus and to Rabbinical tradition to discover that Paradise

is a place for the intermediate state 'and that under the earth there will be

rewards or punishment', although even Josephus in the opening of his

Antiquities uses the word 'paradise' for the Garden of Eden.

In the opening chapters of the Bible we have Paradise lost (Gen. 3),

and in the closing chapters we find Paradise restored (Rev. 22).  To this,