Paronomasia
PARONOMASIA
PARONOMASIA is, when the signification of a word is changed, one or two letters or syllables being either altered or transposed or added, or taken away: e.g.-1Co 11:17, , .-Php 3:2-3, – – 1Ti 6:6; 1Ti 6:9, – . It hardly differs from PARECHESIS, when forms of diction that differ correspond to one another by some pleasant allusion, either in the letters or the syllables: for instance,-Rom 1:29; Rom 1:31, , – , ,-, – – But as far as I know, Parechesis is not made mention of in the Gnomon.
Fuente: Gnomon Technical Terms
Paronomasia
PARONOMASIA (Gr. , Lat. annominatio).* [Note: Winer in his NT Grammar (tr. Moulton, 1882, pp. 793796) distinguishes between paronomasia and annominatio, defining the former as a combination of like-sounding words (e.g. Luk 21:11, Mat 21:41), and the latter as having respect to the meaning of the words as well as to their similarity in sound (e.g. Mat 16:18). See also Blass, NT Grammar, tr. Thackeray, 1898, p. 298.] A play on words of similar sound. This linguistic use, which in the present day is usually confined to humorous writing, is found in ancient, and especially Oriental, works in the most serious passages. In Hebrew it is frequent, largely with proper names. There are many examples in the OT, e.g. Gen 9:27; Gen 25:26; Gen 48:22, Exo 2:10, Rth 1:20, Isa 63:1, Mic 1:10-15. [Note: also Ecc 7:1 a , .] In the New Testament the writings of St. Paul, whose early training had been Jewish, furnish some instances of paronomasia (e.g. Phm 1:11, ), but in the Gospels it is rare, being found chiefly, if not wholly, in the Hebraistic Gospel according to St. Matthew. The best known and most certain example is Mat 16:18 (a rock), (? fragment of rock) . If, as seems probable, our Lord spoke in Aramaic, the word used would be Kepha (, cf. Heb. Jer 4:29, Job 30:6 =rocks). The paronomasia makes the reference to St. Peter certain, although there may still be room for doubt whether Christ meant that St. Peter, as the leader of the Apostolic band, should be the human founder of the new Church, or that it should be built on the foundation of the confession, . The former of these views is the more reasonable, and would probably have been almost universally accepted had it not been for the extravagance of some Roman Catholic commentators.
There are also possible examples of paronomasia in Mat 2:23; Mat 3:9. In the former of these passages the words (=an inhabitant of Nazareth) are not found in any prophet, but it seems not unlikely that they contain an allusion to the language of Isa 11:1 where Messiah is called (= a branch), and possibly also to the word (to preserve); cf. Isa 49:6. In Mat 3:9 (cf. Luk 3:8) the Baptist says . The Hebrew words for and are similar in sound. There may therefore be a, paronomasia here: God can from these stones ( bnm) raise up children ( bnm) to Abraham. These passages have been used to support the view, which is as old as Papias, that parts at least of Mt. had a Hebrew or Aramaic original.* [Note: It is, of course, possible that in our Lords discourses, spoken originally in Aramaic, there were examples of paronomasia which have been lost in the Greek version. Eichhorn (Einl. in d. NT, i. 504) and others have made conjectural attempts to restore some of these, but they are not convincing. Mat 10:25 may contain a paronomasia if Is to be connected with and made = lord of the dwelling ().]
Literature.C. B. Michaelis, de paronomasia sacra (Hal. 1737); J. F. Boettcher, de paronomasia finitimisque ei figuris Paulo Apostolo frequentatis (Lips. 1823); Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible , Extra Vol., p. 165 (by Knig).
H. W. Fulford.