Tittle
TITTLE
A very small particle; literally, a small horn; the minute tip at the extremity of some Hebrew letters, Mat 5:18 . In transcribing the Hebrew Scriptures, the Jews exacted the utmost accuracy. Every page and every line must contain just so much; and he most trivial defect vitiated the whole roll, and compelled the scribe to begin his task anew. Yet the extreme care thus expressed for the perfect integrity of the letter of God’s word is but a feeble illustration of the Savior’s care for the same word-every truth, every threatening, and every promise has the most perfect guarantee possible: “It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail,” Luk 16:17 .
Fuente: American Tract Society Bible Dictionary
Tittle
(diminutive of tit), an old English word signifying the merest trifle (see Plulmptre, Bible Educator, 4:211), is used in the A. V. (Mat 5:18; Luk 16:17) as a rendering for , a little horn, hence a point (e.g. of a sail yard, Lucan, Navig. 4; Polyb. 14:10, 11; of an island, Philostr. Vit. Soph. 1, 21, 2); in the New Test. the apex of a Heb. letter, such as distinguishes from , from , i.e. the slightest distinction (so Philo, in Flacc. p. 984 b). SEE JOT.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Tittle
a point, (Matt. 5:18; Luke 16:17), the minute point or stroke added to some letters of the Hebrew alphabet to distinguish them from others which they resemble; hence, the very least point.
Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary
Tittle
TITTLE (Gr. [WH [Note: H Westcott and Horts text.] ; see vol. ii. App. p. 151]).Both the Gr. and the English words occur in NT only in Mat 5:18, Luk 16:17. (little horn, dim. of ) was used by Hesychius and other grammarians of the accents and diacritical marks in Gr., and the slight points and bends by which in Heb. such letters as and , and , and are distinguished from each other. Tittle, which is just title in another form of spelling (the shorter form is used in all the English VSS [Note: SS Versions.] , except the Rhemish, up to and including the Authorized Version of 1611), comes from titulus, which was used in late Lat. to denote any mark or stroke whereby one letter was distinguished from another. It was adopted by Wyclif and Tindale to render Luther similarly employing Tttel (Titel in modernized Germ. spelling). Great [Note: reat Cranmers Great Bible 1539.] importance was attached by the Rabbis to the little marks by which certain Heb. letters are distinguished from others that they closely resemble, and there are several Jewish sayings which declare that any one who is guilty of interchanging such letters in certain passages of the OT will thereby destroy the whole world (see Edersheim, LT [Note: T Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah [Edersheim].] i. 537 f.; cf. Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. xi. 99).
On the lips of Jesus the saying, One jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law till all be fulfilled (Mat 5:18), is startling; and a number of modern critical scholars are inclined to meet the exegetical difficulty by denying the genuineness of the logionregarding it as an answer of the Evangelist himself to the Pauline anti-legalism, or even as a later Jewish-Christian insertion Certainly, if the saying stood by itself, unqualified and uninterpreted in any way, there might be some warrant for such criticism, even although on textual grounds there is nothing to be said against the verse, which, moreover, reappears in Luke, though in a shorter form. But the very fact that our Lord proceeds in what follows to repeal the old Law at various points, and to substitute for its enactments precepts of His own (Mat 5:31 f., Mat 5:33 ff., Mat 5:38 ff.), suggests that Mat 5:18, so far from being likely on His lips to mislead His hearers utterly, would be understood easily enough as nothing more than an emphatic affirmation, in the Masters own characteristic style, of the rounded perfection of the ideal law. The objection that the reference to the jot and the tittle implies the written Law, and not the ideal law, has little force. One might as well say that when Jesus, in Mat 5:29-30, bids His disciples pluck out their right eyes or cut off their right hands, He is urging them to a literal self-mutilation, inasmuch as hands and eyes are physical realities, not ideal things.
When we remember that Jesus was constantly charged by His enemies with being a law-breaker (Mar 2:16; Mar 2:18; Mar 2:24 etc.), we may see in the saying an utterance that has its polemical bearing. Immediately after (v. 20) we find Him declaring, Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. And elsewhere He affirms that the Pharisaic and Rabbinic legalism led to a positive dishonouring of the Divine law in the interests of a human tradition (Mar 7:8-9; Mar 7:13). There were thus two reasons why on polemical grounds Jesus should assert the claims of the OT Law in the strongest possible way: (1) Because His enemies themselves continually dishonoured it: (2) because they falsely accused Him of being indifferent to it. And apart from polemics altogether, there was this positive reason why He should magnify the law and make it honourableHe knew (Mar 7:17) that the very purpose of His coming was, not to destroy it, but to fulfil. And so in the striking language of paradox and even of hyperbole that He was wont to use when He felt strongly and desired to speak strongly, He exclaimed, For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all be fulfilled.
The point of the saying clearly lies in the word fulfilled. Christ comes, not to lower the standards of righteousness, as His enemies said, but to exalt them (cf. Mar 7:20). He comes, indeed, to repeal much in the old Law. The jots and tittles, be it observed, are to pass away when the Law is fulfilled. But He is to repeal the old by supplying the power for its true fulfilment, and by showing how the letter is transcended by the spirit. Regarded in this way, the saying is nothing more than an arresting utterance of the familiar Christian truth of the relation in spiritual things between the kernel and the husk, the calyx and the flower. Every fibre of the husk is preciousuntil the time comes for the living germ to be released. Each tiny, pointed sepal of the enfolding calyx must be preserved in its integrityuntil the hour arrives for the bursting of the perfect corolla. Thus Jesus comes, not to destroy the least commandment (Mar 7:19), but to fulfil it. His royal law, as St. James calls it (Jam 2:8), the law of liberty and love, is an abrogation of the Divine Law that went before only in the sense in which the blossom abrogates the bud and the flower the blossom. See, further, art. Law, 6.
Literature.Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible , art. Tittle, and Ext. Vol. p. 24 f.; Weiss, NT Theol. i. 108; Beyschlag, NT Theol. i. 40; Wendt, Teach. of Jesus, ii. 7 ff.; Bruce, Kingdom of God, p. 64, and EGT [Note: GT Expositors Greek Testanent.] , Mt. in loc.; Dods in Expositor, iv. ix. [1894] 70 ff.
J. C. Lambert.
Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels
Tittle
TITTLE.See Jot.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Tittle
tit’l (, keraa (Westcott-Hort, kerea), from , keras, a horn): A small stroke or mark, specif. on a letter to denote accent, or as a diacritical mark; used only in Mat 5:18 and Luk 16:17. In the first passage it is used in connection with iota, or jot, i.e. the very smallest thing, and in both it refers to the minutiae of the Law. It is well known that the scribes paid the greatest attention to such marks attached to the letters in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Massoretic Text of which abounds in them. See JOT; YODH.
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Tittle
Supposed to refer to the smallest points in the Hebrew letters that distinguish one from another, as differing from . The least point of the law must be fulfilled. Mat 5:18; Luk 16:17.
Fuente: Concise Bible Dictionary
Tittle
Tittle, the very least point, Mat 5:18; used of the fine stroke by which some letters were distinguished. To omit this stroke condemned the entire copy of the Law made by the scribe.