Le voci τέλειος e καθαρός in BDAG e Louw-Nida alla luce delle iterazioni sinonimiche in Gc 1,4b.27

The rhetorical figure of synonymic iteration of epexegetic purpose provides a key for the interpretation of the adjectives τέλειος and καθαρός in Jas 1:4b, 27 and for determining their contextual meaning. This and the other meanings of the two words have been confirmed by the examination of all their occurrences in the New Testament, in the Septuagint and in a corpus of works belonging to the Judaic and Christian literature from the 3rd century BC to the 2nd century CE. Furthermore, the study of synonymic relations contributed to the identification of the main concepts expressed by τέλειος and καθαρός. The choice of semantic categories more suited to the description of the terms allowed the proposal of a new classification of their meanings. The comparison with the items' structure of τέλειος and καθαρός in the lexicons BDAG and Louw-Nida – items widely dependent on previous lexicons both for the texts mentioned and for the criteria adopted in the division of their paragraphs – has highlighted some shortcomings. Their revision is desirable, based on the re-examination of all the occurrences of the terms in the established literary corpus.