Taiknim jah fauratanjam jah mahtim: la resa dei lessemi per «miracolo» nella Bibbia gotica

The article examines the lexical strategies employed by the translators of the Gothic Bible in rendering the main Greek terms for “miracle” (σημεῖον, τέρας, δύναμις, ἔργον) into the Gothic language. Focusing on five Gothic lexemes — taikns, fauratani, bandwa, mahts, and waurstw — the study reconstructs the translational choices and semantic adaptations implemented by Wulfila and his team. The analysis reveals a consistent reliance on the internal resources of Gothic through semantic calques (Lehnbedeutungen) and native compositional forms, rather than direct lexical borrowings. By comparing the Gothic evidence with the Old English, Old High German, and Old Saxon biblical traditions and paraphrases, the article highlights how the concept of “miracle” was linguistically and culturally mediated within the early Germanic Christian context.