judge

In Mark 1:41 we find an interesting variant amongst greek mss. Most mss read that Jesus was moved with compassion, however one or two early mss read that Jesus was moved with anger.
Many, such as Ehrman and Metzger have suggested that the orinal reading must have been anger but that later scribes, uncomfortable with the anger reading changed it to compassion.

Filled with compassion (anger?), Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!"

Metzger however did mention another possibilty. That being that the scribe was confused by two similar aramaic words.
Is it possible that Mark was originally written in aramaic and later translated into greek, and that this verse is evidence of that?


Here are the two aramaic words written in DSS script.

(mods can we get this image to show itself in the thread?)

Dutch_labrat

Is it possible that the words anger and compassionate were related enough in a language to cause this confusion? They both describe a powerful and involved emotion. An early languages lacking in terms to describe these different emotions could have caused this confusion.

Also, a person lacking skill in a language can easily pick a similar but wrong word.

Compare it if you will with the whole virgin/young girl/maid issue.

judge

I'm not sure if I get what you are getting at. Bart Ehrmans theory is that mark originally said Jesus was angry and that later on some person or pesons were uncomfortable with Jesus being angry and deliberately changed the text to have Jesus being compassionate.
There are some obvious problems with this which Metzger mentions.
The second theory is that mark was originally written in Aramaic and that because the two words look similar in Aramaic one early Greek translator mistook the Aramaic word for compassionate for he Aramaic word for angry.
It seems you are suggesting a third option. Can you elaborate if you are? Thanks

Dutch_labrat

More asking if possible than suggesting:

Could it be someone used an ambigious word that could mean both, or picked the wrong word while tranlating to or from a language that was not his own. After all, the gospels were translated, transcribed, mucked about with and rewritten several times long before the versions we have came to be.

I base this on the possible similarity in meaning: A powerful involved emotion. You can be angery at suffering and through that feel compassion or vice versa.

show_no_mercy

I don't think the Aramaic primacy is convincing. Namely, our earliest witnesses to that section of Mark -- Matt 8.1-4 and Luke 5.12-15 -- remove that line from Mark's account altogether. Which probably meant that they were just as embarrassed by "anger" as the later scribes were who changed it to "compassion".

I guess one could get around this by saying that Matt/Luke were reading and copying from a Greek version of Mark.

andrewcriddle

The Syriac Diatessaron seems to have read "moved with anger". It is possible that the Western texts that read "moved with anger" have been influenced by the Diatessaron or by even earlier translations of the Greek Gospels into Syriac/Aramaic.

Andrew Criddle

judge

Seems to have read?
What do you base this on? Can you elaborate?


Can you elaborate here too. What is a possible trajectory in order to give us what we have today? Thanks.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Judge,

The whole passage shows confusions:

In 41. Jesus says "Be thou made clean", but in 42, the leper departs and only then becomes clean. Logically the reading should be reversed, he becomes clean and then he departs.

But in 43. Jesus somehow speaks to the already departed leper and "charged him" and then sends him out. Should not 43 come before 42 with the leper departing after Jesus tells him to depart?

In 44, after the leper departs and Jesus has charged him and sent him out, somehow, Jesus is speaking again to the leper and tells him "not to say anything to any man."

In 45, for the third time apparently the man departs and he does exactly what Jesus said not to do.

Note that the Leper leaves this scene three times, a little like the way Juliet keeps leaving Romeo in the balcony scene, but just can't seem to say good night and always ends up back with him. It is clear that the whole passage has been rewritten and that is what caused the mass confusion in when and what was said and done in every verse.

Given the Jewish idea of lepers being evil creatures punished by God with a horrible disfigurement, it is not hard to reconstruct the earlier text.

The leper asks Jesus to heal him. Jesus gets angry and says no. This is what a proper Jew should do this case. He should not try to reverse the decision of God to punish the leper. Jesus is acting like a good Jew should when he gets angry and refuses the leper.
At this point, the leper reaches out his hand and touches Jesus. He becomes clean. Now, Jesus' anger changes to compassion and instead of making the man into a leper again, he just says sternly not to tell anybody and to make sacrifices to the priests. This is again to emphasize that Jesus is a Mosaic law abiding Jew.The ungrateful leper double-crosses Jesus and gets him into trouble with the Jewish authorities by telling everybody that Jesus has cured him.

Mark probably rewrites the story into an incoherent mess trying to please both Jews who would want Jesus to show anger and Greek audiences who would want Jesus to show compassion to the unfortunate leper. Later editors, unworried about Jews reading the text would change "anger" into "compassion" but they don't change the rest of the confusing mess that Mark made of the story.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

JoeWallack

JW:
We've already been through this too. Ehrman has written the article which demonstrates that "anger" is likely original. As near as I can tell mainstream scholarship such as Wallace accepts that Ehrman is probably right. Ehrman's key piece of evidence is that "Matthew", who closely follows "Mark's" original story here, omits "compassion", with the best reason to do so being that it was not in "Mark" at the time. Judge himself has shown that the words are completely different in Aramaic (3 of 5 letters) so giving it as a reason to change to "anger" is Apologetics.

While Ehrman's related article would make a fine addition to ErrancyWiki as a Transmission error I've gone one up on Ehrman with an even better reason for the originality of "anger" at 1:41. Enjoy!:

"I Am IronyMan". How Much Ironic Contrast, Transfer and Reversal Did He kraM?

andrewcriddle

The textual criticism handbooks give Ephraem Syrus as a witness for "moved with anger". If this is correct (and I haven't checked in Ephraem) then his source was presumably the Diatessaron.
The Diatessaron appears to have been translated into Latin (possibly directly from Syriac) c 300 CE. It is formally possible (though probably unlikely) for all the Western witnesses for "moved with anger" to have been directly or indirectly influenced by the Diatessaron.

However there is another possibility. Scholars such as Torrey have suggested that there was an early 2nd century CE Aramaic Targum of the Gospels and Acts which was retranslated into Greek and which has influenced/corrupted the Western text tradition. If such an early Aramaic paraphrase of the Gospels really existed then it would probably have also influenced Syriac texts like the Diatessaron.

Andrew Criddle