squiz

What was the original word for legion here? That is an interesting translation.

neilgodfrey

Don't know, and don't have my companion volume with the cuneiform text/dictionary with me to check. But the footnote links that line to Mark 5:9 so I presume it is related in some way to the concept and term used there.

Neil

spin

Obviously, the translation was rather loose. The word "legion" in origin describes a specifically Roman military development. I can't recognize what the original was from the translation. It may be that "Sons of Disease" should be "sons of Rashap", the god of pestilence.

One would need a Ugaritic catalog number (prefixed with either CAT or CTA) to have a hope of finding the text elsewhere.


spin

neilgodfrey

That's the obvious response. But the reason I hold back from going there is that I am waiting to be reunited with my companion volume which includes the info we need, and the fact that the translator (associated with the same companion volume) crossreferenced his translation with Mark 5 -- and I would need reasons to think that the word or concept behind the translation for legion originated to describe a roman military innovation. I suspect that is prima facie unlikely.

(I don't see as much conceptual difference between pestilence and disease, or their patron deities, as you seem to call for.)

neil

spin

After the comment about "legion", the rest of my note was trying to find ways of recognizing the source to hunt the text down. If "Disease" was a reference to Rashap, then a god would be more easily locatable in a book of texts.

(Must admit, a trajectory back to Ugarit seems over-hopeful to me.)


spin

neilgodfrey

Sure. The possibility I wonder about is something like a folklore concept hanging on like a bad meme. We do see certain notions and images surviving through many centuries, and some of the exorcism tales and concepts seem to be among these. I don't suggest that exoricist chants replaces more immediate explanations relating to a Roman legion, btw. Perhaps they informed the shape of the narrative, though?

And I am, of course, assuming a continuum of Canaanite culture among the lower classes and/or a survival of certain scribal and mythical traditions as per, say, Margaret Barker's hypothesis of the survival of pre-Deuteronomist beliefs into the Second Temple period.

Neil