Freethought & Rationalism Archive

stuart shepherd · 03-11-2008, 11:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Kesler

Quote:

Originally Posted by stuart shepherd

See the contradiction? Mark says the vote to condemn Jesus was unanimous, and Luke says that Joseph of Arimathaea did not consent.

This issue is discussed by John Dominic Crossan in The Birth of Christianity. As Crossan notes, Matthew and Luke both see Mark's inconsistency and deal with it differently. Matthew eliminates the council reference altogether and just makes Joseph a wealthy follower of Jesus (Matthew 27:57). Luke keeps Joseph in the council and refrains from identifying him as a follower of Jesus, but specifies that although he was part of the council, he did not consent to its proceedings (as you quote above). Read the Google Books excerpt (pp. 554-555 deal with difficulties in the Joseph of Arimathea story) here.

Dear John Kesler,
That link was interesting.
The part about the different councils is transparent to someone reading the gospels in English, as I do.
The passage about burying the three bodies also impacts my post #73 on this thread.
Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

Stuart Shepherd

Huon · 03-11-2008, 11:46 AM

I have found successively this :

1 - In the book Jesus, by Charles Guignebert (1938), Arimathaea is given in a small note as the homeland of the prophet Samuel.

2 - 1 Samuel, Chapter 19, Verse 18 :
Now David fled and escaped and came to Samuel at Ramah, ...

3 - Ramatha :
the name means Raised, lofty.
Ramah, or Ramatha could be a hill, and this etymology is not very encouraging, because I think that there are many placenames of this kind.

4 - Ramatha, 5 miles north of Jerusalem, was said in the IVth century to have been the birthplace of Joseph of Arimathea and the homeland of Samuel. St Jerome writes that this town is between Lydda (now Lod) and Joppe (now Tel-Aviv Jaffa).

5 - But, there is another Ramatha, Ramathaïm-Sophim, which is also said to be the homeland of Samuel.

Richard Carrier · 03-11-2008, 02:46 PM

I am not engaging any other issues here. Some asked me to explain my theory of the town name (since it has gotten garbled in transmission). That's all I intend to do. You can debate its merits amongst yourselves. I'm not interested. But just to set the facts straight:

There is a reason (a) I have not published this theory and (b) I only posed it originally as a question. It is mere speculation and should not be treated as anything more than that.

As to the details:

(1) The ari- prefix is indeed an old Greek root prefix meaning "best" (e.g. aristocracy, "rule of the best"). That's outright stated in the standard L&S Lexicon, "ari- : insep. prefix, like eri-, strengthening the notion conveyed by its compd.: cogn. with areiôn, aristos, chiefly denoting 'goodness, excellence'." This would have been well-known to anyone educated in Greek of the time, since ancient education emphasized classical and preclassical poetry, including the interpretation of rare words commonly used in such literature, where even the L&S notes this prefix saw wide use. At least half a dozen examples are listed in the L&S.

(2) The termination -aia for forming town names out of root words is widely attested as commonplace (countless examples can be seen in the Barrington Atlas, which is now the standard reference for ancient geography). The stand-alone word "disciple" is mathêtês, but the root is math-, forming the noun mathê, which means education, learning, gaining information (as reported in the L&S), and the corresponding verb math-ein, and many related cognates. So a town could in principle be recognizably named mathaia, "teaching town" and hence (by association) "disciple town" (i.e. the town inhabited by people who receive the best teaching), or what we might encounter in English as "Teachton" or "Discipleton." Analogous examples are the actual towns of Dikaia (Justice Town), Drymaia (Thicket Town), or Gygaia (Gyges' Town).

The reason I have not published this, and only phrased it as a question, is that I have no particular reason to believe this is what Mark was doing, unless certain assumptions are established first, including (i) the scholar-reported difficulty in identifying a real town with that name is granted as a problem and (ii) Mark created the name in Greek for a symbolic purpose (or selected a real town name and transliterated it into Greek in just this way for its symbolic use).

In other words, if Mark is creating or forming a name for its symbolic hidden meaning (you have to grant that first before the theory is even worth considering), then the readiest possibility would be the intended meaning that Arimathaia is the town where the best teaching (the best doctrine) comes from, and thus where the best students (the best disciples) come from, conveying the point that Joseph behaved the way a good disciple should have, and only later was this hidden meaning telescoped into Joseph actually being a disciple (or else that development was actually made to make the symbolic point even clearer).

Currently I think it only makes sense to see this as the case if you already reject the historicity of either Joseph or his Gospel description (which you would have to do on other grounds). For there are other viable (although varyingly odd) interpretations of the name's derivation from real towns.

MarkA · 03-11-2008, 06:06 PM

Is there any real point in continuing the debate on whether Arimathaia is a proper word or not? After all, all the opponents of the early christians accused them of writing appalling Greek so they may have just constructed the word incorrectly.

What is important in the first instance I think is examining the story and trying to determine if it has any credence as a reasonable description of a historical event as christians have claimed.

Jeffrey Gibson · 03-11-2008, 08:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richard Carrier

I am not engaging any other issues here. Some asked me to explain my theory of the town name (since it has gotten garbled in transmission). That's all I intend to do. You can debate its merits amongst yourselves. I'm not interested. But just to set the facts straight:

There is a reason (a) I have not published this theory and (b) I only posed it originally as a question. It is mere speculation and should not be treated as anything more than that.

As to the details:

(1) The ari- prefix is indeed an old Greek root prefix meaning "best" (e.g. aristocracy, "rule of the best"). That's outright stated in the standard L&S Lexicon, "ari- : insep. prefix, like eri-, strengthening the notion conveyed by its compd.: cogn. with areiôn, aristos, chiefly denoting 'goodness, excellence'."

You are correct that this is indeed stated in LSJ. But I note that you left out from your citation of the lexicon, its note that the prefix is ἀρῐ [ᾰ] and that is it something that was found "mostly in older Ep. and Lyr." writings" -- i.e. not used in neologisms created by first century authors.

Here's the full entry:

Quote:

ἀρῐ [ᾰ], insep. prefix, like ἐρι-, strengthening the notion conveyed by its compd.: cogn. with ἀρείων, ἄριστος, chiefly denoting goodness, excellence: mostly in older Ep. and Lyr.

So thanks for the omission of the material which might cast doubt upon your claim.

Quote:

This would have been well-known to anyone educated in Greek of the time, since ancient education emphasized classical and preclassical poetry, including the interpretation of rare words commonly used in such literature,

Can you demonstrate this claim?

And even if you can, was Mark classically educated?

Quote:

where even the L&S notes this prefix saw wide use.

They do?

Quote:

At least half a dozen examples are listed in the L&S.

Really? Where? They don't do so in the entry on ἀρῐ [ᾰ]

And following that entry we get immediately this:

Quote:

✪ ἀρία, ἡ, Dor. for φελλόδρυς, Thphr.HP3.16.3, al. (Prob. for ἀρ�*α, cf. ἀρ�*ϊνος.), Eup.491 K.-A.

ἀριβάσκανος, ον, very envious, Hsch.

✪ ἀργνώς [ᾰ], ωτος, ὁ, ἡ, = sq., in nom. pl. ἀριγνῶτες, Pi.N.5.12.
ἀργνωτος, η, ον, Od.6.108, Aeol. α, ον Sapph.Supp.25.4, also ος, ον Il.15.490:—easy to be known, ἀρίγνωτοι δὲ θεοί περ 13.72, cf. 15.490, Sapph. l.c.; δώματα Od.6.300; ῥεῖά τ᾽ ἀριγνώτη π�*λεται ib.108.

2. in bad sense, infamous, ὦ ἀρίγνωτε συβῶτα 17.375.
ἄρῑγος or ἄρρ-, ον, insensible to cold, Arist.Pr.959b17, Aret.SD1.14.
ἀρίγων, ωνος, ὁ, a kind of spear, Hdn.Gr.1.24, 2.279.

✪ ἀρῐδάκρυος [ᾰρ], ον, = sq., Arist.Pr.874b8, Call.Fr.700 Pf.
ἀρῐδακρ�*ς, υ, gen. υος, very tearful, γόος A.Pers.947 (lyr.); of persons, Arist.HA608b9, Pr.953b11: prov., ἀριδάκρυες ἀν�*ρες ἐσθλοί Sch.Ven.Il.1.349; but in bad sense, Ph.2.269.

ἀρῐδάκρῡτος, ον, much wept, Hsch.

ἀρίδηλος [ᾰρῐ], Dor. -δηλος (v. infr.), also -βᾱλος, ον, in pr. n., IG12(1).741 (Rhodes):—clear, distinct, far seen Ὄσσα Simon.130, cf. Arat.94; bright, Ἀνταύγης Orph.Fr.237; ἀρίδηλον μνᾶμα IG7.52 (Megara), cf. Charito4.1.

II. manifest, τάδε γὰρ ἀ. Hdt.8.65, Ph.1.276, al., Porph.Chr.35: Comp., Ph.1.331; Sup., ib.690; also f.l. for ἀΐδηλα in Tyrt.11.7.

III. conspicuous, magnificent, ἀγῶνα τῶν πρόσθεν -ότερον Arr.An.7.14.10; famous, Eun.VSp.456 B. (Comp.). Adv. -λως Them.Or.2.26c, Sch.Ar.Pl.948: Comp., Ph.1.451: Sup. -ώτατα (sic) Hsch.—Ep., Ion., and later Prose.
ἀρίδιον, τό, Dim. of ἀρίς, Hermes38.281.

✪ ἀρίζηλος [ᾰ], ον, (Dor. -ζηλος IG9(1).270), also η, ον, v. infr.:—Ep. for ἀρίδηλος (-ζηλος from δyηλος, cf. δῆλος from δεyαλος and δ�*ατο), conspicuous, of lightning, ἀρίζηλοι δ�* οἱ αὐγαί Il.13.244, cf. Pi.O.2.61, S.Ichn.72; of sound, ὡς δ᾽ ὅτ᾽ ἀριζήλη φωνή Il.18.219; of persons whom all admire, ὥς τε θεώ περ ἀμφὶς ἀριζήλω ib.519, Call.Epigr.5.13 Pf. AP4.1.3 (Mel.), etc.; ῥεῖα δ᾽ ἀρίζηλον μινύθει καὶ ἄδηλον ἀ�*ξει Hes.Op.6. Adv. ἀριζήλως, εἰρημ�*να a plain tale, Od.12.453.

I guess all those people who used these words -- or constructed them -- weren't classically trained!

Quote:

(2) The termination -aia for forming town names out of root words is widely attested as commonplace (countless examples can be seen in the Barrington Atlas, which is now the standard reference for ancient geography).

-aia is not a termination for place. -ia is. And the ia suffix (along with eu -is (-idos) ta_ (nom. -tê-s, masc.), tid (nom. -tis, fem.) -ios) denote country, nation, or city, not town. See Smyth §844.

Quote:

The stand-alone word "disciple" is mathêtês, but the root is math-,

The root is μαθη(τ) as the following shows:

Quote:

μάθημα, ατος, τό, (μανθάνω) that which is learnt, a lesson, Hdt., Soph., etc.
II. learning, knowledge, science, oft. in pl., Ar., Thuc., etc.: esp. the mathematical sciences, Plat., etc. Hence μαθηματικός

μᾰθημᾰτικός, ή, όν, disposed to learn, Plat.
II. mathematical:—μαθηματικός, ὁ, a mathematician, Arist.; τὰ μαθηματικά mathematics, Id.

2. astronomical, mathematici = Chaldaei, Juven.

μάθησις, ἡ, (μανθάνω) learning, the getting of knowledge, Soph., Thuc., etc.
2. desire of learning, Soph.
3. education, instruction, Plat., Xen.

μᾰθητ�*ος, α, ον, verb. Adj. of μανθάνω, to be learnt, Hdt.
II. μαθητ�*ον, one must learn, Ar., Xen.

μᾰθητεύω, f. σω, to be pupil, τινί to one, Plut.
II. trans. to make a disciple of, instruct, N.T. From μαθητής

μᾰθητής, οῦ, ὁ, (μανθάνω) a learner, pupil, Lat. discipulus, Hdt., Plat., etc.

μᾰθητιάω, Desiderat. of μανθάνω, to wish to become a disciple, Ar.
II. = μαθητεύω, Anth.

μᾰθητικός, ή, όν, disposed to learn, τινος Plat.

μᾰθητός, ή, όν, learnt, that may be learnt, Xen., Plat.

Quote:

forming the noun mathê, which means education, learning, gaining information (as reported in the L&S),

What L&S report about μάθη is this:

Quote:

= μάθησις, Emp.17.14, Hsch.

and for μάθησις they have

Quote:

μάθησις, εως, ἡ, (μαθεῖν) the act of learning, getting of knowledge, πεῖρά τοι μαθήσιος ἀρχά Alcm.63; μ. οὐ καλὴν ἐκμανθάνεις S.Tr.450; ὧν μάθησιν ἄρνυμαι of which things I gain information, ib.711; μ. ἔχειν τινός E.Supp.915; ὁ χρόνος μ. δίδωσι ib.419; τὴν μ. ποιεῖσθαι περί τινος Th.1.68; ἡ περὶ τὸ ἓν μ. Pl.R.525a; μ. τ�*χνης BGU1021.8 (iii a.d.): in pl., νωθροὶ ἀπαντῶσι πρὸς τὰς μ. Pl.Tht.144b, cf. R.407b; μνῆμαί τε ἰσχυραὶ καὶ μ. ὀξεῖαι faculties of learning, Id.Lg.908c; ὁπλομαχίας μ. Ephor.54 J.

2. desire of learning, ἀλλά σοι μ. οὐ πάρα S.El.1032.

3. education, instruction, Hp.Jusj., Pl.Ap.26a; τοῦ φόβου τὴν μ. κρείττονα παρ�*ξεσθαι X.Cyr.3.3.53; τὴν αὐλητικὴν ἤγαγον πρὸς τὰς μ. Arist.Pol.1341a32.

Quote:

and the corresponding verb math-ein,

The corresponding verb is μανθάνω. See above. μαθεῖν, I believe, is an infinitive.

Quote:

So a town could in principle be recognizably named mathaia, "teaching town" and hence (by association) "disciple town" (i.e. the town inhabited by people who receive the best teaching), or what we might encounter in English as "Teachton" or "Discipleton."

But no examples that it ever was, right?

Quote:

Analogous examples are the actual towns of Dikaia (Justice Town)

Where is this place, and what is your evidence not only that the origin of the name lies in a combination of Dike and the suffix aia, but that "justice town" was what the town's name was understood to mean?

Quote:

Drymaia (Thicket Town)

,

The name is Drymaea, isn't it?

Quote:

or Gygaia (Gyges' Town).

So far as I can see, there is a Lake Gygaia, and several persons/goddeses named Gygaia, but no town which has that name. Citation please.

Quote:

The reason I have not published this, and only phrased it as a question, is that I have no particular reason to believe this is what Mark was doing, unless certain assumptions are established first, including (i) the scholar-reported difficulty in identifying a real town with that name is granted as a problem

What scholar reported difficulty?

Quote:

and (ii) Mark created the name in Greek for a symbolic purpose (or selected a real town name and transliterated it into Greek in just this way for its symbolic use).

But a transliterated word is not a Greek word and its constituent elements are not Greek words or rooted in Greek words.

Quote:

In other words, if Mark is creating or forming a name for its symbolic hidden meaning (you have to grant that first before the theory is even worth considering), then the readiest possibility would be the intended meaning that Arimathaia is the town where the best teaching (the best doctrine)

You'll have to explain why then the Syriac translators didn't agree that this is what Ἂριμαθαίας means and use “Ramtha” and “Ramthis", and, more importantly if the meaning was so plain, why Luke would engage in the obvious redundancy in saying that Ἂριμαθαίας (or, as א* and B* read, Ἂρειμαθαίας) was a πόλεως τῶν Ἰουδαίων.

And why does no classically trained early church father ever tell us that "discipletown" is the meaning of Ἂριμαθαίας?

Jeffrey

Johnny Skeptic · 03-11-2008, 11:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stuart shepherd

Dear Johnny Skeptic,

Good point! Perhaps "all" means all who were present, and Joseph was not present, as you wrote. When I read "all the council ", in Mark's Gospel, I understood it to be literal.....all the council. But I understand your point.

If Joseph of Arimathaea was not present he missed an opportunity to defend Jesus since he was a disciple of Jesus.[Matthew 27:57]

Since Passover was one of the Jewish holidays that all the men were supposed to attend in Jerusalem, I would have expected that Joseph would have been present since he was a prominent member of the council.
In fact, since "all" were expected to be in Jerusalem for Passover, I would assume that "all the council"would be at the meeting of the council to condemn Jesus. But it's hard to find truth when dealing with fiction.

Well, as you know, fundies are creative people. They might say that maybe Joseph was kidnapped and later released, or that the vote was taken anyway since his abstaining vote would not have made any difference.

stuart shepherd · 03-12-2008, 05:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

Quote:

Originally Posted by stuart shepherd

Dear Johnny Skeptic,

Good point! Perhaps "all" means all who were present, and Joseph was not present, as you wrote. When I read "all the council ", in Mark's Gospel, I understood it to be literal.....all the council. But I understand your point.

If Joseph of Arimathaea was not present he missed an opportunity to defend Jesus since he was a disciple of Jesus.[Matthew 27:57]

Since Passover was one of the Jewish holidays that all the men were supposed to attend in Jerusalem, I would have expected that Joseph would have been present since he was a prominent member of the council.
In fact, since "all" were expected to be in Jerusalem for Passover, I would assume that "all the council"would be at the meeting of the council to condemn Jesus. But it's hard to find truth when dealing with fiction.

Well, as you know, fundies are creative people. They might say that maybe Joseph was kidnapped and later released, or that the vote was taken anyway since his abstaining vote would not have made any difference.

Dear Johnny Skeptic,
You never know what unbelievable story the fundies will concoct to explain away contradictions.
But what about Nicodemus? The Gospel according to John has him helping Joseph of Arimathaea to bury Jesus, and he was also a member of the council.
How did he vote?

Quote:

John 3:1 (New International Version)
1Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council.

Quote:

John 19:39 (King James Version)
39And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight.

The writer of Luke's Gospel didn't provide an excuse for Nicodemus' vote as he did for Joseph of Arimathaea, because he didn't know that the writer of John's Gospel was going to later write Nicodemus into the story. Just more evidence of fiction.

Stuart Shepherd

John Kesler · 03-12-2008, 11:02 AM

Something else which makes the Joseph of Arimathea story seem suspicious is the fact that once Joseph completes the burial of Jesus, he completely disappears from the NT, even though he was in a unique position to be one of Christianity's biggest proponents. Joseph of Arimathea was a righteous man (Luke 23:50), who acted bravely since he was a dissenter in the decision to betray Jesus (Luke 23:51; cf. Mark 15:43) and had to be a disciple of Jesus in secret "for fear of the Jews" (John 19:38). It would seem that such a high-placed individual would have been the perfect candidate to spread the message of the resurrection, especially since he of all people could verify that the tomb was empty: the tomb was Joseph's (Mathew 27:60), and he, along with Nicodemus, a Pharisee who knew that Jesus was from God (John 3:1-2), performed the burial. Why wasn't Joseph privy to the "many convincing proofs" and instructions about the kingdom of God, which Jesus provided during his 40-day sojourn after the resurrection?

Quote:

Acts 1:1-3:
In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning 2 until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. 3 After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

Even if Joseph were fearful, wouldn't a face-to-face encounter with the risen Jesus have transformed him as it did the cowardly disciples, who had hidden behind closed doors "for fear of the Jews" (John 20:19).

stuart shepherd · 03-12-2008, 11:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Kesler

Something else which makes the Joseph of Arimathea story seem suspicious is the fact that once Joseph completes the burial of Jesus, he completely disappears from the NT, even though he was in a unique position to be one of Christianity's biggest proponents. Joseph of Arimathea was a righteous man (Luke 23:50), who acted bravely since he was a dissenter in the decision to betray Jesus (Luke 23:51; cf. Mark 15:43) and had to be a disciple of Jesus in secret "for fear of the Jews" (John 19:38). It would seem that such a high-placed individual would have been the perfect candidate to spread the message of the resurrection, especially since he of all people could verify that the tomb was empty: the tomb was Joseph's (Mathew 27:60), and he, along with Nicodemus, a Pharisee who knew that Jesus was from God (John 3:1-2), performed the burial. Why wasn't Joseph privy to the "many convincing proofs" and instructions about the kingdom of God, which Jesus provided during his 40-day sojourn after the resurrection?

Quote:

Acts 1:1-3:
In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning 2 until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. 3 After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

Even if Joseph were fearful, wouldn't a face-to-face encounter with the risen Jesus have transformed him as it did the cowardly disciples, who had hidden behind closed doors "for fear of the Jews" (John 20:19).

Dear John Kesler,
Excellent observations..on the money.
The NT treats Joseph of Arimathaea as a supporting player in their theatre production, and soon as he is no longer needed to create the drama he is dumped.
You have definitely exposed the fiction of this "greatest story ever told".

Stuart Shepherd

03-11-2008, 11:46 AM	#82
Huon Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Bordeaux France Posts: 2,796	Arimathaea, the name I have found successively this : 1 - In the book Jesus, by Charles Guignebert (1938), Arimathaea is given in a small note as the homeland of the prophet Samuel. 2 - 1 Samuel, Chapter 19, Verse 18 : Now David fled and escaped and came to Samuel at Ramah, ... 3 - Ramatha : the name means Raised, lofty. Ramah, or Ramatha could be a hill, and this etymology is not very encouraging, because I think that there are many placenames of this kind. 4 - Ramatha, 5 miles north of Jerusalem, was said in the IVth century to have been the birthplace of Joseph of Arimathea and the homeland of Samuel. St Jerome writes that this town is between Lydda (now Lod) and Joppe (now Tel-Aviv Jaffa). 5 - But, there is another Ramatha, Ramathaïm-Sophim, which is also said to be the homeland of Samuel.

03-11-2008, 02:46 PM	#83
Richard Carrier Regular Member Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: California, USA Posts: 338	Arimathaia as Bestdiscipleton? I am not engaging any other issues here. Some asked me to explain my theory of the town name (since it has gotten garbled in transmission). That's all I intend to do. You can debate its merits amongst yourselves. I'm not interested. But just to set the facts straight: There is a reason (a) I have not published this theory and (b) I only posed it originally as a question. It is mere speculation and should not be treated as anything more than that. As to the details: (1) The ari- prefix is indeed an old Greek root prefix meaning "best" (e.g. aristocracy, "rule of the best"). That's outright stated in the standard L&S Lexicon, "ari- : insep. prefix, like eri-, strengthening the notion conveyed by its compd.: cogn. with areiôn, aristos, chiefly denoting 'goodness, excellence'." This would have been well-known to anyone educated in Greek of the time, since ancient education emphasized classical and preclassical poetry, including the interpretation of rare words commonly used in such literature, where even the L&S notes this prefix saw wide use. At least half a dozen examples are listed in the L&S. (2) The termination -aia for forming town names out of root words is widely attested as commonplace (countless examples can be seen in the Barrington Atlas, which is now the standard reference for ancient geography). The stand-alone word "disciple" is mathêtês, but the root is math-, forming the noun mathê, which means education, learning, gaining information (as reported in the L&S), and the corresponding verb math-ein, and many related cognates. So a town could in principle be recognizably named mathaia, "teaching town" and hence (by association) "disciple town" (i.e. the town inhabited by people who receive the best teaching), or what we might encounter in English as "Teachton" or "Discipleton." Analogous examples are the actual towns of Dikaia (Justice Town), Drymaia (Thicket Town), or Gygaia (Gyges' Town). The reason I have not published this, and only phrased it as a question, is that I have no particular reason to believe this is what Mark was doing, unless certain assumptions are established first, including (i) the scholar-reported difficulty in identifying a real town with that name is granted as a problem and (ii) Mark created the name in Greek for a symbolic purpose (or selected a real town name and transliterated it into Greek in just this way for its symbolic use). In other words, if Mark is creating or forming a name for its symbolic hidden meaning (you have to grant that first before the theory is even worth considering), then the readiest possibility would be the intended meaning that Arimathaia is the town where the best teaching (the best doctrine) comes from, and thus where the best students (the best disciples) come from, conveying the point that Joseph behaved the way a good disciple should have, and only later was this hidden meaning telescoped into Joseph actually being a disciple (or else that development was actually made to make the symbolic point even clearer). Currently I think it only makes sense to see this as the case if you already reject the historicity of either Joseph or his Gospel description (which you would have to do on other grounds). For there are other viable (although varyingly odd) interpretations of the name's derivation from real towns.

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03-11-2008, 06:06 PM	#84
MarkA Junior Member Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Brisbane, Australia Posts: 89	Is there any real point in continuing the debate on whether Arimathaia is a proper word or not? After all, all the opponents of the early christians accused them of writing appalling Greek so they may have just constructed the word incorrectly. What is important in the first instance I think is examining the story and trying to determine if it has any credence as a reasonable description of a historical event as christians have claimed.

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