Ben C Smith

Yes, that was my message: The ancient languages are superfluous.

I honestly do not know if Cleopas can be a female name. But in this case (at least) I think it has to be male (see number 4 below).

Let me set out how I perceive the issue:

1. Antecedents in Greek work much the same as they do in English; that is, the antecedent is usually, but not always, the most recent relevant noun.

2. In this case, the most recent pertinent noun is the apostles (verse 10); before that we have the women (same verse); before that we have the eleven and the rest (verse 9).

3. Trying the apostles first, and assuming that they are contiguous with the eleven, I think we hit a dead end for the simple fact that Cleopas is not one of the eleven, unless his name is an otherwise unattested second name or something, or unless, as spin seems to be implying, we are dealing with multiple layers of authorship. We might, then, try assuming that the apostles are a bit bigger group than the eleven; assuming that Acts comes from the same author, Acts 14.14 lends support to that idea, and in Luke 10 Jesus sends out seventy others. These are not explicitly called apostles, but the term others seems to be bouncing off the sending of the twelve in Luke 9, where the twelve are called apostles (see verse 10); so the sense may be that Jesus sent other apostles (and perhaps Cleopas was one of these seventy). So it seems possible that the two on the road to Emmaus are considered apostles, but not from the twelve (or eleven).

4. The genitive case of the plural pronoun in verse 13 is ambiguous as to gender; it could be masculine, feminine, or neuter. However, these two are consistently referred to with the masculine plural pronoun in those cases (such as the dative) in which we can tell a difference. So at least one of them must be male (a mixed group, male and female, would also be referred to with the masculine pronoun). This seems to rule out the antecedent being the women; and Cleopas himself must be male, since the word for one in the phrase one, named Cleopas in verse 18 is masculine, not feminine.

5. Seeing the antecedent as the eleven and the others in verse 9 works in all ways except in having to skip back over other potentially viable antecedents along the way to get there. If, however, the apostles and women in verse 10 prove to be impossible antecedents, the eleven and the rest in verse 9 would be about all that is left. It is also possible, of course, that the author simply stuck the of them on without thinking much about it, and it really refers back to nothing, but I would not favor this option unless all the other streams dried up. (All of this, of course, presumes some unity of authorship; if this is a literal fragment just stuck in from somewhere, the antecedents may be illusory.)

That is the Greek end of things as I see them. It is pretty complicated, I know, for such a basic inquiry, but I think I probably favor the group of apostles being a larger group than the eleven alone. Unless you can come up with another, better scenario, of course.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

BTW, there is perhaps another hint that Luke thinks of the 70 precisely as apostles. In Luke 22.14 Jesus reclines with the apostles at the last supper. During the course of the meal, he reminds his followers of when he sent them out without purse, bag, or sandals (22.35). Now, the bag may recall 9.3, when the 12 were sent out, but the purse, bag, and sandals (all three) recall 10.4, when the 70 were sent out. This would seem to indicate that the 70 were apostles.

I suppose, of course, that this could also be a degree of carelessness on the part of Luke.

Ben.

Pataphysician

Wouldn't a good explanation be that the two men were, Clopas and his son Symeon. Cleopas being miswritten(or vice versa). Eusebius says

"all with one consent pronounced Symeon, the son of Clopas, of whom the Gospel also makes mention; to be worthy of the episcopal throne of that parish. He was a cousin, as they say, of the Saviour. For Hegesippus records that Clopas was a brother of Joseph."

So isn't it possible that originally, the nice Emmaus story was added to Luke to give some credentials to Symeon as personally witnessing Jesus, and that a bit later editing someone decided to make it unclear if this line was talking about Clopas and Symeon seeing Jesus, or really Simon Peter seeing Jesus.

Also the text is clear that the speakers of the line ""The Lord has really risen and has appeared to Simon." have to be the two men on the trip to Emmaus, because in the next paragraph Jesus says "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?", if it was the apostles or the eleven that said the line above, then it would be weird for Jesus to think they still had doubts. But they did not say this, and were still doubting.

Ben C Smith

This is possible (I think), and I believe I have read someone suggesting this very scenario, though I forget who it was.

This is not true unless you adopt the variant in D. If you accept the majority text, there is no doubt that it is the eleven who are saying this.

1. The doubting is a stock element; in Matthew 28.17 the some doubted comes out of nowhere, too. John fleshes out this stock theme with the doubting Thomas story.

2. The doubting in Luke happens to follow cogently upon (some of?) the disciples thinking that Jesus was a phantom. Jesus goes on to assure them that it is really he, and that he is really made of restored human flesh and bone.

Ben.

spin

You know that Luke doesn't have Simon or Peter seeing the risen Jesus, if it is not one of the two who met him on the road to Emmaus. Luke specifically indicated that Peter only saw the remains in the empty tomb. Both your attempts are unprecedented. Dong! Fail.


spin

spin

Did I claim that "Luke mean[t] somebody different here" in the OP? Ummm, no.


spin

Pataphysician

It reads wrong to me, if the eleven really said "the Lord has really risen" they wouldn't have perceived Jesus as a ghost and not flesh a few sentences later, either that, or the writer is extremely terrible.

Also, my feeling is that originally the text went from Luke 24:11 to Luke 24:36, with the Emmaus story added in to give a priority to Symeon, and then later edited again with 24:12 and possibly editing the line in 24:33 to create a Simon Peter priority.

Ben C Smith

Think of it this way (I am having to scattershoot here a bit since you are not being very clear on your view). Let us imagine that the author of the rest of Luke did write verse 34 (whether he got it from tradition or his own imagination or whatever). In that case, Luke has a summary of an appearance to somebody named Simon; so who did Luke think this Simon was? The evidence from the rest of the book indicates that, when Luke writes Simon without qualification, Luke means Simon Peter.

But, if Luke wrote verse 34 and Luke thought that this was Simon Peter, there is virtually no way he placed this saying on the lips of the 2 from Emmaus; this means that the Bezae variant, on the presumption that Luke himself penned this verse, is not original.

You have been arguing that the Bezae variant is original, so I presume you cannot be thinking that the author of the rest of Luke was responsible for 24.34.

But, if the author of the rest of Luke is not responsible for 24.34, you have no business asking me for evidence within Luke for who the Simon in this fragment is; if it is an interpolation, any evidence from the rest of Luke is a moot point.

IOW, you cannot logically argue on the one hand that Luke was not responsible for verse 34 and then ask for evidence on the other hand for who the Simon in verse 34 is from the rest of Luke.

If you mean that he does not narrate the event, agreed.

You seem to be accepting the reading of Bezae in verse 34 but rejecting the reading in Bezae and several Old Latin texts for verse 12. What is your basis for doing this?

Ben.

Ben C Smith

Or the writer is just taking care to include all the stock elements, even if they do not mesh as perfectly as you would like them to.

I do not feel compelled, agree or disagree, to argue against your feeling.

Ben.

spin

Ben C, I gather from your continual use of "Luke" wrote, "Luke" thought, you are referring to the unknown writer(s) of the gospel.
OK.

One day it might be interesting to know exactly in which contexts the writer(s) used "Peter" and used "Simon".

I'd prefer to get to an understanding of what is to be extracted from the evidence, so I don't particularly have a solid idea, but I will put sticks in the wheels of those who go for the easy solution.

"[N]o business"?

In trying to get at what indications the text provides I can do whatever works. But you do seem to be misrepresenting me. I stated some of the problems as I saw the text in the OP.

(And do stop this "Luke was" this or that stuff. I don't use "Luke" in any other way than to refer to the text. It is unhelpful to use it to refer two distinct things. You might believe in the notion that the writer(s) was named Luke, but for me and many others it is an unjustifiable position, when you know from christian antiquity that texts tended to pass through multiple hands. In using Luke as a presupposition of single so named author, you make communication difficult, because you make argumentative statements which include your presupposition.)

OK. Then we enter into the discourse problem again. There is no narrative justification for the eleven saying "indeed", etc. A reader of the text cannot extract just from the text what you and Amaleq13 try to. No narrative groundwork exists in the text to back it up.

It's hard to claim that any one text tradition got things totally right, so you don't have much reason for this observation.


spin