spin

Josephus also refers to various Hebrew bible Yohanans as Ioannes, commander under Jehoshaphat, son of Kareah, son of Eliashib, son of Joiada, plus, of course, the Maccabean examples and JtB.


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Loomis

I was furthering Petergdi’s point; which is that John, Elizabeth, and Zacharias, appear outside of Luke. But since you brought it up - it certainly can help because the author of the Infancy Gospel of James recognized that Luke was barrowing material from 1 Samuel, which in turn supports the view that John was named John because of 1 Samuel 2:26.Sure. I agree 100%. But where did JtB get his name?

Now do you see what I mean?

These two ideas aren’t necessarily competing to explain the same thing.

the_cave

Well then this is all very interesting! Doesn't it suggest that Luke realized (or else he knew his audience realized) that "Ioannes" was not found in the Tanakh that he (or his audience) used? (Or else it is a little dig against the Hasmoneans--"The messiah couldn't be a Hasmonean!" IOW, "Ioannes" might have been a contemporary name for Yohanan, but at least some folk knew you couldn't find it in the canonical scriptures. Thus explaining Lk 1:61.

(I'm also curious why Yonathan ben Uziel is sometimes called Yonosson. Where does Yonosson come from?)

Ben C Smith

Problem: The name John means Yahweh is gracious [ח�*ן, chanan] in Hebrew. The word for favor in 1 Samuel 2.26 is simply the Hebrew word for good, טוב, which has nothing linguistically to do with graciousness.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

Please note that the Hebrew letter nun never comes out right on this forum. The Hebrew word for gracious can be transliterated XNN. (Not XTN.)

Ben.

spin

The importance of both the Maccabees and Josephus using "Ioannes" is that it was the normal form of the name in Greek at that time. Not only did Josephus use the form for Jewish figures of the bible, he used it for people he knew during his time in Judea including John of Gischala and John the Essene. It was just the common form in Greek.

Although we use the "th" in Jonathan, it would have been pronounced as a /t/ in the original. The change between /t/ and /s/ in well-known in Greek and Latin. Whether that has any connection with Yonathan I don't know, though it is the only real difference as short vowels are frequently inconsequential.


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neilgodfrey

This double nativity story is surely based on similar stories in Genesis/Judges/1 Samuel, and the effect is to recreate something of the "idealistic-mythical" atmosphere that we find with those ancient stories. Those stories are also sparsely told. I suspect the author of these Lukan chapter was using the same sparesness deliberately, and it is a mistake to think that what we read is a truncated version of what "must have been" a more detailed and fully coherent account.

The author tosses out scene after scene, with minimal explanatory and background linkages to create a picturesque narrative flow, so the effect is something of a series of pictures, paintings, in a gallery giving the reader/viewer visions of the sequence, and leaving it to that readers/viewers to fill in the gaps themselves. This is part and parcel of the style of the "mythical-idealistic" tales imitated.

How Elisabeth knew remains technically "as mysterious" as the origin of Cain's wife.

The effect (if not the "why") is to augment the mythical-Genesis narrative atmosphere, to enhance the impression of God and much else at work and working more deeply behind the scenes that must be left to the audience's imagination. Zechariah can't speak, so the audience is left wondering about communication between him and his wife, and this questioning is only sharpened, not resolved, by Elisabeth's announcement. (Zechariah is not deaf, by the way, since the author immediately has the guests speak to him with an intelligible outcome.) I suspect the author crafted the narrative this way to help build the atmosphere of some mystery and inconclusiveness appropriate for a myth-like tale of idealistic pious characters being tools of divine workings behind the scenes.


Neil

spin

Certainly. Samuel is the minor source and Samson is the major one. Both figures were nazirites, which is not important so much for Jesus as for John, whose diet and clothing suggest that he'd taken a (nazirite) vow.

The narrative functionality we see so often in these stories is disturbed by lack of foreshadowing for Elisabeth.

I don't agree with this evaluation at all. The JtB birth narrative source wasn't written by the Lucan as the latter has little real interest in the temple while his source clearly did. The narrative at least regarding Zachariah is quite clear and well-structured, building from his presence in the temple to his prophecy after his dumbness was lifted. The same writer would certainly have been similarly inclined with Elisabeth. It's interesting to note that the "song of Mary" (starting at 1:46) is sometimes given to Elisabeth in exotic sources. It was probable that the section was originally hers given that it is based on Hannah's prayer in 1 Sam 2, Hannah the old barren woman, just as Elisabeth was.

Different sort of narrative style. Our writer (of the JtB birth source) wants to show the necessity of what he narrates.

Don't you find it strange that Mary is supposedly off on her own way out of Galilee? She's betrothed, damn it! Women didn't travel by themselves. Mary is an intrusion into the narrative. She doesn't even stay for the birth. She stays three months and then she's off despite the fact that the birth was imminent.


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the_cave

Sure, but it was not the form in the Greek of the canonical Tanakh--that is why the author of Luke wrote Lk 1:61 (possibly).

spin

I'm sorry, I don't understand. Are you saying the Greek form of the name as found in the LXX would be more important to the writer of the text than the form in common use?

1:61 seems relatively straightforward: the name was not used by an ancestor. Or not?


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