Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Diogenes the Cynic · 04-28-2012, 07:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

This is simply not accurate. There IS evidence of underlying Aramaic sources, in things like the idioms I mentioned above (and "son of man" is another one), and there are also instances where Mark gets his translations/transliterations wrong, indicating that Aramaic was not his first language (i.e. not the language he thought in), if indeed he knew it at all.

1. There is no fixed translation/transliteration for Aramaic at that time.

That doesn't mean it wasn't possible to get something wrong. Mark, for instance got Boanerges wrong. That's not the right transliteration from the Aramaic. I'll quote an actual credentialed expert on the relevant languages here

Quote:

It is unfortunate that the Aramaic bane ra`em, `sons of thunder', was transliterated into Greek so badly as to give us the English `Boanerges', directly from Mark's Boane rges printed with no gaps between the words, and this has caused scholars no end of trouble. As Collins put it mildly in the most recent enormous commentary on Mark, `the original is difficult to reconstruct ... Neither Matthew nor Luke includes the surname of the sons of Zebedee in the parallel passages, perhaps because it was not intelligible to their respective authors.'22 We must start from bane ra`em, and see what went wrong with the process of transliterating bane ra`em into Greek letters.23 Many bilinguals are not very good at transliterating, especially between languages which have such different alphabets as Aramaic and Hebrew, on the one hand, and Greek on the other. Mark's first problem was a shewa, a short noise in Aramaic and Hebrew, represented by the raised a in both bane and ra`em. In Greek, this might be represented by a, e, or o, all short vowels. Mark must have asked someone what to do, and misunderstood their answer, because either a or o would have been all right, but oa is ridiculous. He can't have been very happy with what he put either, because when he got to the shewa in ra`em, he left it out. His next problem was the Aramaic `ayin, in the middle of ra`em. This is a guttural noise made at the back of the throat, which has no equivalent in Greek. It was however quite often represented with the Greek gamma, the equivalent of our `g', and Mark followed this normal habit. He then misread the final Aramaic `m' as an `s', a natural mistake if he was used to letters being written as they are in the Dead Sea Scrolls, natural that is if he did not recognize the Aramaic word for `thunder'. That is also natural in a bilingual, for most bilinguals are not fully competent in both their languages, so Mark may not have recognized the Aramaic r''em, because he always called thunder bronte in Greek. Two conclusions follow. First, we do know exactly what Jesus called Jacob and John. He called them bane re`em, the normal Aramaic for `sons of thunder'. Secondly, this is further evidence that Mark was a normal and fallible bilingual, and that he did not finish his Gospel. I have noted other evidence that it not merely lacks the ending which he intended to write, it is unrevised all the way through.

Maurice Casey. Jesus of Nazareth: An independent historian's account of his life and teaching (Kindle Locations 3074-3088). Kindle Edition.

This is only one example of a mistake Casey finds in Mark's translations. There is much more, and I am inclined to listen to someone who is a credentialed expert and makes a substantive linguistic argument than I am to dismissive handwaving from non-experts.

Quote:

2. The idioms are translations, not indicators of underlying Aramaic sources.

When they are literal idioms in Aramaic, but not Greek, they are indicators of Aramaic sources. "Son of Man" doesn't mean anything in Greek.

Quote:

It's not dead cinch that Mark had Aramaic sources, but there is evidence that he did and perfectly reasonable arguments are made for it by experts in those languages (Maurice Casey, for instance).

None of those arguments are reasonable. None of those scholars possesses any method to differentiate representations of Aramaic sources from simple translations from Aramaic. In those places where Aramaic is represented in Mark's gospel is almost always has very obvious alternative sources. The hunt for Aramaic sources is purely apologetic in nature.

I'd enjoy seeing this "evidence." Ehrman's is obviously shit. What else have you got?

Vorkosigan

Maurice Casey, who I quoted above, is one of the world's foremost experts on 1st century, Palestinian Aramaic, and you have to do better than "his evidence is shit," when you are not credentialed in those languages yourself and have not offered a substantive, evidentiary rebuttal. Saying Casey's arguments are not at least reasonable is in itself, unreasonable.

stephan huller · 04-28-2012, 07:36 PM

Aphrahat's Diatessaron has the order of (i) Feeding of the 5000 (ii) Canaanite woman [undoubtedly with Markan elements like Ephrem] (iii) healing of the man with the speech impediment (Mark 7:33).

Matthew (i) that which defiles (ii) Canaanite woman (iii) feeding of the 4000

Mark- Feeding of the Five Thousand - Waling on Water - (i) that which defiles (ii) Syro-Phoenician woman (iii) healing of the deaf and mute man (Mark 7:33)

http://books.google.com/books?id=Hft...ech%20&f=false

The point of course is that the Diatessaron follows Mark even if Matthew doesn't, retains part of its narrative with respect to the mother and daughter narrative but still calls her 'Canaanite.'

spin · 04-28-2012, 07:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

Maybe or the transmission of the gospels is more complicated than many of us would care to admit.

It is the trend in biblical studies to try to simplify the writing/transmission process. If I understand correctly it is fundamentally apologetic in nature.

Diogenes the Cynic · 04-28-2012, 07:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jdl

For a writer to use Aramaic sources wouldn't he have to understand Aramaic? And wouldn't that imply he came from an Aramaic-speaking region? I'm afraid I don't get it.

Joseph

Casey thinks Mark was bilingual, but Ehrman doesn't say that. he basically thinks (if I understand correctly) that Mark inherited some (only some) oral traditions in Greek that had already been mutated from Aramaic.

stephan huller · 04-28-2012, 07:44 PM

I just don't think people spend enough time thinking about the Diatessaron. If the transmission of the canonical gospels is a puzzle, throwing the Diatessaron into the mix (especially with the witnesses of Ephrem and Aphraates) is like the same puzzle on acid. There uncanny Markan elements in the Diatessaron. Where did they come from? How did this text develop? Waiting for pork ribs to cook in the oven for my dog.

Vorkosigan · 04-28-2012, 07:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

The accusation of Tertullian (Justin?) that Marcion removed the passage from his gospel:

As the saying goes, let us get down to it: to your task, Marcion: remove even this from the gospel, I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and, It is not <meet> to take away the children's bread and give it to dogs:c for this gives the impression that Christ belongs to Israel. I have plenty of acts, if you take away his words. Take away Christ's sayings, and the facts will speak; See how he enters into the synagogue: surely to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. See how he offers the bread of his doctrine to the Israelites first: surely he is giving them preference as sons. See how as yet he gives others no share of it: surely he is passing them by, like dogs. Yet on whom would he have been more ready to bestow it than on strangers to the Creator, if he himself had not above all else belonged to the Creator?

Thats very interesting, since I do not think that this pericope is original to Mark.

Vorkosigan

stephan huller · 04-28-2012, 07:55 PM

But's it's also not in Luke which makes it one of four of five times in Book Four you scratch your head wondering what gospel the author is talking about. He's always accusing Marcion of cutting Matthean passages out of his gospel.

spin · 04-28-2012, 07:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

Quote:

It is unfortunate that the Aramaic bane ra`em, `sons of thunder', was transliterated into Greek so badly as to give us the English `Boanerges', directly from Mark's Boane rges printed with no gaps between the words, and this has caused scholars no end of trouble. As Collins put it mildly in the most recent enormous commentary on Mark, `the original is difficult to reconstruct ... Neither Matthew nor Luke includes the surname of the sons of Zebedee in the parallel passages, perhaps because it was not intelligible to their respective authors.'22 We must start from bane ra`em, and see what went wrong with the process of transliterating bane ra`em into Greek letters.23 Many bilinguals are not very good at transliterating, especially between languages which have such different alphabets as Aramaic and Hebrew, on the one hand, and Greek on the other. Mark's first problem was a shewa, a short noise in Aramaic and Hebrew, represented by the raised a in both bane and ra`em. In Greek, this might be represented by a, e, or o, all short vowels. Mark must have asked someone what to do, and misunderstood their answer, because either a or o would have been all right, but oa is ridiculous. He can't have been very happy with what he put either, because when he got to the shewa in ra`em, he left it out. His next problem was the Aramaic `ayin, in the middle of ra`em. This is a guttural noise made at the back of the throat, which has no equivalent in Greek. It was however quite often represented with the Greek gamma, the equivalent of our `g', and Mark followed this normal habit. He then misread the final Aramaic `m' as an `s', a natural mistake if he was used to letters being written as they are in the Dead Sea Scrolls, natural that is if he did not recognize the Aramaic word for `thunder'. That is also natural in a bilingual, for most bilinguals are not fully competent in both their languages, so Mark may not have recognized the Aramaic r''em, because he always called thunder bronte in Greek. Two conclusions follow. First, we do know exactly what Jesus called Jacob and John. He called them bane re`em, the normal Aramaic for `sons of thunder'. Secondly, this is further evidence that Mark was a normal and fallible bilingual, and that he did not finish his Gospel. I have noted other evidence that it not merely lacks the ending which he intended to write, it is unrevised all the way through.

Maurice Casey. Jesus of Nazareth: An independent historian's account of his life and teaching (Kindle Locations 3074-3088). Kindle Edition.

Casey merely conjectures that the ayin to gamma was on the shoulders of the Marcan writer. In fact the change is quite common. The town of Gaza has an ayin in Hebrew, as does Gomorrah. The personal name Athalia ends up Gotholia in 1 Esdras 8:33. Attributing ayin/gamma to the writer of Mark has no basis. (But then others explain the word as not thunder but Hebrew "tumult", resh-gimel-shin, which is easy enough.) And the statement that the /oa/ is "ridiculous" is in itself ridiculous. The manifestation of the diphthong suggests a transmission process not a simple transliteration. If the writer had a written source then how the fuck could one get the /oa/?? Casey is silly here. If it was an oral source from someone merely passing on a mumbo-jumbo word then it is more easily explainable. Casey is clairvoyant.

stephan huller · 04-28-2012, 08:03 PM

The gloss in the Greek “sons of thunder” is highly dubious, since neither regesh nor regez can have this meaning in either Hebrew or Aramaic. The Old Syriac (not the same as the Peshitta, but earlier!) leaves it out, probably because an Aramaic-speaker could not believe it. If the root is RESH-GIMEL-SHIN, then it means “perception”, either sense-perception or coming to know something in the mind by being informed or by working it out (close to English “realising”). If the root is RESH-GIMEL-ZAYIN, then it means “wrath” or in the right context “noisy commotion”. The Greek spelling is RGES, not RGEZ, so the first explanation fits better. But then, what is it that is perceived? And why “sons of perception”, an expression that sounds decidedly odd?

Diogenes the Cynic · 04-28-2012, 08:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

The gloss in the Greek “sons of thunder” is highly dubious, since neither regesh nor regez can have this meaning in either Hebrew or Aramaic. The Old Syriac (not the same as the Peshitta, but earlier!) leaves it out, probably because an Aramaic-speaker could not believe it. If the root is RESH-GIMEL-SHIN, then it means “perception”, either sense-perception or coming to know something in the mind by being informed or by working it out (close to English “realising”). If the root is RESH-GIMEL-ZAYIN, then it means “wrath” or in the right context “noisy commotion”. The Greek spelling is RGES, not RGEZ, so the first explanation fits better. But then, what is it that is perceived? And why “sons of perception”, an expression that sounds decidedly odd?

This is interesting. Thanks. I've recently come to realize that my lack of Aramaic is inexcusable anymore. I know Greek and Latin, but not Aramaic or Hebrew. Do you know of any primers on Aramaic that are good?

As to the reason for the nickname, Mark provides none. This raises the question of why he would invent an Aramaic nickname, translate it (accurately or otherwise) and offer no explanation at all for it.

I personally think that Kephas and Boanerges both were nicknames that these early church leaders (Paul attests the existence of both Peter and John as "Pillars" at least, regardless of any connection to a real HJ) were known to have had, but by the time Mark was writing, no one knew their origins. The "you are the rock on which I will build my church" speech is patent, just-so, bullshit, but there was still some kind of real character called "Simon the Rock" in the Jerusalem church. I would guess that some of these nicknames (Kephas, Thomas, Boanerges, anything else I might be forgetting) might have had utterly mundane origins, perhaps even from childhood, but those origins are unrecoverable to us. Calling somebody "Rock" for instance suggest perhaps some kind of physical presence - a big solid guy, maybe, but who the hell knows. it could be rooted in some lost anecdote from somewhere in his life that had no connection with Jesus or the Jesus cult at all. That kind of thing isn't recoverable by deduction.

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

04-28-2012, 07:36 PM	#52
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	Aphrahat's Diatessaron has the order of (i) Feeding of the 5000 (ii) Canaanite woman [undoubtedly with Markan elements like Ephrem] (iii) healing of the man with the speech impediment (Mark 7:33). Matthew (i) that which defiles (ii) Canaanite woman (iii) feeding of the 4000 Mark- Feeding of the Five Thousand - Waling on Water - (i) that which defiles (ii) Syro-Phoenician woman (iii) healing of the deaf and mute man (Mark 7:33) http://books.google.com/books?id=Hft...ech%20&f=false The point of course is that the Diatessaron follows Mark even if Matthew doesn't, retains part of its narrative with respect to the mother and daughter narrative but still calls her 'Canaanite.'

04-28-2012, 07:44 PM	#55
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	I just don't think people spend enough time thinking about the Diatessaron. If the transmission of the canonical gospels is a puzzle, throwing the Diatessaron into the mix (especially with the witnesses of Ephrem and Aphraates) is like the same puzzle on acid. There uncanny Markan elements in the Diatessaron. Where did they come from? How did this text develop? Waiting for pork ribs to cook in the oven for my dog.

04-28-2012, 07:55 PM	#57
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	But's it's also not in Luke which makes it one of four of five times in Book Four you scratch your head wondering what gospel the author is talking about. He's always accusing Marcion of cutting Matthean passages out of his gospel.

04-28-2012, 08:03 PM	#59
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	The gloss in the Greek “sons of thunder” is highly dubious, since neither regesh nor regez can have this meaning in either Hebrew or Aramaic. The Old Syriac (not the same as the Peshitta, but earlier!) leaves it out, probably because an Aramaic-speaker could not believe it. If the root is RESH-GIMEL-SHIN, then it means “perception”, either sense-perception or coming to know something in the mind by being informed or by working it out (close to English “realising”). If the root is RESH-GIMEL-ZAYIN, then it means “wrath” or in the right context “noisy commotion”. The Greek spelling is RGES, not RGEZ, so the first explanation fits better. But then, what is it that is perceived? And why “sons of perception”, an expression that sounds decidedly odd?

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.