mountainman

Is this Casey Jones?

Juststeve

An Aramaic source suggests nothing to me about the stories being true. It does suggest that the stories were early, that is to say prior to Mark. It suggests that some stories about Jesus were circulating in Aramaic before they were written down in Greek. It suggests that mythers who contend that Mark made up a biography of Jesus without resorting to earlier sources are probably wrong.

Steve

aa5874

Words in Aramaic do NOT at all suggest that gMark was early just like words in Greek or any language in writings of English today do NOT suggest that they were written sometime earlier.

You are not being logcal. You are merely repeating the logical fallacies of Ehrman.

Please concentrate.

If Aramaic was spoken at the time the author of gMark wrote his story then the inclusion of Aramaic words means the author may have known Aramaic words or he asked someone.

Ehrman appears to have extremely serious problems with logic. Ehrman should spend his time arguing with fundamentalist about the historicity of the resurrection.

Solo

That is a big "if", Toto. I would not let it pass unless the assertions of Casey can be demonstrated, on a probabilistic model, why they should be preferable. The argument that he seems to be making (from what is available of his "Jesus of Nazareth" on line) is simply asserting that certain things eg in Mark make better sense, if they are seen as transcriptions from Aramaic by someone making not being as proficient in the language as Casey himself. That is possible, but how do you prove it ?

For example Casey argues that Mark's disciples 'making a path' at 2:23 is a mistranslation from Aramaic which originally read, 'were going along a path'. Casey says that if the disciples were actually walking through the fields creating paths would have created an extra protest from the Pharisees - one beside plucking ears of corn on Sabbath - because this would have been forbidden vandalism. This of course lies within a realm of possibility. But how does one prove it ? The providential appearance of a committee of Pharisees ready to pounce on Jesus in the middle of fields on the Sabbath seems already stretching credulity, so this may be an irrelevant mistake of Mark in plotting the story. The main issue is of course Sabbath. Further, by a strange coincidence, as someone has pointed out the phrase "ὁδὸν ποιεῖν" (making their way) is already listed as one of Mark's latinisms (iter facere). The reviewer misreads Casey's argument, but all the same, one should be skeptical of anyone's ability to reconstruct with any sort of precision a NT verse based on its putative linguistic origin. It is obviously an exercise in circular reasoning.

There is another of Casey's arguments worth looking at as it appears in Ehrman's DJE (without attribution) as one of the more bizzare assertions. Casey believes that the Aramaic 'bar(^e)nash(ā)' (son of man) was never used by Jesus (if he lived) as a Christological title. That is of course very probable. He says that it does not mean the gospel stories that feature 'son of man' saying are authentic. Very true. However, he then makes an enormous leap of logic in arguing that the 'Aramaic criterion' of a vague self-reference, or saying simply 'man' could be used to identify sayings which are genuinely proceeding from Jesus. Among one such sayings is Mk 14:21 'A/The son of man goes as it is written of him, and woe to that man by whose hand a/the son of man is betrayed/handed over (tr by Casey) '. Casey believes that 'Jesus was in no doubt that he was going to suffer a humiliating death, and that this was to have a fundamental redemptive function...he therefore had good reason to state the prediction of his death in scripture and the doom awaiting the traitor in general terms. The Aramaic word 'goes' (^a zal) was a normal metaphor for 'dies', as the Greek word 'goes' was not, so it is further evidence that Mark was translating an Aramaic source'.

But this is total bunkum ! The word Mark uses in Greek is hypagō which is usually translated as 'go away' or 'depart' and it is transparently used in Mk 14:21 as in John 6:67, to hint at the final departure, i.e. death. One does not need assurance from Casey that this was better rendered in an Aramaic idiom, and much less the oath that this is evidence that Mark was copying material. Further the Last Supper saying has Jesus speaking of "the" son of man in a context that makes it clear to most reasonable people that he is speaking not in general terms but of himself, i.e. his own death predicted by, paradoxically by the self-referenced gospel (i.e. Paul and Mark). Casey should know after a lifetime of study of the NT that there is absolutely zero scriptural basis for Jesus (real or imagined) to say that it was predicted by scripture that "the/a" Son of Man is going to die in a redemptive act of God. By the same token, it is rubbish to say that Mark does not use "The Son of Man" as a christological title. All references to the passion and the saying of the Son of Man as the Lord of the Sabbath, are self-evidently titular. Mark 13:27 simply exchanges "Son of Man" for the "Lord" in 1 Th 4:16:17 to describe the final rapture.

Best,
Jiri

Toto

No one to my knowledge contends that Mark made up a biography of Jesus with no earlier sources. Clearly, he used the Septuagint, and also most likely Homer. If he used earlier Aramaic sources, there is still no indication that these were historical data about Jesus.

Steven Carr

Yes, because by 45 AD, Aramaic was a dead language which nobody spoke any more.

Steven Carr

Is it clear from Ehrman's book that Mark used the LXX?

Surely Ehrman did not hide THAT from his readers when he was speaking about Gospel sources?

spin

!? Really? Gosh, I didn't know that. I thought that Aramaic was alive and well and spoken by as many as, if not more than, those who spoke Hebrew. A look at the bar-Kochba caches shows a strong presence of three languages, Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. This is the case with funerary inscriptions. People don't use languages in legal documents and funerary inscriptions that they don't speak.

Vorkosigan

Steve was being sarcastic.

spin

:redface: