andrewcriddle

In a thread some time ago (Ask a Mythicist) it was suggested that the Apocryphon of James from Nag Hammadi witnesses to a tradition that Jesus was buried in sand either literally or metaphorically.

I said that the Coptic is usually emended to buried shamefully and promised to look into it.

I've finally been able to do so. The evidence is confusing but I'll try and put it forward clearly although I don't know how to represent Coptic on this forum.

Translating the Coptic literally as it stands Jesus says to his disciples 'do you not know that you have yet to be abused and to be accused unjustly and have yet to be shut up in prison and condemned unlawfully, and crucified eloquently and buried in sand as was I myself by the evil one ?'

Something seems clearly wrong with and crucified eloquently and buried in sand , the most obvious emendation is to change slightly the word eloquently so as to read and crucified without reason and buried in sand . One can also change in sand with or without changing eloquently

If one changes eloquently to without reason one can also change in sand to shamefully although this is among the less obvious changes in terms of similarity in Coptic. A much more obvious change in terms of Coptic is to amend in sand to in perfume (with or without changing eloquently to without reason) This would presumably refer to the tradition of Jesus' elaborate burial in John's gospel.

Leaving eloquently as it is one can also reasonably easily in Coptic change in sand to proudly or boastfully giving us and crucified eloquently and buried proudly which makes a weird sort of sense.

In conclusion I'm sure there is something wrong with the Coptic but not at all sure what it is. IMVHO the change from in sand to in perfume is so easy in Coptic that it should probably be accepted; making this a reference to the account in John rather than to an otherwise unknown tradition of Jesus being buried in the sand or desert.

Andrew Criddle

Ecrasez L'infame

How close is "eloquently" and "without reason"? Seems a strange pair of adverbs to be confusables. Wouldn't it have caused lots of misunderstanding if, for example, "he speaks eloquently" and "he speaks without reason" sounded very similar?

andrewcriddle

The words differ by the presence or absence of a single letter.

Coptic like Greek uses LOGOS both for word and reason.

The Text has ATLOGOS which IIUC means something like 'with (many) words' the Emendation has ALOGOS where the initial A is now privative and the word means 'without reason'

Andrew Criddle

Ecrasez L'infame

Hey, how're things in Brummie? Here, it's pissing down, as usual.

OK, agreed, so the disputed bit should start "crucified without reason." It continues "and buried in sand" - you want to change this to "buried with perfume", while the more orthodox solution is "buried shamefully". Arguments for each are:

"In sand": you've already made one change, and assuming the writer made two mistakes in one sentence is far-fetched.
"In perfume": the slip between "sand" and "perfume" is easy to make; and it agrees with Jn 19:39-40.
"Shamefully": this, tho' a larger change, agrees nicely with the rest of the sentence - which concentrates on what a bum deal Jesus got.

Dunno, mate. I think you need at least one more argument. As it is, you might be able to claim the writer was punning on "in perfume", but not that that was the primary or only intended meaning.

BTW - this is a great quote. Here's Jesus saying he was accused unjustly (of what? being the king of the Jews?) AND that his trial was unlawful AND that there was no reason he had to die anyway. No wonder he's pissed off.

Regards

Robert

Amaleq13

Thanks for doing the legwork on this one, Andrew.

King of Men

I know absolutely nothing about Coptic, but is it possible that 'crucified eloquently' is actually not referring to a Crucifixion, but a debate that Jesus lost? In modern English you can crucify someone with words. That would leave 'buried in sand' as a metaphor, perhaps a common one in the parlance of the time, for what happens to bad debaters. Of course this may be really stupid in context, I don't know.

Notsri

Might the Toledot Yeshu have some bearing on the issue:

"A gardener had taken [Jesus] from the grave and had brought him into his garden and buried him in the sand over which the waters flowed into the garden."

-?-

andrewcriddle

It's a fascinating idea but I can't see anything else in the Apocryphon of James that suggests a connection with the tradition behind the Toledot Yeshu.

Andrew Criddle