rhutchin

For reference, here is what the Bible says.

Matthew 15
21 Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon.
29 And Jesus departed from thence, and came nigh unto the sea of Galilee;..

Mark 7
24 And from thence he arose, and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon,…
31 And again, departing from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, he came unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis.

To put this into context for those in the US, here is what it amounts to.

It is as if Matthew says that Jesus travels from Chicago (or Minneapolis or Seattle but not Houston or Memphis) to the Chesapeake Bay. Then Mark tells us that Jesus travels from Chicago to the Chesapeake Bay through the eastern shore (i.e., via Ocean City, MD/Salisbury).

What this tells us is that Jesus ended up on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee and not the western side (i.e., where Galilee was).

To liken this to going from Washington to NY via Miami indicates that the person is unfamiliar with either Israel geography or US geography. I think this guy, Nineham, made this up to see how many people would fall for it without actually looking at any maps.

If there is a real problem here, can someone explain it?

yalla

If you go from Tyre/Sidon to Sea of Galilee you do not, as "Mark" puts it go "through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis.
In Nineham's words [p203]:
"Since there is no indication that St.Mark is thinking of a prolonged tour, the route described is hard to explain; a glance at the map will confirm Rawlinson's statement that it is "as though a man should travel from Cornwall to London via Manchester".
The Decapolis is south east of the Sea of Galilee, you would have to go along the Sea of Galilee to go "through the Decapolis" to get to the Sea of Galilee where you have already been or still are.
Certainly not 'through the 'midst' of the coasts of Decapolis.
You can't go through the coasts of the Decapolis without being at the Sea of Galilee.

The problem becomes even worse when you consider, as Nineham puts it:
"The reference to the Decapolis is also somewhat strange, it is usually translated as RSV, but literally the words mean "in the middle of the Decapolis district" p203.

"Matthew" seems to have noticed this and removed the problem by omitting 'Decapolis".

"This guy Nineham" is the author of the Pelican commentary "Saint Mark" 1963, Chaplain of Queen's College, Prof of Divinity at Cambridge, examining chaplain in 4 dioceses, member of Joint Management Committee of the New English Bible.
Whilst not appealing to authority it should be noted he was a prominent conservative Christian scholar, not some fly by night commenter.

JoeWallack

JW:

Explanation of error at ErrancyWiki:
Mark 7:31

The Decapolis [scroll to The Roman Decapolis]





Joseph

ErrancyWiki

rhutchin

Good Map. We see Tyre and Sidon to the Northwest and can easily see that a person traveling south could veer to the either side of the Sea of Galilee without difficulty. In this case, Mark says that they take a route that took them to the western side.

The Errancywike article refers to the problem as one of traveling from Tyre to Sidon and then to the western side of the Sea of Galilee. However, the texts says that they traveled to the general area of the "coasts [or Borders] of Tyre and Sidon" but we are not told exactly where they went.

Is Nineham assuming that they went from Tyre to Sidon before going to the Sea of Galilee? They could have. If they did, it would be like going from Chicago to Milwaukee and then back down to the Chesapeake Bay.

I still don't see the problem with this and errancywiki really didn't give much of an explanation of the problem.

rhutchin

Mark says, "he came unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis." So, Jesus travels inland, not along the coastline, but still along the coast, coming to the Decopolis region and then heading west to the Sea. Looking at the map, I don't see the problem with this route that Nineham is seeing. As I understand it, the Decopolis Region would border the Sea of Galilee at the southeastern part.

I think it just means that they were in the Decopolis region, not the exact middle of the region. One can be in the midst of a crowd of people without being in the exact middle of the crowd.

So? What does that have to do with anything?

yalla

Pardon?

You wrote:
"So, Jesus travels inland, not along the coastline, but still along the coast, coming to the Decopolis region and then heading west to the Sea"

How do you travel not along a coast but still along a coast?
Bit pedantic and terribly convenient isn't it, to be along a coast but not the coastline?
How far inland?
In the 'midst' of the Decapolis?
20 miles or so?
A good day's travel.
Or on the edge when 'midst' doesn't mean 'midst'?

What coast?
The coast of the Mediterranean?
Then head east [not west], to the Sea of Galilee?
Or:
The coast of the Sea of Galilee and then west to the Sea of Galilee?
When you are already there?
At the Sea of Galilee.

Thats why it is confusing.

Then add the point Joe makes in his link and as seen on the map, which you skipped over.
"Sidon is north of Tyre, not south of it: nobody starting from Tyre would pass through Sidon on the way southwards to Galilee"
From my RSV, "Mark" 7.31
"Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee..."
Heading north to go south.
Even more confusing.
Suggestive that "Mark" was unaware of the true relative positions of Tyre, Sidon and Sea of Galilee.

It seems that the author of "Matthew' thought so, because he changed what "Mark" wrote to remove the confusion.
"Matthew" 15.21
"And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon"
See how he has removed the travelling north to go south problem?
And then "Matthew' removes the confusion with respect to the SoG and the Decopolis by simply omitting the reference to the Decapolis.
Thus, at 15.29
"And Jesus went from there and passed along the Sea of Galilee".
No mucking about with 'coastlines'.

So you have conservative [as in traditional in their interpretations not raging radicals] scholars, Nineham and the other bloke mentioned by him, and the author of "Matthew", who either declare this bit of geography by "Mark" to be suggestive of poor geographical knowledge or change the wording to remove that suggestion.

See the contortions you had to go through to try and whitewash it, 'ignore the north-south positions of Tyre-Sidon/along the coast but not the coastline/midst doesn't necessarily mean exact middle'?

"Matthew" just changes it all.
Problem solvered [thats an Australianism].

rhutchin

I guess we don't know how far from the coast they traveled. They apparently were walking and not traveling by boat. This is not really an issue.

They were traveling on a road west of the Sea of Galilee. There is no reason to confuse this with the Mediterranean. They simply traveled down to the Decopolis area and then went west to the Sea of Galilee. I don't see where this is a geographical issue.

So, you think we should assume that Jesus went from Tyre to Sidon in order to reach the Sea of Galilee rather than just visiting some location in the Tyre/Sidon area (as the Bible leads us to believe). Seems like you have to make a few assumptions just so that you can generate a problem.

So, why is this a problem. Can you actually explain a geographical problem? They traveled from the Tyre/Sidon region to the Decopolis region and from there went to the Sea of Galilee. Mark explains this in a succinct fashion. You are trying to create a problem where none exists.

From what you say, it seems that you are the one going through contortions to create a problem where none exists even citing a conservative scholar as if that means anything. Perhaps, you should just look at the text and explain what exactly is wrong with Mark's description and leave out your assumptions about what you think happened.

avi

Thank you for this advice. I will try to follow it.

Do we know for sure, i.e. with great certainty, what the region looked like, in the eyes of anyone, Mark, or Matthew, or anyone else, two millenia before the present day?

Here's a different map, maybe this will provoke some other responses. My point is simply that the region which we call, today, looking at this map, supposedly representing Palestine 2000 years ago, "Decapolis", is nowhere near the water. Any water. It is desert. We can see that, most reasonably, by simply looking at the quantity of named settlements in "Decapolis". NONE. Ok, that's hyperbole. How about very, very FEW?

If you, or I or any other forum member, sought to go out and preach to spread the good news, would we travel to a desert, and talk to the crows and hawks? Not likely, is it, rhutchin? So, is it possible, then, that in ancient times, this region, which on today's maps appears as "Decapolis", lying EAST of the Jordan River, perhaps, in those days, embraced the region to the West, all the way to the ocean, i.e. what is today called, Samaria, and Galilee?

Ok, I agree, that's not too likely. How about this, then: maybe the Greek word dekapolewV represented a synonym for Galilee?

OOPS, guess not, because the Greek sentence makes it very clear that Galilee is differentiated from Decapolis by the Greeks writing in the First (or Second, if Joe W is correct, and I think he is right on target!) century:

Mark 7:31
kai palin exelqwn ek twn oriwn turou hlqen dia sidwnoV eiV thn qalassan thV galilaiaV ana meson twn oriwn dekapolewV (my emphasis)

So, we decided, in accord with rhutchin's admonition, to stick to the text, and then, ask two questions:

1. Is there relative harmony between Mark 7:31, and Matthew 15:21;

2. Does Mark's version of the travelogue correspond to a realistic voyage by anyone, let alone a messianic figure who imagines himself the son of God, and who views it as his duty to travel far and wide to spread the good news?

Well, here is Matthew 15:21:
kai exelqwn ekeiqen o ihsouV anecwrhsen eiV ta merh turou kai sidwnoV

oops, now, we have to pause briefly for a commercial break, to lend a cursory look at the very next passage:
Matthew 15:22
kai idou gunh cananaia apo twn oriwn ekeinwn exelqousa ekrazen legousa elehson me kurie uioV dauid h qugathr mou kakwV daimonizetai

(nota bene, not to derail the thread, but, ... SON of David, not "seed" of David, sperma....)

ok, back ontrack:

Matthew 15:29
kai metabaV ekeiqen o ihsouV hlqen para thn qalassan thV galilaiaV kai anabaV eiV to oroV ekaqhto ekei

Alright, so what have we got, here, in Matthew? Jesus departed from Tyre and Sidon, and went to the Sea of Galilee, where he ascended a mountain. As one can readily discern from the map, see link above, the mountains lie to the WEST of the Sea of Galilee, so, there would have been absolutely no reason to travel anywhere near the desert of Decapolis, to ascend that mountain. Perhaps that is why Matthew makes no reference to it???

So, rhutchin, I suspect that you know a great deal more Greek, than I; may I inquire, humbly, if that is possible, or even without humility, whether or not it was common, back then, a couple thousand years ago, to write, that someone would travel from a to b then to c, where c is southeast of a, and b is northeast of a? For, I would surely have written, contrarily, to both Mark and Matthew, that Jesus traveled from Sidon to Tyre, then to Galilee, to ascend the mountain. Maybe that seems trivial, banal, or even stupid. I have been called worse,

The map shows a distance from Sidon to Tyre of about 30 miles. That's a fair distance, on foot, in the heat.....
It seems to me reasonable to ask whether or not ancient Greek authors typically described traveling in such cavalier terms, i.e. without regard to the distances involved. To me, 30 miles is a huge journey, on foot. Since one must then travel south to Galilee, it is really a 60 mile detour to travel North to visit Sidon. Maybe the roads were blocked, or terrorists had bombed the roadway from Tyre to Galilee?

Here's Douay Rheims Translation of Mark 7:31:
And again going out of the coasts of Tyre, he came by Sidon to the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis.

I observe three different errors in this translation, assuming that it is an accurate representation of the Greek original:

a. one does not, departing from Tyre, heading to Galilee, pass by Sidon. Sidon is northeast of Tyre, and Galilee is southeast of Tyre. One is not obliged, or expected, to travel to Sidon, in order to reach the sea of Galilee.

b. Decapolis has no "coasts" along any ocean. It is a landlocked desert.

c. Decapolis, whether its "midst", or its "extremities", is nowhere near the mountains to the west of the sea of Galilee, where Jesus went to sit alone.

That's my reading of the text.

avi

Iskander

http://hippos.haifa.ac.il/graphics/Decapolis.jpg

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=...ed=0CCAQ9QEwBw


Two cities of the decapolis by the sea of Galilee


Hippos – Sussita
Sussita is situated on a high mountain about two kilometers east of the Lake of Tiberias (Sea of Galilee), and 350 m. above the level of the lake

The ancient city of Hippos-Sussita is located on the east shore of the Sea of Galilee,
http://hippos.haifa.ac.il/galleryPages/16.htm


Gadara is one of four cities in the Decapolis region that were founded during the Ptolemaic and not in the Seleucid Period. It is mentioned very often in historical sources, and it even appears on the Peutinger Map. Gadara is identified with Umm Qeis, above the Yarmuk River. From the city one can get an alluring vista of the Yarmuk Valley, the Lake of Tiberias and the Galilee.

And another map
http://www.bible-history.com/maps/Ma...and-Cities.jpg

yalla

I surrender.
You win.
Your impeccable logic, sense of direction, precise wording, exact quotation of the 'bible' rather than the words of "Mark" etc have convinced me you will not see any geographic problem in "Mark".