ynquirer

My count of Shiloh occurrences in the Tanakh is as follows.

Genesis 49:10 displays Shiloh once with an $YLH spelling; it never again occurs in the Tanakh.

Joshua displays a consistent $LH spelling (8 times).

Judges displays $LH once, $LW once, and $YLW twice (in the same verse).

1 Samuel displays $LH seven times, and $LW twice.

1 Kings is also quite consistent in the use of $LH (3 times).

Psalm 78 displays $LW once.

Finally, Jeremiah displays $LH three times, $LW once, and $YLW once.

A first, indisputable conclusion is that differences in pronunciation are involved. Even if $Y- and $- were freely interchangeable, as spin presupposes, $YLH and $LH would perhaps have the same pronunciation, but it is all too clear that $YLH and $YLW would not have the same pronunciation, nor would $LH and $LW. Therefore, differences in pronunciation are beyond doubt.

A second remark is that we don’t have any reassurance that $YLH, $LH, $LW and $YLW all represent one and the same name. They might as well represent four different names, or three, or perhaps two. We don’t know for sure. The reason why we take for granted that they are different spellings - involving different pronunciations - for the same name (English Shiloh) is that all of them are matched in the Septuagint with the same Greek transliteration, namely, Shlw.

On the one hand, the matre lectionis in $YLH and $YLW quite clearly indicates that the I after $ is a long one, /i:/, while conversely, absence of it in $LH and SLW - after $YLH appeared in Genesis - suggests that the I after the $ here is a short one, /i/. On the other hand, we know that the translators of the Tanakh into the Septuagint used to transliterate Hebraic /i:/ as eta, or Greek /e:/. Out of 28 occurrences of the name in Hebrew, only three display the matre lectionis, while the remaining 25 do not. Still, the Septuagint quite persistently transliterates the I as eta - as if the matre lectionis were displayed many more times. Why?

The explanation looks like very simple. The first, earlier commitment of the Septuagint was to translate the so-called Books of Moses - the Pentateuch. Only after this commitment was accomplished did they go on and translate the rest of the Tanakh. Well, Shiloh appears in the Books of Moses only once, in Ge 49:10. In spelling Shlw they just were faithful to an orthodox transliteration of $YLH, the sole appearance of the name in the target source. Afterward, they found another three different spellings of what they supposed to be the same name. In the dilemma, they just stuck to their first choice.

spin

Isn't this alone sufficient to convince you that you can have two separate versions of a name which contains a long vowel, one with and the other without mater lectionis? I mean $LW and $YLW are only two verses apart. Were they pronounced differently by the scribe? The fact that QYP) and QP) occurs in close proximity seems to be your only problem with the transliteration Khfas, yet one finds an example of such proximity in the Hebrew bible.


spin

S.C.Carlson

Has your point about QYP) and QP) been written up in a journal, spin? If not, you should go ahead and put it out there in the scholarly debate.

Stephen

spin

No it hasn't, but is it such a novel idea? I mean hasn't anyone else floated it? (It was after all cobbled together with string and chewing gum.)

If not, I'm not averse to others putting it under scholarly scrutiny -- in some internet forum, for example --, as long as the origin of the idea is acknowledged. "I came across this apparently wild idea in my wanderings and wondered if it had any merit whatsoever..."


spin

JoeWallack

JW:
I don't remember agreeing not to write anything based on Implication. Stop wasting time Ben.


JW:
See above comment. By The Way, that's what Apologists do, they keep asking/demanding a more specific answer until there isn't one and than posture that the related point can be totally dismissed. Hint - "Mark's" Jesus explains this 3 (surprise) times.

You are so willing to cling to the weakest implication if it supports your Beliefs and so unwilling to accept better implications if they don't support your beliefs.


JW:
All four supposed brothers of "Mark's" Jesus have the Same names as important supposed disciples of "Mark's" Jesus. Deal with it. As we move to the individual level it is more likely that there is a coincidence in Names. Do I really need to explain this to you Ben?


JW:
So "Mark" Explicitly having a Theme of family replacement, having the only parent of Jesus named "Mary" and a brother named "Joseph", Explicitly saying Jesus' mother and brothers thought Jesus was crazy and having a different "Mary", mother of "Joseph", Witness the supposed crucifixion could not possibly be more than a coincidence.



JW:
Again, the Names of all four brothers are the same as the Name of Four important disciples. More wasted time.



JW:
In order to evaluate the Likelihood that the Names of "Mark's" Jesus' brothers are Contrived you are using the wrong comparison because of your Bias. The comparison should be:

1) Statistically, what is the Likelihood of the Same names between brothers and important disciples if there is no Contrivance?

2) Statistically, what is the Likelihood of the Same names between brothers and important disciples if there is Contrivance?

Anyway you do this will point to Contrivance being the likely explanation because all four brothers of Jesus have Names of important disciples and there aren't that many Named, important disciples in "Mark".

The only comparision you want to use is a 100% matching of Names with the % "Mark" used. An Apologetic Jewdie mind trick. Homily don't play that game.

Ben, that you want to plead ignorance that you've never heard anyone make this Name connection observation is no reflection on me, it's a reflection on Mainstream Christian bible scholarship.



Joseph

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

S.C.Carlson

I don't know; it's not really in my field of interest. If it has been floated, it would be worth checking to see what the reaction is.

The point of publishing it is to get it more scrutiny than most internet fora can possibly provide. People aren't likely to be publishing someone else's idea, so it's pretty much up to you.

Stephen

Ben C Smith

Hi, Joe.

I am not even certain what exactly my beliefs are regarding the names in the gospel tradition. I am just finding your particular twist on them a little difficult to believe.

Except Joses. It is not Mark who makes Joseph of Arimathea a disciple of Jesus; that would be Matthew. In fact, it is also Matthew who explicitly calls the brother Joseph, again making the link you wish to find in Mark more explicit.

It may not be a coincidence. But I do not think that yours is the best explanation even if it is not. Names can get confused in oral transmission without there having to be a grand authorial scheme to explain every name correspondence.

1. The brother Simon bears the same name as Simon Peter, but he also shares his name with Simon the Cananaean (the zealot).
2. The brother James bears the same name as James of Zebedee, but he also shares his name with James of Alphaeus.
3. The brother Joses bears no name from the twelve, or from anybody else whom Mark either calls a disciple or groups with the disciples.
4. The brother Judas bears the same name as Judas Iscariot, but he also shares his name with Judas of James in the Lucan list.

What I see as more likely than some Marcan plan to exchange names is a confusion in the transmission of the tradition. (What follows is just a suggestion that dawned on me no more than a year or so ago.) The tradition knew about a group of twelve disciples, but the names of some of the less important ones got lost. The tradition also knew that there were certain Jewish Christians named James, Judas, and Simon in the early Jerusalem church; these were the brothers of Jesus, but in time their names were used, whether intentionally or accidentally, to fill out the list of twelve.

This scenario would explain why two of these lesser disciples have names that resonate with those of the dominical family. The designation Judas of James probably means Judas son of James, but what if that is just a garbled transmission of Judas brother of James, as in Jude 1.1? The designation James of Alphaeus may likewise be an alternate transmission of James of Cloephas, since Alphaeus and Cleophas may be etymologically linked (that is a long debate into which I do not wish to enter here; and the exact etymology is unnecessary for my suggestion, since it relies not on true and accurate transmission but rather on confusion or close interchangeability of names). Cleophas is related in some way to a certain Mary in John 19.25.

(Even the order of names is somewhat similar. Mark 3.18 has James, Thaddaeus, and Simon; Mark 6.3 has James, [Joses,] Judas, and Simon.)

Some (like James Tabor) have used these data and many others to argue that these lesser disciples actually were the brothers of Jesus. I find that a little difficult to swallow; but I think that, if names were lost from the list of twelve over the years, those names would likely be replaced (we see a similar tendency later in the attempts to name the seventy). And I think that the relatives of Jesus would have provided a good pool of names from which to pick to replace them.

Again, this is only a suggestion, one of many that could doubtless be formulated to account for the deep pockets of overlapping names in the gospel tradition. But IMHO this kind of confusion is a better explanation for name similarity (when an explanation is needed at all) than Mark clumsily cutting and pasting names in order to fill out a theological program that, when all is said and done, still looks quite obscure.

I am not necessarily seeking 100%, but if all of this name overlap is a Marcan plan, I do expect it to look a little better planned than it looks to me right now.

Whom should I read to catch up with your take on the Marcan name games? Thanks in advance.

Ben.

ynquirer

Not really, I’m afraid.

Truth to be told, I don’t condone the Septuagint theory that $YLH, $LH, $LW, and $YLW, all stand for the same name. The first one, $YLH, for instance, was probably mistranslated into Shlw (= Shiloh). This is the KJV, which closely follows the Septuagint:

The RSV instead translates:

The main difference is that the RSV does not renders $YLH a toponymic but a form of the verb $YK (=to belong). The RSV doesn’t make less sense than the KJV in here.

This might happen with other versions of “Shiloh.”

spin

Wishful thinking. But it's endemic to your denial that you choose the $LH in Genesis, rather than your Judges 21 examples where they are used within two verses and obviously refer to the same referent. Same goes for Jer 7:12, 14 --

12 LKWN) )LMQWMY )$R B$YLW
Go to my place that's in Shiloh

14 W($YTY LBYT )$R NQR) $MY .. K)$R ($YTY L$LW
I will do to the house that bears my name .. what I did to Shiloh.


spin

ynquirer

I told you Shiloh was a harder case than David. (By the way, it was you that proposed David and I’m still awaiting your discussion on my assessment, by far a topic of greater bearing for Caiaphas/Kephas than a toponymic.)

If you could be a little more critic to the theological agenda of the Septuagint, - which you probably cannot since its textual output seems a crucial support for your position, - in other words, if you did not take everything it says at face value (a privilege, by the way, you don’t grant to John 1:42), you would realize: 1) That Ge 49:10 is a clue to disclose such an agenda, 2) that it deals with the myth of an earthly paradise after Eden, 3) that Shiloh - at the beginning the name ($LH) of a place like any other in Canaan - is used as an analogy of the earthly paradise, once incarnated in the Israelites and afterward lost for a second time; and 4) that other alleged spellings of the word, $LW in particular (of the same root as $LWM, both meaning “peace”), are translated into a toponymic that denotes a mythical place as an allegory of the heavenly peace to be bestowed anew on the Jews.