Freethought & Rationalism Archive

stephan huller · 06-16-2013, 08:08 AM

And now I am wondering

ΙΣ = אִישׁ

What about ΙΗΣ? That's all that appeared on the page. We have to remember that when Hurtado compars the nomina sacra with special ways of writing the Tetragrammaton, YHWH usually appears special without being shortened in early texts.

spin · 06-16-2013, 08:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

And now I am wondering

ΙΣ = אִישׁ

There is nothing to negate the possibility.

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

What about ΙΗΣ?

Totally different kettle of fish. In the former, the iota, derived from the yod is a vowel with the alef fuctioning as a glottal stop, ie consonantal. Under normal circumstances you'd expect it to be a consonant preceding a vowel. With a consonantal u look at what happens with Vespasian transliterated into Greek, not to forget Julius. You should be wary of both these sounds as they morph into liquid consonants so readily, though it's usually easy to spot, as they are accompanied by vowels.

You should look for a few examples of iota + vowel from the transliteration of Hebrew names.

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

That's all that appeared on the page. We have to remember that when Hurtado compars the nomina sacra with special ways of writing the Tetragrammaton, YHWH usually appears special without being shortened in early texts.

You're comparing practices in Greek and Hebrew, though the orthographic needs are very different. Naughty.

spin · 06-16-2013, 09:35 AM

Incidentally, the only alef-yod name I could find was Ithamar, which is transparent in Greek, Ιθαμαρ.

stephan huller · 06-16-2013, 12:14 PM

אֶשְׁבָּעַל = ασαβαλ 1 Chr 8:33

outhouse · 06-16-2013, 12:17 PM

What about what the man actually heard when someone called his name in Galilee?

stephan huller · 06-16-2013, 12:37 PM

I am becoming more convinced that Ephrem was commenting on Marcionite a nomina sacra perhaps found in publicly circulating Greek gospels in Edessa. Here are a list of all known Jesus forms:

IH (iota-eta), ΙΣ (iota-sigma), or IHC (iota-eta-sigma), ΙΥ, ΙΗΥ, IN, ΙΗΝ

The Marcionite form known to Ephrem and repeated throughout his writings is ΙΣU. But I think the Marcionite gospels had ΙΣ.

stephan huller · 06-16-2013, 12:45 PM

Quote:

What about what the man actually heard when someone called his name in Galilee?

The Marcionites understood the synagogue narrative and the blind man narratives among others as explaining that - demons had spread the name 'Jesus' on the earth to confuse mankind:

Quote:

In the synagogue there was a man possessed by a demon, an impure spirit. He cried out at the top of his voice, “What have we to do with thee, Ἰησοῦς? Thou art come to destroy us. I know who thou art, the Holy One of God.” “Be quiet!” ΙΣ said sternly. “Come out of him!” Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him.

Tertullian Against Marcion 4:7:

Quote:

they (the people of the synagogue) would not have been astonished but horrified; would not have marvelled at, but immediately shrunk from, a destroyer of the law and the prophets—and above all else the preacher of a different god (= the demons identify him as 'the holy one of the Jewish God), because he could not have given teaching contrary to the law and the prophets, and, by that token, contrary to the Creator, without some previous profession of belief in an alien and hostile deity.

As then the scripture gives no indication of this kind, but only that the power and authority of his speech were a matter of wonder, it more readily indicates that his teaching was in accordance with the Creator, since it does not deny that, than that it was opposed to the Creator, since it has not said so. It follows that he must either be acknowledged to belong to him in accordance with whom his teaching was given, or else judged a turn-coat if his teaching was in accordance with him whom he had come to oppose.

On the same occasion the spirit of the demon cries out, What have we to do with thee, Jesus? Thou art come to destroy us. I know who thou art, the Holy One of God. Here I shall not discuss whether even this appellation was at all appropriate to one who had no right even to the name of Christ unless he belonged to the Creator. I have fully discussed his titles in another place. At present I require to know how the demon knew that he had this name, when no prediction referring to him had ever been made in the past by a god unknown and until that time dumb, a god as whose holy one he had no means of invoking him, a god unknown even to the demon's Creator. <I ask also> what sort of indication he now gave of a new divinity, that by it he could be taken for the holy one of a different god. Merely that he had gone inside the synagogue and not even in word had taken any sort of action against the Creator?

As then he had no means of recognizing that one whom he had no knowledge of was Jesus and the Holy One of God, it follows that this recognition was of one whom he did know: for he remembered <two things>, that the prophet had prophesied of the Holy One of God, and that Jesus was God's name in the son of Nun. He had had these names given by an angel, our gospel relates: Therefore that which shall be born in thee shall be called holy, the Son of God:d and, Thou shalt call his name Jesus. Also, though he was only a demon, he had in fact some sense of the Lord's purpose, more than if it had been a stranger's and not yet well enough known. For he began by asking, What have we to do with thee, Jesus?, not as though addressing a stranger, but as one whose concern the Creator's spirits are. For his words were not, What hast thou to do with us?, but, What have we to do with thee?, in sorrow for himself and in regret at his own case: and as he now sees what this is he adds, Thou art come to destroy us. To that extent he had recognized Jesus as the Son of the judge, the avenger, and <if I may say so> the severe God, not of that perfectly good god who knows nothing of destruction and punishment. With what purpose have I begun with this episode? To show you that Jesus was acknowledged by the demon, and affirmed by himself, to belong to none other than the Creator.

But still, you object, Jesus rebuked him. Of course he did: he was an embarrassment: even in that acknowledgement he was impertinent, and submissive in the wrong way, giving the impression that it would be the sum total of Christ's glory to have come for the destruction of demons and not rather for the salvation of men: for it was he who would have his disciples rejoice not because the spirits were subject to them but because of their election to salvation.f Else why did he rebuke him? If because he was wholly a liar, then he himself was neither Jesus nor in any sense holy: if because he was partly a liar, in having rightly thought him to be Jesus and the Holy One of God, but to belong to the Creator, it was most unjust of him to rebuke one who took the view which he knew he must take, and did not entertain the idea which he did not know he needed to entertain, that he was a different Jesus, and the holy one of a different god. But if his rebuke has no more likely ground than the interpretation we put upon it, in that case the demon told no lie, and was not rebuked for lying: for Jesus was Jesus himself, and the demon had no means of affording recognition to any besides him: and Jesus gave assurance of being that one whom the devil had recognized, seeing that his rebuke to the demon was not on account of a lie.

stephan huller · 06-16-2013, 12:50 PM

So, the Marcionite tradition actually rejects the name Ἰησοῦς. Remember on the written page of manuscripts there was no Ἰησοῦς but only ΙΣ. We have been trained to read ΙΣ as a coded reference to Ἰησοῦς but the Marcionite reading (strangely):

a) acknowledges that there were previous generations which knew their god as Ἰησοῦς but these people were inspired by demons
b) my supposition would be that the Marcionites read ΙΣ as אִישׁ and argued that Ἰησοῦς was an error. The Marcionite tradition preserved the Pauline exegesis of the gospel (lost in the Catholic tradition because the Catholics ABSURDLY maintain that Paul didn't have a gospel).

stephan huller · 06-16-2013, 01:05 PM

On the Marcionite understanding of the relationship between ΙΣ and the sons of Adam:

Quote:

Pressed by these arguments, they exclaim: One work is sufficient for our god; he has delivered man by his supreme and most excellent goodness, which is preferable to (the creation of) all the locusts. What superior god is this, of whom it has not been possible to find any work so great as the man of the lesser god! Now without doubt the first thing you have to do is to prove that he exists, after the same manner that the existence of God must ordinarily be proved--by his works; and only after that by his good deeds. For the first question is, Whether he exists? and then, What is his character? The former is to be tested by his works, the other by the beneficence of them. It does not simply follow that he exists, because he is said to have wrought deliverance for man; but only after it shall have been settled that he exists, will there be room for saying that he has affected this liberation [1.17]

So the Catholics take issue with the Marcionites for positing the existing the existence of Jesus an unknown Man-god distinct from the Creator. But while we don't get the Catholic identifying Jesus as Man (a heavenly Man) it becomes clear that he must be this when we see how this 'deliverance' occurs - i.e. baptism.

Closer to the end of Against Marcion Book 1 Tertullian reveals a lost gospel scene which can be only something akin to Secret Mark's description of Jesus baptizing a disciple:

Quote:

For what end does baptism serve, according to him (= Marcion)? If the remission of sins, how will he make it evident that he (= ΙΣ) remits sins, when he affords no evidence that he (= ΙΣ) retains them? Because he (= ΙΣ) would retain them, if he (= ΙΣ) performed the functions of a judge. If deliverance from death, how could he (= ΙΣ) deliver from death, who has not delivered to death? For he (= ΙΣ) must have delivered the sinner to death, if he (= ΙΣ) had from the beginning condemned sin. If the regeneration of man, how can he (= ΙΣ) regenerate, who has never generated? For the repetition of an act is impossible to him (= ΙΣ), by whom nothing any time has been ever done. If the bestowal of the Holy Ghost, how will he (= ΙΣ) bestow the Spirit, who (= ΙΣ) did not at first impart the life? For the life is in a sense the supplement of the Spirit. He (= ΙΣ) therefore seals man, who had never been unsealed in respect of him (= ΙΣ); washes man, who had never been defiled so far as he (= ΙΣ) was concerned; and into this sacrament of salvation wholly plunges that flesh which is beyond the pale of salvation! [1.28]

If we think of the sacrament of baptism, two men in the water (usually a 'perfected man' and a catechumen) the mystical purpose of the immersion is for the latter to pick up the image of the latter. This is why we see Simon's baptism parodied in the Clementine literature where Simon's face actually gets tattooed onto the unfortunate Faustus and the Roman soldiers want to pick him up as the wanted man Simon.

Jesus as the Man in heaven comes to perfect the image of the man created by the Demiurge. That is why the apostle's name is Paulos (= Aram. po'olo = work Deut 32:4)

stephan huller · 06-16-2013, 03:09 PM

Clearly the strongest argument for = is the Marcionite interpretation of 1 Corinthians chapter 15 ΙΣ as אִישׁ = 'the first Adam was made a living soul, the last Lord a quickening spirit.'

Quote:

"The first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit."464 Our heretic, however, in the excess of his folly, being unwilling that the statement should remain in this shape, altered "last Adam" into "last Lord; "

and again:

Quote:

"The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven."468 Now, since the first was a man, how can there be a second, unless he is a man also? Or, else, if the second is "Lord," was the first "Lord" also?469 It is, however, quite enough for me, that in his Gospel he admits the Son of man to be both Christ and Man; so that he will not be able to deny Him (in this passage), in the "Adam" and the "man" (of the apostle). [10] What follows will also be too much for him. For when the apostle says, "As is the earthy," that is, man, "such also are they that are earthy"----men again, of course; "therefore as is the heavenly," meaning the Man (ΙΣ = אִישׁ), from heaven, "such are the men also that are heavenly." [5.10]

Across all the heretical traditions Paul was understood to have interpreted Jesus as 'the Man' from heaven.

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06-16-2013, 08:08 AM	#11
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	And now I am wondering ΙΣ = אִישׁ What about ΙΗΣ? That's all that appeared on the page. We have to remember that when Hurtado compars the nomina sacra with special ways of writing the Tetragrammaton, YHWH usually appears special without being shortened in early texts.

06-16-2013, 09:35 AM	#13
spin Contributor Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: nowhere Posts: 15,747	Incidentally, the only alef-yod name I could find was Ithamar, which is transparent in Greek, Ιθαμαρ.

06-16-2013, 12:14 PM	#14
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	אֶשְׁבָּעַל = ασαβαλ 1 Chr 8:33

06-16-2013, 12:17 PM	#15
outhouse Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: Auburn ca Posts: 4,269	What about what the man actually heard when someone called his name in Galilee?

06-16-2013, 12:37 PM	#16
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	I am becoming more convinced that Ephrem was commenting on Marcionite a nomina sacra perhaps found in publicly circulating Greek gospels in Edessa. Here are a list of all known Jesus forms: IH (iota-eta), ΙΣ (iota-sigma), or IHC (iota-eta-sigma), ΙΥ, ΙΗΥ, IN, ΙΗΝ The Marcionite form known to Ephrem and repeated throughout his writings is ΙΣU. But I think the Marcionite gospels had ΙΣ.

06-16-2013, 12:50 PM	#18
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	So, the Marcionite tradition actually rejects the name Ἰησοῦς. Remember on the written page of manuscripts there was no Ἰησοῦς but only ΙΣ. We have been trained to read ΙΣ as a coded reference to Ἰησοῦς but the Marcionite reading (strangely): a) acknowledges that there were previous generations which knew their god as Ἰησοῦς but these people were inspired by demons b) my supposition would be that the Marcionites read ΙΣ as אִישׁ and argued that Ἰησοῦς was an error. The Marcionite tradition preserved the Pauline exegesis of the gospel (lost in the Catholic tradition because the Catholics ABSURDLY maintain that Paul didn't have a gospel).

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