Nestle-Aland 28 announced

This is certainly a significant announcement:

The long awaited 28th edition of Nestle-Aland's Novum Testamentum Graece will likely appear some time later this year. It has been preliminary announced by various booksellers. Thus, CBD gives the publication date 26/12 2012, whereas Amazon has 31/12 2012.

Anyone looking for a random act of kindness to perform between now and the (very!) end of the Mayan calendar can send one to Johnson University, marked "Attn: Rafael Rodríguez." Thank you very much.

HT: Johnson Thomaskutty

gendered pronouns in a discussion of Romans

I'm sure I should know this already (perhaps it has already been explained). But, Does anyone know why Robert Jewett, in his commentary on Romans (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), uses feminine English pronouns in his translation of masculine Greek pronouns that refer to God? For example, he offers the following translation of Rom. 9.19: "You will say to me then, 'Why then does he still find fault? For who has resisted her design?'" (Jewett, Romans, 587) The Greek text behind the Jewett's translation, "who has resisted her design," is τῷ βουλήματι αὐτοῦ τίς ἀνθέστηκεν; This isn't the only time Jewett does this, but it is the first time I've noticed him doing it. Doe anyone know whether he offers any justification for this way of rendering the text?

more on "weakness" in Romans 8

In a previous post, I commented on the strange use of "weakness" in Rom. 8.3, where Paul seems to say that Torah itself was rendered weak. This doesn't sound so strange in the Christian's ear, perhaps. But Paul no where else uses the stem ἀσθεν- [asthen-; "weak"] in relation to Torah. In fact, what is "weak" is always Paul and/or some or all of his readers, the flesh, etc. But the translators and commentators I was reading seemed to accept, in their translations, that Paul says Torah [ὁ νόμος; ho nomos] was weakened, even if their comments on the passage denied that Torah was actually weakened in any real sense.

I don't think N. T. Wright solves the problem, but he at least acknowledges it. Wright asks, "What was impossible for the law? That it should give life. It offered it, but could not deliver" ("Romans," NIB 577). He then says,

It could not do so because it was "weak because of the flesh." Despite many commentators and preachers who have been eager to see Paul say negative things about the law, he declares, summing up the argument of chap. 7, that there was nothing wrong with it in itself. The problem lay elsewhere: in the "flesh"—not the physicality of human nature, which was God-given and will be reaffirmed in the resurrection (8:11), but in the present rebellious and corruptible state of humankind, within which sin had made its dwelling (7:18, 20, 23, 25). (Wright, "Romans," 577)

I think this is the right track. The flesh, rather than Torah itself, was the cause of weakness. But of course, this creates some tension with the actual grammar of the passage itself. Paul does indeed say that Torah's weakness came "through/by the flesh" [διὰ τῆς σαρκός; dia tēs sarkos], but nevertheless it looks like Torah itself "was weakened." And this idea, as Jewett noted, is unique among the Pauline corpus and even the NT itself. And I still cannot escape the suspicious that, v. 3 notwithstanding, the rest of Romans 7.7–8.11 does not portray a weakened Torah.

I'm still not sure we've understood this verse rightly. Any suggestions?

even The Message got this one right

Codex Sinaiticus [א], Rom. 8.2 (NB the pronoun σε [se; "you"], circled)

There's a small but significant textual variant in Rom. 8.2. Both Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, two of the more important manuscripts for NT textual criticism, read, "for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus set you free from the law of sin and of death." A number of other witnesses, including Alexandrinus, a whole host of miniscules, and many of the Fathers, read, " . . . set me free . . ." (A handful of witnesses read "us," but this is almost certainly an attempt to universalize Paul's point here.)

What I find especially interesting is the hermeneutical potential of both readings. In fact, I would adopt both readings (or, better, I would adopt either reading, depending on context). The "me" reading takes an autobiographical approach to Rom. 7.7–25, in which Paul finds himself under sin's sway and in need of being set free. The "you" reading fits better with the "speech-in-character" approach (which I'm adopting for my course); in 8.2 Paul resumes speaking in his authorial voice and addresses the character in whose voice he was speaking throughout 7.7–25. So, in my judgment, the best reading is, "the Spirit . . . set you free from the law of sin and of death."

But here's the point I've been wanting to make the whole time. Bible.org provides a list of parallel translations of Rom. 8.2. If you follow the link, you'll see that The Message reads "you" here, but the NIV agrees with the King James family of translations in reading "me." Is it really too much to ask the NIV to get it right when even The Message can?!

"weak[ness]" in Rom. 8.3

I'm working my way through Romans 8, and perhaps it occasions no surprise to find that this passage is kicking my butt. For example, my reaction to v. 3: "Focus, Paul. Focus." Complete sentences are not only useful for effective communication but also for theological clarity. But Paul seems to have had other ideas.

But I could use your help (especially you Pauline and Romans specialists out there). Romans 8.3 begins with the incomplete phrase, "For the impossibility of the Torah in that which it was weak through the flesh . . . " [Τὸ γὰρ ἀδύνατον τοῦ νόμου ἐν ᾧ ἠσθένει διὰ τῆς σαρκός; to gar adynaton tou nomou en hō ēsthenei dia tēs sarkos]. Clearly I'm making certain interpretive decisions already (e.g., nomos = Torah). But I'm struggling to determine the subject of the imperfect verb ēsthenei The obvious option, grammatically, is nomos, and every translation and commentator I've consulted takes this option.

But here's the problem. Everywhere in Romans, when Paul uses the language of "weakness," the what that he describes as weak is a person. And with the exception of 4.19, where Abraham did not grow weak [μὴ ἀσθενήσας; mē asthenēsas] in his faith, Paul is always referring to his readers (sometimes including himself [5.6; 8.26], sometimes differentiating some of his readers from others [14.1; 15.1]). A wider search reveals a similar pattern; nowhere in forty-four uses of ἀσθενέω, ἀσθενής, ἀσθένεια, or ἀσθένημα does Paul describe Torah (or nomos on any other interpretation) as "weak." While it's certainly possible that, this one time here at Rom. 8.3, Paul describes the nomos as "weakened by the flesh, I am surprised at the lack of discussion of this unusual usage.

Robert Jewett illustrates the problem, but I don't think he provides any real help in solving it. He rightly notes that the verb ēsthenei is "an expression ordinarily referring to someone becoming ill" (Romans, 483). He also, again rightly, notes that Paul's usage here, if it refers to the nomos, would be "unique to the NT." But then he says, inexplicably I think, that this unique phrase "recapitulates the argument of the preceding chapter about human arrogance and the quest for honor, which corrupt the law and destroy its capacity to achieve the good." The problem here, however, is that Paul never in Romans 7 described the nomos as weak or corrupted or powerless; the image in Rom. 7.7–25 was of Paul's persona—the role from within which he speaks ("speech-in-character")—as helpless and impotent to stop sin from acting within/among his members. Paul's persona, and not nomos, was weak in Romans 7. So how 8.3 "recapitulates" the argument of Romans 7, as Jewett suggests, is unclear to me.

So I'd like to ask the following questions:

• Are there contextual reasons that make us confident that Paul must be describing the nomos here as weakened (notice that I'm not asking whether nomos = Torah, though that might be a factor that affects the question I am asking)?
• Are there other ways to understand the relative clause en hō ēsthenei, so that we interpret ἀσθενεῖν in 8.3 in such a way that fits with every other use of this word in the Pauline corpus?
• Are there discussions in the secondary literature that note and address this complex of issues?
• If Paul is saying that the nomos was weakened through the flesh, what does he mean?

Any thoughts?

the opening of Romans: a question

I'm preparing a graduate-level course on Paul's letter to the Romans. One of the very many famous features of this letter is the credal formula in Rom. 1.3–4. First, let me give my translation of the opening four verses:

¹ Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, called [to be] an apostle, having been set apart for [the] gospel of God, ² which he announced beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, ³ about his son,

• who came from the seed of David according to the flesh,
• ⁴ who was appointed son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead,

Jesus Christ our Lord.

One of the complicating factors of this passage is the relation of 1.2 with the formula in 1.3–4. In verse 2, Paul refers to "the holy scriptures" [γραφαῖς ἁγίαις] as the location in which God announced beforehand the gospel. These are the last two words of the verse. The very next verse then begins with the words "about his son" [περὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ]. I'm sure I've heard/read somewhere that Paul here frames the Hebrew scriptures in terms of their witness to Jesus; i.e., the scriptures are "about his son." Theologically, of course, this isn't a problem; Paul will say something similar in 3.21. But I don't think this is what Paul is saying here.

Here's my question. Would you Pauline and/or Romans scholars be comfortable describing verse 2 as a parenthetical adjectival phrase modifying "the gospel of God" [εὐαγγέλιον θεοῦ]? In this case, we should read verse 3, which begins "about his son," in connection with the end of verse 1. A modified translation might be:

¹ Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, called [to be] an apostle, having been set apart for [the] gospel of God—(² which [gospel] he announced beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures)—³ [the gospel] about his son,

• who came from the seed of David according to the flesh,
• ⁴ who was appointed son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead,

Jesus Christ our Lord.

What think ye?

Greek Text behind the King James Bible

Last week my institution (Johnson University) celebrated the King James Bible and the Quadricentenary of its original publication in 1611. Dr. Tommy Smith presented a brief overview of the historical context of Renaissance and Reformation Europe, esp. the controversies and conflicts facing the Church of England in the wake of Queens Mary and Elizabeth and the ascendance of King James to the English throne. Dr. Greg Linton addressed some mistranslations and misunderstandings in the KJV. Mr. Ron Wheeler discussed the heritage of the KJV on both the English language and English literature. I was assigned the topic, "The Greek Text behind the King James Version." And finally, Dr. Carl Bridges discussed the heritage of the KJV and its influence on subsequent English translations of the Bible.

The entire week was interesting, well-planned (I had no part in the planning), and well-received. No one, perhaps, would be surprised to hear that a quadricentennial celebration of the KJV would be enthralling (nb: sarcasm). But this really was an interesting event. There's talk of compiling the five presentations and making them available. I'll announce it if that happens. FWIW, here's the manuscript of my presentation. I've also included a PDF version of my accompanying PowerPoint presentation. But first, you might also enjoy one of the promotional videos made in preparation for last week. Note the Crocodile Dundee reference at the end.


 
King James Week Promo from Stuart Large on Vimeo.

KJV Four Hundred Year Celebration

Greek Text Behind the KJV Presentation)

a breakfast your mom would approve of

This morning I was blessed to have been invited to breakfast at the house of Dr. Gerald Mattingly, probably Johnson University's most well-known faculty member at present. Dr. Mattingly was hosting Father Justin Sinaites, the Greek Orthodox monk who is at the center of current efforts to digitally photograph and preserve some of the world's most ancient manuscripts, including the famed Codex Sinaiticus. Father Justin lives at the famous and ancient St. Catherine's Monastery, situated at the foot of the traditional Mt. Sinai. Breakfast (and the conversation in particular) was a wonderful experience, and I am grateful to both the host and the guest of honor for allowing me to participate.

Father Justin is in the States, among other reasons, to offer presentations at a number of universities in the Southeast and in Texas and California. He'll be presenting at the University of Tennessee (Knoxville) on Wednesday, 26 October 2011. I don't think it would be inappropriate of me to share the flyer (though if I hear differently I will remove it post-haste.

archaia in Ignatius

Ignatius, bishop of Antioch in the early second century CE who was marched to Rome and (presumably) martyred, records an interesting encounter with some of his opponents:

I heard of some people who said, "Unless I find it in the archives, I do not believe it in the gospel. When I told them, "It is written," they replied, "That is the question." But for me the archives are Jesus Christ; the sacred archives are his cross, his death, and his resurrection, and the faith that is granted through him.

ἤκουσά τινων λεγόντων ὅτι Ἐὰν μὴ ἐν τοῖς ἀρχείοις εὕρω, ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ οὐ πιστεύω· καὶ λέγοντός μου αὐτοῖς ὅτι Γέγραπται, ἀπεκρίθησάν μοι ὅτι Πρόκειται. ἐμοὶ δὲ ἀρχεῖά ἐστιν Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, τὰ ἄθικτα ἀρχεῖα ὁ σταυρὸς αὐτοῦ καὶ ὁ θάνατος καὶ ἡ ἀνάστασις αὐτοῦ καὶ ἡ πίστις ἡ δι ̓ αὐτοῦ· (Ign. Phil. 8.2)

In his chapter on "Early Christian Libraries" (144–2202), Harry Gamble offers the following discussion of the critical word, "archives" [ἀρχεῖα; archeia]:

The sense of this anecdote has been much debated, but what is important for my purposes is the meaning of the term archeion. Its original sense is "governmental house" or "magistrate's office," whence it came to mean "records office" and could signify either the place where records were kept or the records themselves. Most commentators take the word to mean "the original records" and to refer to the Jewish scriptures regarded as "archival records" or "charter documents" of the church. This is surely correct but does not necessarily exhaust the sense of this unique designation of Jewish scripture, for the word alludes to the place where such writings were deposited and available. Since its use by Ignatius's opponents has no clear ulterior motivation, all the more may it imply the existence of an archive or library of the Antiochene church where the Jewish scriptures, among other documents, were kept. (Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts [New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995], 152–53)

identifying "anti-adoptionistic" corruptions of scripture

The second chapter of Bart Ehrman's The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture (Oxford University Press, 1993) sets out to examine "Anti-Adoptionistic Corruptions of Scripture" (47–118), or changes to manuscripts of the NT meant to ward off interpretations that Jesus "became" God's s/Son (or was "adopted") at some point, whether at his baptism, his resurrection, or whatever. Ehrman well knows that identifying the motivations (theological or otherwise) of any given variant is highly problematic (see pp. 28; 44, n. 110; 103, n. 55). He therefore focuses on the function of variants: "Some changes of the text . . . function to establish the orthodox character of the text, either by promoting more fully an orthodox understanding of Christ or by circumventing the heretical use of a text in support of an aberrant teaching" (28).

Even in light of this very important nuance, Ehrman's argument runs into problems precisely on the issue of identifying anti-adoptionistic variants (whether in terms of intention or function). For example, he assumes that references to Joseph as Jesus' father could be read as implying that Jesus was not (yet) God's son, and so changes to these references represent "anti-adoptionistic corruptions." But this assumption runs into problems very early on. In his brief discussion of a Syriac translation of Matthew, Ehrman points to the variants at 1.16 and 25:

The fifth-century scribe of this manuscript was either thoughtless in the extreme or somewhat inclined to see Joseph as Jesus' actual father, for he concludes Matthew's genealogy of Jesus with the words "Jacob begot Joseph; Joseph, to whom was betrothed the virgin Mary, begot Jesus, who is called the Christ" (Matt 1:16). Similarly, the following pericope ends not with the statement that Joseph "had no relations with her [Mary] until she bore a son," but with the curious observation that Mary "bore to him [i.e., Joseph] a son" (1:25). (54)

To be sure, Ehrman does not read this as an anti-adoptionistic corruption; instead, the variants at 1.16, 25 "were produced from carelessness rather than intent" (54). He concludes his discussion of this particular scribe's carelessness: "Since there is almost no reason to construe any of the manuscript's variant readings as original in these cases, once can only conclude that the scribe was simply inattentive to the doctrinal ramifications of some of his changes" (55; my emphasis).

Notice that Ehrman assumes here that variants "have" doctrinal ramifications; the readings in question, by themselves and (almost) ontologically, support a certain theological position even though Ehrman doesn't attribute this position to this particular scribe (remember, the scribe was careless rather than theologically motivated). After all, this same scribe apparently chose not to "eliminate the word 'virgin' (παρθένος, v. 23) or to modify the clear statements that Joseph had no sexual relations with Mary" (55). Since the variant readings at Matt. 1.16, 25 "have" their particular theological significances, the scribe responsible for these readings was either (i) advocating an adoptionist christology, or (ii) unaware of his changes' adoptionistic import. This scribe "appears to have understood his own formulation—if he understood it at all—in the sense that Joseph became Jesus' father (through adoption?), although he was not his actual father" (102, n. 48; my emphasis).

But there's a third option for understanding this scribe's admittedly peculiar transcription. (iii) Even a statement as seemingly clear as "Joseph . . . begot Jesus" do not mean what we think they mean, i.e., that Jesus was conceived via a sexual act between Joseph and Mary. Don't misunderstand; a moment of carelessness and conformity to a pattern (x begot y) may very well explain this particular text. But note that, even with the strange reading, "Joseph . . . begot Jesus," 1.16 still breaks with the regular pattern "x begot y" to explain that Joseph was betrothed to Mary. And in the very context of claiming "Joseph . . . begot Jesus," the text affirms Mary's virginal state at conception/begetting! For this scribe at least (and presumably he was not completely idiosyncratic!), Joseph "begtting" [γεννάω] Jesus did not preclude either the virgin birth or, by implication, Jesus' status as God's s/Son.

At other places Ehrman mentions variants that I simply do not see as directly relevant for the adoptionist controversy. Notice, for example, the following:

The text of Luke 3:23 would presumably have caused orthodox scribes few problems, since it explicitly states that Joseph was not Jesus' real father, but was only "supposed" to have been. Nonetheless it is striking that in two of our Greek witnesses (W 579) the genealogy of Joseph that follows is deleted altogether. It is difficult to judge what may have led scribes, either those of our manuscripts or those of their exemplars, to omit some fifteen verses from their text; but perhaps they recognized the incongruity of tracing Joseph's ancestry back to Adam in a story about Jesus, when Joseph was in fact not Jesus' father (as the text of v. 23 itself indicates).

Here Ehrman reads the alteration of a useful text for anti-adoptionistic readings as (potentially) an anti-adoptionistic corruption. This strikes me as having his cake and eating it, too; if Luke 3.23 did not equivocate on Jesus' relation to Joseph [ὢν υἱός, ὡς νομίζετο, Ἰωσὴφ], and if these two Greek witnesses excised Joseph's genealogy, then this would clearly be an anti-adoptionistic corruption. The fact, then, that "some modern scholars have seen in the genealogy an implicit challenge to the notion that Jesus had no earthly father" (56–57) does not justify reading W and 579 as anti-adoptionist corruptions. So "some modern scholars" read the Lukan genealogy as potentially adoptionistic; did anyone int he ancient world ever read Luke 3 this way? For his argument to work, Ehrman needs to adduce evidence that specific variants did function anti-adoptionistically (e.g., see Luke 2.33), not merely that specific variants can so function.

Finally, this brings up a second methodological problem with Ehrman's argument. Ehrman focuses so clearly and so intensely on individual variants that he does not address whether a particular manuscript exhibits anti-adoptionistic tendencies.¹ It's one thing to show that a given manuscript makes a change at Luke 2.33 and/or 2.48 (see pp. 55–56); it's another to show that that manuscript consistently clarifies ambiguous readings in anti-adoptionistic ways. This, apparently, is a problem for Ehrman's thesis, because he acknowledges that the scribes do not seem "to have been thoroughly consistent or rigorous in their attempts to rid the text of latent ambiguities and so to eliminate the possiblity [sic] of interpreting these texts in adoptionistic terms" (58). But Ehrman's thesis is precisely that scribes were motivated to clarify scripture, to make it say what it already meant. I, at least, find it unsatisfying that now he's willing to concede a lack of motivation in this direction. If a scribe didn't consistently change his text in a particular direction, then how can we with any confidence suppose that any specific change was meant to move the tradition in that direction?

Ironically, at this point where his thesis is the thinnest, I think Ehrman gets it the most right. Notice that he's conceding a point that undermines his larger thesis while trying to paint that point as congruent with his thesis.

[T]he majority of orthodox Christians, and presumably orthodox scribes, could live perfectly well with the text as originally written, interpreting it, that is, according to orthodox criteria and beliefs. Furthermore, the very process of transmitting texts was itself a radically conservative process. These scribes understood that they were conserving rather than creating tradition. (58)

Indeed. And however clearly Ehrman sees this, I think we can all accept that the reception of Ehrman's work—both among academics and in the popular media—has neglected this aspect of his work. That is, does anyone think of Ehrman as "that guy who thinks Christian scribes conserved rather than created the text of the NT"? Colbert could be forgiven for overlooking this aspect of his work.

---

¹ Let me stress that I am dealing with Ehrman's argument up to this point (viz., p. 61); it may be that Ehrman addresses this issue at some later point. He does provide some response on p. 58, though I find his discussion there inadequate.

[Postscript: I also note the following humorous (but petty) "transcriptional" error. I appreciate how difficult it is to write and edit a book; it's impossible to spot and correct every mistake. Even so, I laughed out loud at Starbucks when I read the reference to "Revelations 2:2" on p. 36, n. 26. I'm sure Ehrman knows the actual name of John's ΑΠΟΚΑΛΥΨΙΣ, but it's especially funny since every academic hates this particular error.]

What is a Ioudaios?

BDAG, the standard Greek-English lexicon for NT and early Christian scholarship, gives the following two extended definitions for Ἰουδαῖος, αία, αῖον:

• pert. to being Judean (Jewish), with focus on adherence to Mosaic tradition, Judean;


• one who is Judean (Jewish), with focus on adherence to Mosaic tradition, a Judean

The question of how to translate Ἰουδαῖος is a tricky one. Does it primarily delimit a set of religious and/or idealogical persuasions, and so mean Jew/Jewish? Or is it rather a geographical and/or ethnic marker, and so mean Judean? BDAG's extended definitions of Ἰουδαῖος recognize the difficulty inasmuch as give "Jewish" in parentheses, but in its glosses BDAG clearly prefers Judean to Jew (which it doesn't offer). This is, in my impression, in line with the current standard position among scholars of Second Temple Judaism, Christian origins, and the New Testament.

Even so, the preference for a geographical/ethnic referent cannot quite shake the religious/idealogical connotations. After the second definition, given above, BDAG offers the following:

Since Jerusalem sets the standard for fidelity to Israel's tradition, and since Jerusalem is located in Judea, Ἰ. frequently suggests conformity to Israel's ancestral belief and practice. in turn, the geographical name provided outsiders with a term that applied to all, including followers of Jesus, who practiced customs variously associated with Judea (note the Roman perception Ac 18:15 ['Judeans' at Corinth]; 23:28).

In his book Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), Daniel Boyarin argues that "Judaism," as a religion, didn't exist before it was invented by early Christian heresiologists (beginning with Justin Martyr) as a foil against which "Christianity" could be defined. In other words, "Christianity" ≠ "Judaism," but before there was a "Christianity" there was no "Judaism." In yet other words, whereas today we think of "Jew" [Ἰουδαῖος] as a belonging to the same class as words like "Christian," "Muslim," "Buddhist," "Hindu," etc. (all of these are examples of religious adherents), before the rise of Christianity "Jew" [Ἰουδαῖος] belonged to a different class, other examples of which include "Roman," "Greek," "Persian," "Egyptian," "Asian," "Syrian," etc.

There's a lot of insight here, but we still need to exercise an inordinate amount of caution. Whereas geographical/ethnic markers today don't necessarily connote religious identity (what do "Europeans" or "Asians" or "Africans" think about God/god/the transcendent?), they clearly did in the ancient world. Being "Roman" or "Egyptian" meant something about your religious beliefs in addition to your national/ethnic identity; if you were "Roman" ethnically but not religiously, that was something to comment on (cp. the complaint against Paul and Silas in Acts 16.20–21). For example, note the description of Dositheus in 3 Maccabees 1.3:

But Ptolemy was taken out of harm's way by Dositheus, called the son of Drimylus, a Judean by race [τὸ γένος Ἰουδαῖος] who later changed his customs [μεταβαλὼν τὰ νόμιμα] and became estranged from his ancestral beliefs [τῶν πατρίων δογμάτων ἀπηλλοτριωμένος].

Surely it's significant, given the questions we've been asking about Ἰουδαῖος for over two decades, that Dositheus's status as a Ἰουδαῖος required qualification (it was "by race" only) because he wasn't a Ἰουδαῖος as the term was normally understood. He may have been a Judean, but he was no longer a Jew.

thank you, Zondervan

The folks on Zondervan's blog, Koinōnia, announced yesterday a Hebrew + Greek Bible Giveaway, in which Zondervan solicited readers' favorite Greek or Hebrew words. They selected five winners today. My entry, included below, was one of the five. Thank you, Zondervan, for my copy of A Reader's Hebrew and Greek Bible.

My entry:

ἀποτυμπανίζω, as in Dan. 7.11 [LXX (Old Greek)]:

I was then watching the noise of the great words, which the horn kept speaking, and the beast was beaten to death [ἀπετυμπανίσθη], and its body perished and was given over to burning with fire. (NETS)

According to the abridged LSJ, ἀποτυμπανίζω means "to cudgel to death." If language develops words to describe life, why did the ancients need a single word for "to cudgel to death"?

See my earlier post for my initial discovery of this word.

Greek question

I'm working on a brief discussion of Justin Martyr. In the course thereof, I'm citing Justin's Dialogue 100.1, which reads:

Not only in the blessing of Joseph and Judah have things been predicted in a mysterious manner of him, but also in the Gospel it is written that he said, "All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows the Father except the Son; nor does anyone know the Son except the Father, and those to whom the Son will reveal him." (cited from Oskar Skarsaune, "Justin and His Bible," in Justin Martyr and His Worlds [edited by S. Parvis and P. Foster; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007], 71.)

My problem is that I don't have access to any printed Greek editions of Justin's text, and I can't find any online. Is anyone able to tell me the precise morphological form Justin uses that is translated by the italicized "Gospel" in the text quoted above? I suspect the text reads [ἐν] τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ (singular), but I want to be sure of that. Thanks, in advance, to anyone able to help.

Polycarp's Letter To the Philippians, check.

I just finished reading Polycarp's letter To the Philippians. I'd be very interested in any comments you may have on this fascinating letter. For example, as far as I could detect, Philippians evinces very little awareness of Hebrew biblical texts and traditions, which is both similar to and, in important respects, different from the more-familiar letter from Paul to the Philippians. I'm not trying to be coy here; I don't see very much from the Hebrew Bible in Paul's letter, but I'm also convinced that the so-called Carmen Christi (2.6–11) is itself heavily indebted to Isaiah 45. But that's neither here nor there; unless I've missed something, Polycarp's letter clearly owes little, if anything, to the Jewish scriptures.

On the other hand, this fairly short text has a surprisingly dense number of allusions (and even quotations) from New Testament traditions. Polycarp cites synoptic Jesus tradition in Phil. 2.3, though the precise relation to Matthew 7 and 5 (as well as other texts) is somewhat complicated:

[B]ut instead remembering what the Lord said as he taught: "Do not judge, so that you may not be judged; forgive, and you will be forgiven; show mercy, so that you may be shown mercy; with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you;" and, "blessed are the poor and those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God." [see my comments in a previous post]

Polycarp also refers explicitly to Paul on a couple occasions (3.2; 9.1; 11.2–3) and echoes traditions found in 1 Peter in Phil. 10.2. Of course, Polycarp also refers to both the letters and the person of Ignatius. Finally, Polycarp also cites Ephesians in Phil. 12.1.

In other words, while Polycarp exhibits very little interest in Moses and the Torah or any of the prophetic or other writings, he does seem very interested in the traditions and/or texts that we now refer to as the New Testament. Polycarp does not yet provide evidence of an awareness of any "canon" of NT texts, but the conjunction of citations and allusions, along with the reference to Eph 4.26 at 12.1 and the reference to these as "scriptures" [sacris literis; scripturis], raises some very interesting questions.

[NB: In looking back over Michael Holmes's introductory comments to Philippians, I noticed that he appraises Polycarp's use of Hebrew biblical texts and traditions very differently than I have. Holmes says, "[Philippians] reveals, in addition to a direct and unpretentious style and a sensitive pastoral manner, a deep indebtedness to the scriptures (in the form of the Septuagint); specifically, he apparently draws upon Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Tobit" (2007: 272–3). Clearly I've missed something. I don't see how Polycarp has made use of any of these texts, but I would trust Holmes here rather than myself. (In addition, Holmes refers to W. R. Schoedel's study, Polycarp, Martyrdom of Polycarp, Fragments of Papias, vol. 5 of The Apostolic Fathers, ed. R. M. Grant [Camden, NJ: Nelson, 1967], 4–5.)]

Satan in Mark

This is probably not very significant. But I noticed this afternoon that Mark refers to the devil as "Satan" (or "the satan" [ὁ Σατανᾶς; ho Satanas]) six times (1.13; 3.23 [2x]; 3.26; 4.15; 8.33), which is almost half of the uses found in the four gospels (fourteen). In contrast, ὁ διάβολος [ho diabolos; "the devil"] is also used fourteen times in the gospels, but not at all in Mark. Unless we understand "Beelzebul" as another name for the devil, it looks like Mark only refers to him as ὁ Σατανᾶς.

In light of the frequently noted Aramaicisms in Mark—Semitic terms the evangelist explains/interprets for the benefit of his audience—I think it's interesting that nowhere in Mark does the evangelist interpret Σατανᾶς, a transliteration of שׂטן [śāṭān]. I'm not sure what to make of this lack, if indeed we should make anything of it at all. It may simply be that Σατανᾶς was the standard way in Markan circles for referring to God's chief adversary and so didn't need any interpretation. But if we can take the mixed use in the other gospels of both Σατανᾶς and διάβολος as evidence that, at least in other spheres, there was some need to explain who Σατανᾶς was, it may be somewhat surprising that Mark doesn't ever clarify ὁ Σατανᾶς with a phrase like, ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον· ὁ διάβολος [. . . Satan, "which is translated, 'the devil'"].

in the news: Greek accents (no, really!)

I don't find issues concerning ancient Greek in the news very often, and certainly issues concerning accents (and breathing marks; really, diacritics in general) are even rarer in America's news organs. So it provided a pleasant start to my day to find a piece entitled, "All Greek: St John's T-Shirt Dismays Expert" in last Thursday's Santa Fe Reporter. This is a bit like all those misspelled Greek (and otherwise foreign) tattoos, though perhaps a little less permanent.

[HT: InsideHigherEd]

παράκλητος as a precise legal term

This morning I read Lochlan Shelfer's essay, "The Legal Precision of the Term 'παράκλητος'" (JSNT 32/2 [2009], 131–150), which surveyed (exhaustively, apparently) the use of παράκλητος [paraklētos; from which we get "Paraclete" as a reference to the Holy Spirit] in pagan and Hellenistic Jewish literature and argued that, with one exception from the Classical period (Demosthenes, De Falsa Legatione [343 BCE]), every use of παράκλητος was either (i) a translation of the Latin advocatus, or (ii) consistent with its use a translation of advocatus.

I found a lot about this article interesting, but I think I can best explain where Shelfer's argument took my mind in a series of progressive observations:

• With the exception of Demosthenes, παράκλητος only appears in pagan literature six times, once in an Oxyrhynchus papyrus (P.Oxy. 2725.10), and in one piece of epigraphic evidence (a "confession inscription" from northeaster Lydia [modern Turkey]). Regardless whether or not we accept Shelfer's argument regarding παράκλητος as a Greek translation of the Latin advocatus, our Greek term appears to have been rare in gentile (pagan) usage.


• Despite this rarity among gentile writers, Shelfer notes that παράκλητος "is used often . . . by Jewish writers during the Roman Empire" (142). Philo alone, writing in the first-century CE from the northern Egyptian metropolis, Alexandria, uses the term eleven times. Given Philo's involvement in judicial affairs between the Alexandrian Jewish population and the Roman justice system, perhaps the utility of παράκλητος isn't all that surprising. At any rate, our term seems to be especially popular in Jewish Hellenistic Greek relative to gentile Hellenistic Greek. Παράκλητος even appears in transliteration in Hebrew and Aramaic texts as פרקליט [prqlyt]


• The Johannine writings continue the popularity of παράκλητος in Jewish texts: "The currency of the word in Jewish writings no doubt contributed to its most famous uses in the Christian Scriptures where it appears in two places, four times in a speech by Jesus to the disciples in the Gospel of John, the 'Farewell Discourse", and once in 1 John" (145). Five uses in a single set of texts (the Johannine literature) certainly qualifies as a frequent use of παράκλητος, a usage akin to Philo and distinct from gentile use.

If these observations are correct, then I find it interesting that, whatever else the Johannine corpus (especially the gospel, but also Revelation) says about "the Jews," it nevertheless exists within a Jewish symbolic universe. This is fairly obvious from other, more blatant themes in the text (testimony of Moses, Jesus as the λόγος [logos], etc.), but even in the minor details (here, the use of a Greek legal term) John appears thoroughly at home among Hellenistic and Roman Jewish literature, especially where that literature is distinctive vis-à-vis its pagan counterpart.

heretical diets in Ign. Trall. 6.1

Now that I've finished my review of Chris Keith's book I've been able to get back to reading the Apostolic Fathers. I've tried not to stop completely, but certainly my progress was slowed as I paid particular attention to reviewing Chris's book.

So this morning I turned to Ignatius' epistle To the Trallians. Here's the Greek text, along with translation, of Ign. Trall. 6.1 from Michael Holmes (third edition; 2007: 218, 219):

Παρακαλῶ οὖν ὑμᾶς, οὐκ ἐγὼ ἀλλ᾽ ἡ ἀγάπη Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, μόνῃ τῇ Χριστιανῇ τροφῇ χρῆσθε, ἀλλοτρίας δὲ βοτάνης ἀπέχεσθε, ἥτις ἐστὶν αἵρεσις.

I urge you, therefore—yet not I, but the love of Jesus Christ—partake only of Christian food, and keep away from every strange plant, which is heresy.

As I consider Ignatius' view of food (and remember, this is far afield from my specialties), I'm reminded also of Ignatius' demonstrable affinity for Paul and his writings. If Ignatius was as fond of Paul as he seems to have been, and if Paul argued forcefully—both in his letters and in Luke's portrayal of him in Acts—that issues of diet should not disqualify a person from being counted among God's people, then how can Ignatius have deviated so far from Paul in prescribing a quite restrictive view of diet and fellowship?!

Paul was quite emphatic: The unity of the people, and not the food on their plate, mattered to him (see 1 Cor 8–10; Rom 14–15). This is also the point of Luke's portrayal of the Jerusalem council in Acts 15: Through Peter's ministry in Caesarea and Paul and Barnabas' work among the gentiles in Asia Minor, God had made clear that he had "made clean" (Acts 10.15) the people who eat pork and shrimp and [O, the greatness of his mercy!] even Taco Bell. Is Ignatius really capable of getting it this wrong?

It has been about eighteen months since I read Daniel Boyarin's Border Lines (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), which was a fascinating, very technical exploration of heresiology among Jews and Christians and its role in the "parting of the ways" between them. But if I remember correctly, Boyarin argues that the Greek word αἵρεσις [hairesis; "sect, division, party"] did not take on the "heretical" connotations of the English word heresy until the third or fourth century.

If this is the case (i.e., if Boyarin did make this argument as well as if this is a more helpful way of reading αἵρεσις), then the consequence for our understanding Ign. Trall. 6.1 is fairly clear. Ignatius' letters are often dated to c. 110 CE (though some have suggested a later date of 125–150 CE), which obviously antedates the third or fourth century. The texts of the New Testament (which also, obviously, antedate the third or fourth century and which, in my estimation, also antedate Ignatius), use αἵρεσις in the sense of "sect" (Acts 24.5, 14; 1 Cor 11.19; Gal 5.20; 2 Pet 2.1) or "party" (Acts 5.17; 15.5; 26.5; 28.22) rather than of "heresy." So I would render Trall. 6.1 as follows:

Therefore I urge you—yet not I but the love of Jesus Christ—only make use of Christian food and abstain from [every] strange plant [or herb], which is divisive [αἵρεσις].

If this gets us closer to Ignatius' intended meaning (or to his audience's likely understanding of his language), then he actually appears more Pauline here than in Holmes's translation (if I have understood Holmes rightly). The problem isn't that eating the wrong foods pushes a person or group of people beyond the pale of "Christianity"; rather, the church(es) in Tralles has/have formed groups [αἱρέσεις; haireseis (groups, divisions)] around distinctive menus. This coheres, I think, with another distinctive Ignatian emphasis: the importance of submitting to the bishop and other church leaders (see, inter alios, Trall. 2–3). Ignatius' emphasis on the bishop ensures both the unity of the church and its protection from false teaching. If the Trallians will accept "only Christian food" [μόνῃ τῇ Χριστιανῇ τροφῇ; monē tē Christianē trophē (6.1; = "food sanctioned by the bishop"?)], their unity will be restored/preserved and their ability to submit "to the bishop as to Jesus Christ" (Ign. Trall. 2.1) will likewise be restored/preserved.

Biblical imagery in Ignatius' letter To the Ephesians

Yesterday as I sat in the lobby of my doctor's office I picked up Ignatius' epistle To the Ephesians (as one does). I continue to be impressed by the freedom Ignatius apparently feels vis-à-vis Hebrew biblical traditions, at least compared to the constraint (I think that's the word I want) other authors exhibited to live within a world defined by those traditions. Paul may have written his letters in Greek, and the evangelists (or someone[s] before them) may have translated the sayings from and stories about Jesus into Greek, but Ignatius seems to be transposing the gospel into another cultural-linguistic system rather than simply translating. Here, perhaps, is yet another example:

1 Ἄμεινόν ἐστιν σιωπᾶν καὶ εἶναι, ἢ λαλοῦντα μὴ εἶναι, καλὸν τὸ διδάσκειν, ἐὰν ὁ λέγων ποιῇ. εἷς οὖν διδάσκαλος, ὃς εἶπεν καὶ ἐγένετο· καὶ ἃ σιγῶν δὲ πεποίηκεν ἄξια τοῦ πατρός ἐστιν. 2 ὁ λόγον Ἰησοῦ κεκτημένος ἀληθῶς δύναται καὶ τῆς ἡσυχίας αὐτοῦ ἀκούειν, ἵνα τέλειος ᾖ, ἵνα δι᾽ ὧν λαλεῖ πράσσῃ καὶ δι᾽ ὧν σιγᾷ γινώσκηται. 3 οὐδὲν λανθάνει τὸν κύριον, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὰ κρυπτὰ ἡμῶν ἐγγὺς αὐτῷ ἐστιν. πάντα οὖν ποιῶμεν ὡς αὐτοῦ ἐν ἡμῖν κατοικοῦντος, ἵνα ὦμεν αὐτοῦ ναοὶ καὶ αὐτὸς ἐν ἡμῖν θεὸς ἡμῶν, ὅπερ καῖ ἔστιν καὶ φανήσεται πρὸ προσώπου ἡμῶν, ἐξ ὧν δικαίως ἀγαπῶμεν αὐτόν.

1 It is better to be silent with substance than to speak and lack substance. It is a good thing to teach, as long as the speaker heeds his own words. There is one teacher who speaks and reality conforms to his word; even the things he does in his silence are worthy of the Father. 2 The one who truly possesses Jesus' word is even able to hear [Jesus'] silence, so that he is perfect and he acts in accordance with what he says but is known through the things he doesn't need to say. 3 Nothing escapes the Lord; even our secrets are at his fingertips. Therefore, let us do everything in light of his dwelling among us, so that we would be his temples and he would be our God in our midst (since that is what he is, as will be made evident to us by those things we do out of our just love for him). (Ign. Eph. 15.1–3; Greek text from Holmes 2007: 194)

Holmes listed Eph. 15.1 as one of Ignatius' few allusions to biblical traditions (2007: 174, n. 14), as I mentioned here. Ignatius' description of Jesus [!] as the one teacher who speaks reality into existence [ὃς εἶπεν καὶ ἐγένετο; hos eipen kai egeneto] echoes the Septuagint's translation of Genesis 1. For example, "Then God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light" [καὶ εἶπεν ὁ θεός, Γενηθήτω φῶς. καὶ ἐγένετο φῶς; kai eipen ho theos, Genēthētō phōs. kai egeneto phōs (Gen 1.3 LXX)]. This pattern of (i) God speaking [εἶπεν; eipen] and (ii) it being [ἐγένετο; egeneto] continues throughout Genesis 1 (see 1.6, 9, 11, 14–15, 20, 24). Interestingly, there is no corresponding egeneto after God eipen, "Let us make humanity in our image . . ." (1.26), unless I've missed something.

But even here, where I'd like to say that Ignatius is somewhat constrained by the world of Israelite tradition, nothing about Ignatius' language seems to capitalize on the semiotic potential of the first biblical creation account. Instead, Ignatius portrays Jesus as the one who speaks creation into existence (cf. John 1.1–5; Col. 1.15–17) and then goes on to speculate that even Jesus' silence is creative (redemptive?). Ignatius, in other words, seems to be reflecting less on the tradition of God creating the cosmos and more on New Testament traditions of Jesus, traditions which themselves do reflect more conscientiously and pervasively on, among other things, the tradition of God creating the cosmos.

But what I think is really interesting is that Ignatius could have taken up creation traditions in order to make the point he's making. The statement in Gen 1.26 that God wants to make humanity "in his image" takes aim, among other things, at polytheistic religious practices. The other nations worship images of their gods, but Israel is the image of her God. And if the images of the nations' gods dwell in man-made temples, the Spirit of Israel's God dwells among his people and sanctifies them as his holy presence. Ignatius, arrested for some unknown reason and being marched across the Roman empire to face the lions in Rome's newly built Coliseum, could have consoled himself and his readers that the Lord will avenge the desecration of his image (is anyone aware of any use of the creation accounts in this fashion among Jewish and Christian martyrological traditions?).

But instead, he turns immediately to the contrast between Jesus' creative word "in the beginning" and his redemptive silence before the Sanhedrin and before Pontius Pilate. In other words, Ignatius seems to dwell in a world colored by Hebrew biblical tradition only indirectly, inasmuch as Hebrew biblical tradition colors the texts and stories coming out of the first two or three generations of Christian activity. If I'm reading him rightly, Ignatius is reflecting consciously on various New Testament texts and only dimly, if at all, aware without any concern that those texts are indebted to the forms and expressions and significances of biblical tradition.

some (less) preliminary thoughts on Ignatius of Antioch

As I mentioned previously, I recently began reading the Apostolic Fathers. After reading Whitacre's text and translation of Ignatius' letter To The Romans (in A Patristic Greek Reader [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007]), I thought I noticed a shift in Ignatius (from the NT authors, the author of the Didache, and from Clement of Rome) regarding his use and thinking in terms of Hebrew biblical traditions.

Today, I returned to Michael Holmes's text of the Apostolic Fathers and read Holmes's introduction to Ignatius. He begins with a wonderful description of Ignatius, which I reproduce here:

Just as we become aware of a meteor only when, after traveling silently through space for untold millions of miles, it blazes briefly through the atmosphere before dying in a shower of fire, so it is with Ignatius, bishop of Antioch in Syria. We meet him for the first time for just a few weeks not long before his death as a martyr in Rome early in the second century. But during those weeks he wrote, virtually as his "last will and testament," seven letters of extraordinary interest because of the unparalleled light they shed on the history of the church at that time, and because of what they reveal about the remarkable personality of the author. (Holmes 2007: 166)

Still only on the basis of my cursory reading of Ignatius' To The Romans, I find Holmes's description compelling. In that letter Ignatius is almost obsessive in his concern that he be able to "attain God" [τοῦ θεοῦ ἐπιτυχεῖν; tou theou epituchein (Rom. 1.2, passim)], which is synonymous for Ignatius with his successful (and gruesome!) martyrdom.

In his discussion of Ignatius' "Sources and Cultural Context," Holmes acknowledges that Ignatius "makes very little use of the Old Testament" (2007: 174) and mentions only three citations (Eph. 5.3; Magn. 12; Trall. 8.2) and three allusions (Eph. 15.1; Magn. 10.3; 13.1; see Holmes 2007: 174, n. 14). Perhaps not surprisingly, Ignatius is very influenced by Pauline tradition and perhaps broader streams of New Testament tradition (including John and/or Matthew). But given the shot-through-ness of those earlier texts with allusions to, connections with, and even citations of Hebrew biblical traditions, I'm intrigued by how Ignatius can be shaped by Paul but largely unserved by the resources Hebrew biblical traditions offered him for understanding and responding to his arrest and martyrdom.

Tomorrow (or later today, since I'm not very motivated to get to my work), I'll start reading Ignatius' To the Ephesians. Should be fun!