Thanks for posting this. I know I got the information from an exegesis of Matthew 26:50 where it addressed specifically the use of eph' ho in Greek literature, but I was going by memory and I will need to check where I read that (whether it was from an article, book, or commentary). It seemed a credible claim to me, but not being an expert in Greek I certainly acknowledge that the claim could have been erroneous. The discussion, as I recall it, concerned the relative pronoun ho and whether it could form an interrogative by itself. And my mind is open about this verse, if it turns out that the evidence goes the other way I wouldn't have a problem changing my position; as it is I really haven't delved into the literature on this verse very deeply, and I offered my opinion about the verse based on what I remembered reading about it and not through any sort of "deep study" of it. I'll be sure to let you know when I've found the source of the grammatical claim about ho in the main clause of direct questions.
Simon, Cephas, Peter, Judas, Thomas, Didymus
by Leolaia 41 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Leolaia
There is really no need to search the tons of texts of the Hebrew scriptures to find some veiled allusion to a canonical gospel line when the reason for a line is simply and clearly explained by looking at the text on the previous page and figuring out the plot. Its a little bit like searching the Aeneid for references to the God of War Mars to try to figure out why the so called American President announced a mission to Mars last week.
I have to disagree with this. It is quite clear that OT exegesis was involved in construing Jesus as a paschal lamb and as a scapegoat sacrifice, and the examples I showed attest the recruitment of motifs from these rituals. It is also quite apparent that similar motifs and elements were recruited from all over the OT to construct all sorts of things about Jesus' life -- many of these are even cited directly in the text (cf. Matthew 2:6, 15, 18; 12:18-21; 13:14-15; 21:5; 27:9; John 19:24, 28, 36-37). A better comparison would be if President Bush gave his speech about a mission to Mars but peppered his speech with a lot of references to the Aeneid, some in direct quotes and elsewhere in language borrowed from the Aeneid.
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Narkissos
Raskin's philological argument strikes me as particularly weak. 1) He mixes up the relative hos (accusative neuter ho) with the article ho, which is another word; I just reviewed Bailly's article and find no trace of interrogative use. 2) The argument that the vocative Hetaire appears in questions elsewhere is absolutely pointless. By the same "logic" one could also point that in the two other instances it refers to a man, so it must be the same in 26:50 (reasoning ab absurdo)...
Edited to add: Matthew introduces questions with prepositions several times: dia ti, or eis ti (the latter appears in 26:8 for instance).
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Leolaia
Narkissos.....Matthew 26:8 has a direct question beginning with a preposition, eis ti "to what", but what I was pointing out was that in the case of eph' ho "on what" the word translated "what" is not an interrogative like ti but a relative marker. See Luke 5:25: "And at once he rose up before them, and took up what (eph' ho "on what") he had been lying on." A relative marker usually heads a relative clause that is embedded within a main clause but there is no verb that could serve as the predicate of this main clause. So either the verb (like the "do" that has been postulated) dropped out of the text, or Matthew is using some sort of idiom, like as a question which has been postulated.
I just did some online research and I found this item (http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/test-archives/html4/2001-08/6929.html) which seems to refer to the same thing I had read earlier from one of my sources:
9B: NT philology overwhelmingly rejects the proposition that hOS is used in direct questions (Mlt. 93; Bl-D. ยง300, 2; Radermacher2 78; PMaas [see 2b above]). An unambiguous example of it is yet to be found. Even the inscr. on a goblet in Dssm., LO 100ff [LAE 125-31], ET 33, ?22, 491-3 leaves room for doubt. For this reason the translation of hETAIRE, EF' hO PAREI Mt 26:50 as ?what are you here for?? (so Gdspd., Probs. 41-43; similarly, as early as Luther, later Dssm.; JPWilson, ET 41, ?30, 334) is scarcely tenable.-Rob. 725 doubts the interrogative here, but Moulton-Turner, Syntax ?63, p. 50 inclines toward it."
The source is given as The Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. I don't think this is the book I saw but rather a commentary or article that made reference to the same claim. Dr. Carl W. Conrad, from the Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus), also says this about the verse in question (http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/test-archives/html4/2001-08/6930.html):
While I can understand your reluctance to take the leap and supply POIEI (or POIHSON?), I really think this is the only viable alternative among those you list. There is, of course, no parallel in Mark or Luke--and I don't know of any exact parallel in extra-biblical literature, although this is mightily like some bits of half-line stichomythia in Greek tragedy and comedy and just a little bit like some rather elliptical proverbial statements such as MH PAR' hO GEGRAPTAI. That is to say, we recognize the ellipsis as such and supply what makes sense. Here it seems to me that the only thing that makes sense is to understand the phrase, as "My friend, you came here for a purpose, go right ahead and get it done."
It occurs to me that there's yet another way to fill the ellipsis, by understanding a TOUT' ESTIN, i.e. TOUT' ESTIN EF' hO PAREI. That is to say, the actual words cited are "what you came for" with the implicit sense: "Yes, that's what you came for."
I found this sentence in my interlinear Bible: poieson ho soi legomen [do what-rel. you we-tell] "do what we tell you" (Acts 21:23), where the relative ho embeds a relative clause in a poieson/poiei predicate. Examples of questions of the "what are you here for" type include: ti su entantha elion "what are you doing here" (1 Kings 19:9; LXX), ti poieis entantha "what are you doing in this place" (Judges 18:3; LXX), ti soi estin hode "why are you here" (Judges 18:3; LXX), ti su hode "why are you here" (Isaiah 22:16; LXX). Another interesting thing is the vocative hetiare "friend". In all the NT, hetairos "friend, compansion" occurs only in Matthew, and only in the vocative. It appears only in Matthew 20:13, 22:12, and 26:50. The more typical word for "friend" is philos. Now two things are interesting about this. One is that the other two uses of the word occur in negative contexts: in 20:13 the handowner says it to the laborers who had just grumbled and complained to him. In 22:12 the king says it to a wedding guest who wasn't dressed properly and who he then threw him out into the dark "where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Second, since much of the Judas story comes from 2 Samuel 15-17, I checked that text in the LXX to see if the relatively rare word hetairos occurs there, and indeed it does, in 2 Samuel 15:32, 37; 16:16, 17. This was unexpected because it is rare in the entire OT, occurring just 4 times in Proverbs, 3 times in Judges, twice in 1 Kings, a handful of other times, and absent in Genesis, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Esther, Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, etc. Yet it occurs 5 times within 3 chapters of 2 Samuel, the same passage that directly influenced the Judas story.
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peacefulpete
It seems fare to leave it a judgement call. The divided references I posted (one of which you just referred to) and the split decision by translators makes clear that it, like so many aspects of translating, is interpretive.
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peacefulpete
I was just thinking about Luke Luke 7:36-50 and 10:38. Notice that in 10:38 Lazarus does not exist. It is called Martha's house and she prepares a meal. (Setting aside the suggestion that martha was his bossy wife and Mary a lover in some original tale,) I noticed how these two stories appear fused in the John version of the meal scene. (John 12:1-8) There it again is Martha's house but she now has a brother! Where did he come from? Why of course the preceeding story, the resurection scene. In the present text of John the insertion of lazarus in the meal scene is obvious. He is simply a footnote that says nothing or does nothing. Martha and Mary are still the main chaacters in a pericope that was an abridgement of the two from Luke. Remove the phrase that says, "but lazarus was there too" and it flows just fine. Any thoughts?
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Leolaia
Whoa, that just made me realize another weird thing about this Lazarus guy from John 11. As I pointed out in an earlier post, Secret Mark attests the same resurrection story which reveals the Lazarus figure as the rich young man from Mark 10:17-22. The plot of this story resembles the Parable of the Rich Fool (Luke 12:13-21; Gospel of Thomas 63:1), and there are several connections as well to the Parable of Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31): (1) The name Lazarus, (2) A rich man that died, (3) Mention of linen, (4) Mention of resurrection of the rich man. Well, there may be another tantalizing connection. The Bethany annointing story you mention (John 12:1-11) follows right after the Lazarus miracle in John 11, and the people mentioned at the scene include Mary, Martha, and Lazarus -- "and Lazarus was among those reclining at the table (anakeimenon)" (John 12:2). Now when we look at the parallel story in Mark 14:3-9, we find an unnamed woman and Simon the leper, who was "reclining at the table (katakeimenou)" (Mark 14:3). This parallel makes it less probable that the Lazarus mention was not original to the story. But more interestingly, here we have a story about a meal which is paralleled in the Rich Man and Lazarus parable, which refers to Lazarus as eating the "crumbs falling from the rich man's table" (Luke 16:21). And the connection between Simon the leper and Lazarus the rich man, explicit in both being described as "reclining at the table," certainly recalls the rich man and the leperous Lazarus who was "covered with sores" (heilkomenos). The Greek word helkos "sore" is used in Leviticus 13:18-23 (LXX) to refer to leprosy: "It is a case of leprosy (lepra) that has broken out in a sore (helkei)." This is getting real interesting; the more I look at the two Lazarus stories, the more they seem to have something to do with each other, but in a complex and unpredictable way.
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Leolaia
Here's another parallel between the two stories. Compare the beginning of the Secret Mark resurrection story with Mark's Bethany annointing story:
"And they came into Bethany. And a certain woman whose brother had died was there. And, coming, she prostrated herself before Jesus and says to him, 'Son of David, have mercy on me.' But the disciples rebuked her. And Jesus, being angered, went off with her into the garden where the tomb was." (Secret Mark 10:34:1-2)
"And when he was in Bethany at the home of Simon the leper, and reclining at the table, there came a woman with an alabaster vial of very costly perfume of pure nard; and she broke the vial and poured it over his head. But some were indignantly remarking to one another, 'Why has this perfume been wasted? For this perfume might have been sold for over three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.' And they were scolding her. But Jesus said, 'Let her alone; why do you bother her? She has done a good deed to me.'...And Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went off to the chief priests, in order to betray him to them." (Mark 14:1-6, 10)
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badboy
peter was a real person b/c he had living descendants in the 2nd century AD
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Narkissos
Narkissos.....Matthew 26:8 has a direct question beginning with a preposition, eis ti "to what", but what I was pointing out was that in the case of eph' ho "on what" the word translated "what" is not an interrogative like ti but a relative marker.
Maybe I was not clear enough, but I perfectly agree with you on that: this was the very point I was trying to make.