Subject: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v022.n002

From: Alice Turner <al at interport.net>
Date: Wed, 02 Dec 1998 19:04:06 +0000

>
>>From: Nigel Price <NigelPrice1 at compuserve.com>
>>Wombat, a.k.a. Kevin Maroney, wrote:
>>
>>>>John 19:30 cum ergo accepisset Iesus acetum dixit consummatum est et
>>>> inclinato capite tradidit spiritum
>>>>
>>>>("And when Jesus had received the vinegar, he said "It is finished" and
>>>>bowed his head and gave up his spirit.")
>>
>>Yeah, bummer isn't it?  Definitely "consummatum est" ("it is
accomplished")
>>rather than "terminus est" in the Vulgate.  I still haven't found my copy
>
>...
>>And, of course, I looked at John 19.30 and found "consummatum est", which
>>just about put the tin lid on a bad day, much of the afternoon of which I
>
>
>Fear not, friend Nigel--your position is salvageable. I have it on good
>authority that Jesus' grasp of Latin was pretty weak. In fact, he hardly
>used it at all, preferring the local patois (Hebrew? Aramaic? Dang, my
>seminary days were wasted, I fear. No, the Sergeant doth not jest--he
really
>spent a year in seminary, during which he learned nothing.)

>Of course, we all know that the words of Jesus as recorded in the Latin
>Vulgate are themselves a translation--actually, a translation of a
>translation, since the New Testament was first recorded in Greek...which
>Jesus probably didn't speak either.

Actually, according to something I read somewhere lately (don't you love
that?--such a perfect Usenet reference), perhaps an article in The Atlantic,
Jesus may well have spoken some or even a fair amount of Greek, from the
evidence that the next town over from Nazareth (the name of which escapes
me, naturally) was a highly Hellenicized trading town---before you pounce to
point out that the occupation was Roman, not Greek, the author made the
point that the lingua franca was at that time Greek (you take my
meaning--the English of today, heh, heh).

On the other hand, it's unlikely that he went around spouting Greek at
wedding parties, on top of Mounts and on the cross.

> I think it's reasonable to
>suggest that "terminus est" may be translated into English as "it is
>finished", and that Wolfe was aware of this.  I've always been partial to
>that translation of the sword's name (and I've said so before).

I also. But then I've always been partial to the Sarge.

-alga

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

---

From: George M. Terry <gmterry at ucdavis.edu>
Date: Wed, 02 Dec 1998 16:25:38 +0000

Hello,
this is my first post to the list--this is the first time I actually have
had anything meaningful to contribute to any discussion.

> meaning--the English of today, heh, heh).

The town in question was Sephorris.  It was a fairly large (relative to the
other places in the area like Nazareth, only five miles away) town, and was
apparently on some trade road.  Lots of construction went on there in the
early part of the first century CE, including a large amphitheater.  If
Jesus were a carpenter (or craftsman of some description--I believe the
Greek NT uses the word 'teknon') he would of probably needed some Greek to
gain employment in this city and communicate.
And truly the language of the Roman Empire was Greek for the common people.
Latin was used administratively.  Even early church services in Rome were
held in Greek.

That's all.

George Terry

---

From: Kevin J. Maroney <kmaroney at crossover.com>
Date: Wed, 02 Dec 1998 20:21:30 +0000

>meaning--the English of today, heh, heh).

Capernum and Sepphoris were two fairly large newly-buily, heavily
Hellinized towns within walking distance of Nazareth. Neither is mentioned
at all in the Gospels or in Acts, from which some scholars (notably but not
solely John Dominic Crossan) have concluded that Jesus and the movement he
headed during his life did not address themselves at the Greeks and Romans
in Judea. 

If Jesus was a tekton (craftsman, usually translated "carpenter") before he
became a teacher/prophet/revolutionary, he probably did speak at least
enough Greek to do business in those cities. 

>wedding parties, on top of Mounts and on the cross.

Right. Based on the scanty evidence, he certainly spoke Aramaic as his
primary language, and probably spoke Aramaic to his flock. The Gospel of
Mark is littered with Aramaic statements which Mark then helpfully
translates into Greek.

Jesus probably never spoke Latin, though. 

(For reasons that are unclear to me, I've been reading a lot of
early-New-Testament scholarship over the last year-and-a-half. I highly
recommend John Crossan's recent _The Birth of Christianity_ as one of the
best scholarly works I've *ever* read--incredibly well-researched,
wide-ranging, funny, just flat-out brilliant. You will never look at
Christianity the same way again.)

Has anyone here mentioned the scene in Acts 17:23 cf where Paul lectures
the Greeks on the true nature of the "Unknown God" to whom they have altars?

[22] So Paul, standing in the middle of the Are-op'agus, said: "Men of
Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 
[23] For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I
found also an altar with this inscription, `To an unknown god.' What
therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 
[24] The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven
and earth, does not live in shrines made by man, 
[25] nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since
he himself gives to all men life and breath and everything. 
[26] And he made from one every nation of men to live on all the face of
the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their
habitation, 
[27] that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after him
and find him. Yet he is not far from each one of us, 
[28] for `In him we live and move and have our being';
as even some of your poets have said, `For we are indeed his offspring.'

The relevance to _The Book of the Long Sun_ should be, I think, obvious.

Wombat, a.k.a. Kevin Maroney kmaroney at crossover.com
Kitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction
http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/olp/nyrsf/nyrsf.html

---

From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Thu, 03 Dec 1998 10:18:11 +0000

> Christianity the same way again.)

I haven't read Crossan, but I've read some fairly compelling critiques of
his work which might interest you.

N.T. Wright's _Jesus and the Victory of God_ argues that Crossan et. al.
misread Jesus and the early church by abstracting them too much from the
context of first century Judaism.  There's a good review of it here:

http://www.ozemail.com.au/~gsmunro/wright.html

Wright is very readable and also happens to be the best speaker I've ever
heard. I've never heard anyone who takes questions, really listens to
them, and responds in such a thoughtful, eloquent way, genuinely answering
the question, not just going off on some subject inspired by it. If you
can ever find tapes of his lectures, they are wonderful. 

Catholic scholar Luke Timothy Johnson's book _The Real Jesus_ also has
some interesting critiques of Crossan et. al.  The subtitle, "The
Misguided Quest for the Historical and the Truth of the Traditional
Gospels" tells you a lot about where he's coming from, but I think some of
his points about the limits of historical inquiry are telling. 

It's time for me to read some of Crossan's side of things, though.  Thanks
for the recommendation. 

-Rostrum

---

From: Kevin J. Maroney <kmaroney at crossover.com>
Date: Thu, 03 Dec 1998 11:06:20 +0000

>http://www.ozemail.com.au/~gsmunro/wright.html

I'll check him out. The review doesn't give me much sense of his position
or his criticism of Crossan, but I certainly need to read some other
authors. Crossan fits my own prejudices well, though, which is certainly
one of the reasons I like him.

I will point out that Crossan himself does not seem to subscribe to the
worst excess of The Jesus Seminar, but has sometimes been treated as if he
does. Burton Mack, another leading Jesus Seminar scholar, is much more
virulently anti-miracle, anti-faith than is Crossan--Mack seems to be angry
at every one of the authors of the New Testament. 

Some of Crossan's views seem explicitly idiosyncratic, but he's also very
good about identifying those--for instance, his insistence in _Who Killed
Jesus?_ that the crucifixion/resurrection narrative in _The Gospel of
Peter_ actually *predates* the canonical gospels is clearly a minority
opinion, but he argues for it quite well. 

Anyway, it's fun stuff.