[b-hebrew] Aramaic - Abba
Harold R. Holmyard III
hholmyard at ont.com
Fri Jul 22 15:56:37 EDT 2005
Dear Peter
>Well, there are several apparently Aramaic words recorded in
>transliteration in Mark's gospel, e.g. TALIQA in 5:41 and SABACQANI in
>15:34 (Q = theta, C = chi), and an apparently Hebrew one, ELWI = Elohi
>in 15:34 (W = omega). Translations into Greek are given for all of them,
>just as for "Abba". One interpretation is that Jesus was always speaking
>Aramaic. Another is that Jesus was normally speaking Hebrew which was
>translated into Greek, and the few Aramaic words preserved are preserved
>to show their distinctively Aramaic nature.
HH: Here is somebody on the faculty of Emory University who
understands Mark 15:34 to involve Aramaic:
http://www.religion.emory.edu/faculty/robbins/SRI/Examples/textures/inter/recontextualization.html
The third instance of intertexture creates the speech in Jesus' mouth
in the scene of his crying out and death (15:33-39). In this
instance, Markan discourse creates a chreia directly out of Psalm
22:1:
And at the ninth hour Jesus called out with a loud sound,
"Eloi, Eloi lema sabachthani?"
which is translated, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me."
(Mark 15:34) This time an entire line of Psalm 22 is recontextualized
as speech of Jesus himself. In Theon's terms (Hock and O'Neil), this
is a chreia with a "commentary" that provides a translation of the
Aramaic sounds.
Yours,
Harold Holmyard
More information about the b-hebrew
mailing list