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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Mark 15:34, Mat 27:46, & Psalm 22

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  • From: Trevor Peterson <06peterson AT cua.edu>
  • To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Mark 15:34, Mat 27:46, & Psalm 22
  • Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 05:41:46 -0400

Peter Kirk wrote:

But Mark's "Eloi" sounds more like Hebrew Elohi, suggesting that Jesus was misquoting Hebrew (or quoting a different Hebrew text), i.e. using a different word for "God", for the first half of the verse. Matthew's "Eli" looks like a correction to match the Hebrew better. Neither form is Aramaic, surely.

Surely? Do we know enough about the vocalization of Aramaic in all its spoken dialects from this period to say? JPA vocalizes elaha with short-e in the first syllable. The Western tradition of Syriac exhibits the same sort of rounding trend that we find in the so-called Canaanite shift, as in aloho. Both of these effects seem to be more broadly geographical than simply isolated to Hebrew. (And I don't see much problem with combining them, since qametz is used for the long vowels in the JPA vocalization, which could also have been rounded.) Since Jesus, if he spoke Aramaic, undoubtedly spoke a Western dialect, I don't see any reason that he couldn't have pronounced it elohi (perhaps all the more likely if in fact he spoke Hebrew as well). And just as achuhi became achui (now made famous in the yaaqov ossuary, but in any event probably earlier in the spoken language than in the writing), eloi would make sense here.

But perhaps it would be better to continue such a discussion on the Aramaic list, since whatever was spoken here, it was probably not BH.

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics




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