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  • From: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Re: setting and reading
  • Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 19:41:45 -0600

Dear Jim,

This is a little long, but interesting.

Indeed- in the NT story of the healing of the man in the house- his friends dig a hole in the roof in one account and they remove the tiles in the other- evidence that the gospel writers adapted the story to the circumstances to their hearers.

HH: It could be two ways of telling the same story. You can dig a hole in the roof by removing the tiles.

I agree completely with the first sentence. The second, I dont. One normally doesn't dig through tiles. Your solution is conflationary. Yet the gospel writers themselves never offer such a conflation (for neither account combines the digging and the tiles).

HH: A conflated reading seems possible. The Greek word EXORUSSW in Mark 2:4 can be translated "dig out," but it can also be translated as "tear out" (BAGD), "break up" (Accordance), or "open" (Newman's UBS dictionary), words very appropriate for tiles.

HH: The NET Bible presents your theory, Jim:

There is a translational problem at this point in the text. The term Luke uses is kevramo" (keramo"). It can in certain contexts mean "clay," but usually this is in reference to pottery (see BDAG 540 s.v. 1). The most natural definition in this instance is "roof tile" (used in the translation above). However, tiles were generally not found in Galilee. Recent archaeological research has suggested that this house, which would have probably been typical for the area, could not have supported "a second story, nor could the original roof have been masonry; no doubt it was made from beams and branches of trees covered with a mixture of earth and straw" (J. F. Strange and H. Shanks, "Has the House Where Jesus Stayed in Capernaum Been Found?" BAR 8, no. 6 [Nov/Dec 1982]: 34). Luke may simply have spoken of building materials that would be familiar to his readers.

HH: Here is another presentation of the same theory:
http://www.tektonics.org/harmonize/gospelculture.html

Nitpicky critics will complain that "tiling" is an error because roofs in Palestine did not have tiles -- only Greek and Roman houses did. Therefore they assume Luke is erroneously anachronizing. They assume right on the latter, but have been mixed up on the former. If intent means that one has not committed error, then such cites as these simply cannot be called errors. In this case, we see Luke intentionally anachronizing for the purpose of making the story more intelligible to a more sophisticated audience. Today we would do no such thing -- we would say that the roof was made of wood or straw, or whatever, and then include explanatory footnotes like this:

In Palestine, roofs are made of wood or straw, unlike roofs in Greek and Roman areas which are made of tile.

In this era before footnotes and limited office supplies, Luke had no room for such diversions. It would therefore behoove him rather to make the account easily intelligible, rather than distract the reader with the question, "How is it they have a roof not made of tiles?" Keener [6]in his Matthean commentary observes that Josephus (as well as Philo) "as frequently as possible...translates native Jewish ideas into broader hellenistic categories to make them more intelligible (and acceptable to his milieu)." (Josephus was writing to an audience of educated Romans.) Keener therefore advises keeping a wider frame of reference when consulting ancient texts, and it is in the same light that we should read verses like Luke 5:19.

HH: Another possibility is that the word KERAMOS in Luke 5:19, which can mean potter's earth or clay (LSJ), in this story refers to the clay material of the roof (BAGD). So instead of two different roof types (tile and earth), both the Mark and Luke stories would concern clay.

HH: Other sources can support this idea, here Architecture of Ancient Israel. Eds. Aharon Kempinski and Ronny Reich. Israel Exploration Society and Authors: Jerusalem, 1992.
http://home.messiah.edu/~kj1173/

However, roofs were commonly made with timber bearing the width across the room's ceiling. Side by side they lay as they became covered in clay and flattened with a roller.[26]
Mark 2:4 When the four man lower a paralytic man into the house where Jesus was teaching it says that the men "removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay."

HH: The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia also presents this interpretation:

Roof (gagh; stege).--(snip) To get over the difficulty of the larger spans, a common practice was to introduce a main beam (qurah) carried on the walls and strengthened by one or more intermediate posts let into stone sockets laid on the floor. Smaller timbers as joists ("rafters," rahiT) were spaced out and covered in turn with brushwood; the final covering, being of mud mixed with chopped straw, was beaten and rolled. A tiny stone roller is found on every modern native roof, and is used to roll the mud into greater solidity every year on the advent of the first rains. Similar rollers have been found among the ancient remains throughout the country; see Excavations of Gezer, I, 190; PEFS, Warren's letters, 46. "They let him down through the tiles (keramos) with his couch into the midst before Jesus" (Luke 5:19) refers to the breaking through of a roof similar to this.

HH: Yet the plural term KERAMWN in Luke 5:19 certainly looks like "tiles." Given what Keener says, it is possible you are right, Jim, although the idea of cultural adaptation does not seem required. Someone writes:
http://www.servantsnews.com/sn9701/s701029.htm

1) We could go to many third-world countries today where the houses are mostly one-room with thatched roofs. But we will always find some more wealthy people who can afford to imitate the western style houses. We would certainly expect to find wealthy people in first-century Palestine having Roman or Greek-style houses. When our Savior was healing and teaching great crowds, where would it make sense to go, to a one-room hut or someone who had a large Roman-style house? We have examples of our Savior asking for facilities when he needed them (Luke 19:5).

HH: In a description of the Jerusalem temple apparently taken ultimately from Josephus' _The Jewish War_, the roofs of the temple colonnades had tiles:
http://home-3.tiscali.nl/~meester7/engtemple.html

The temple was the centre of an enormous complex. It was surrounded by walls and towers (E); to the north-west of it was a castle (A) which Herod called Antonia in honour of his Roman friend Anthony. Between the castle and the temple was a subterranean passage. Around all this, a gigantic double colonnade was built. The colonnades had sloping roofs with roof tiles, on which the Roman soldiers found it difficult to walk with their hobnailed boots when they had to fight with the rebels.

HH: So there are several possibilities: 1) that all accounts speak of clay roofs, 2) that all accounts speak of tile roofs, and 3) that an author might adapt the story according to his audience, as was a practice of the time. At this point I don't know which idea is right.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard





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