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  • From: Dave Washburn <dwashbur AT nyx.net>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Aramaic - Abba
  • Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2005 00:06:08 -0600

On Friday 22 July 2005 18:57, Peter Kirk wrote:
> On 22/07/2005 19:22, Harold R. Holmyard III wrote:
> >... The Aramaic behind Matthew is
> >êlî êlî lmâ ”vaqtanî. Whereas Mark has elohî
> >elohî.
>
> The former is Aramaic, but the latter is surely Hebrew. The Aramaic, if
> not êlî, might be elahî, but not elohî.
[snip]

Not necessarily. Rendering from one script to another is always a little
iffy, and if both Matthew and Mark's authors are reporting the same
exclamation, it would appear that they simply did the best they could with
the alphabet they had. Mark doesn't have elohi, he has eloi, because Greek
didn't have a way to indicate a word-medial "h" sound. It is also likely, as
I have said before, that Jesus' words were rather slurred, considering his
physical condition by the time he reached this point. The fact that two
gospel writers could render the first words in such different ways, while
others heard some variation of "Elijah," suggests that there may have been a
bit of an enunciation problem. Intense flogging, dehydration, nails through
the extremities, having to pull yourself up against said nails to breathe,
and generally being on the verge of death could tend to have that effect.

--
Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"Well, if I'd wanted a safe life, I guess I wouldn't have
married a man who studies rocks." - Betty Armstrong (Fay Masterson)




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