Corpus-Paul

[Richard Fellows <rfellows AT intergate.ca>]

Listers,

Thanks, Stephen, for your perseptive observations that you presented in the
thread "Crispus, Titus, and the taking of new names"

>Interestingly enough, the case of Bar-Jesus/Elymas has parallels
>to the Crispus/Sosthenes situation.  In both instances, the
>person's position is repeated with the new name: Acts 13:6 TINA
>MAGOS ... hWi ONOMA BARIHSOU, v8 ELUMAS hO MAGOS; 18:8 KRISPOS
>DE hO ARXISUNAGWGHS, v17 SWSQENHN TON ARXISUNAGWGON.

Various interpretations of Acts 13:8 have been given, but most commentators
agree that Luke is not telling us that Elymas is a translation of
Bar-Jesus. If they are right, then the repetition of the title 'Magician'
is the only thing that directly connects Elymas with Bar-Jesus. We should
therefore not be surprised by the way Crispus in Acts 18:8 becomes
Sosthenes in Acts 18:17.

The case of Elymas is interesting in itself. The following data needs to be
explained, if I can trust my sources.

The word order seems to suggest that MAGOS is a translation of ELUMAS.
ElUMAS is obscure, but may be related to the Arabic Alim, meaning wise. The
western text gives ET[O]IMOS, and some of the church fathers give
variations of this. Josephus mentions a Jewish Cypriot magician called
"Atomos" (AJ 20.7.2) (though some inferior manuscripts give 'Simon'). Greek
personal names derived from ETOIMOS and ETUMOS are known, but the name
ATOMOS is unattested. 

How does all this fit together? Was the magician of Acts 13 also the
magician in Josephus? What were his names? Different commentators emphasise
different elements in the data set, and thereby come to very different
conclusions. We need a hypothesis that explains ALL the data.

I suggest that someone called ETOIMOS (or a variant of the same) Bar-Jesus
was given the name ELUMAS (or some variant of the same) by his friends
after he became a magician. He therefore ended up with three names: ETOIMOS
ELUMAS Bar-Jesus, like Simon Peter Bar-Jona, or Joseph Justus Barsabbas.
Luke knew him by the name, ELUMAS, whereas the originator of the western
variant knew him by the name ETOIMOS, and amended the text accordingly.
Josephus called him Atomos, which I take to be a corruption of ETOIMOS.

If, indeed, ELUMAS means something like magician, then it was probably not
his name from childhood. It is more likely that he was given that name
after becoming a MAGOS. I also think it is unlikely that Bar-Jesus would
have been his only name in childhood, as patronymics such as this generally
went with other names, and were used a little like our last names (Judas
Bar-Sabas, Joseph Bar-nabas etc.). So there is every likelihood that ELUMAS
Bar-Jesus had another name. ETOIMOS is a good candidate because it sounds
like ELUMAS (note that, according to Jackson and Lake, confusion was common
between OI and U). As we have seen, Jews liked to give a new name which
sounded like the existing name. They also liked to give a name, which had a
meaning which was appropriate to the individual. In the case of ETOIMOS, it
seems that they managed to satisfy both desires simultaneously, though they
had to resort to an obscure word to do so (ELUMAS).

Another case where they managed to find a homophone with an approptiate
meaning was Titus-Timothy. Timotheus means something like 'Valued of God',
and sounds like Titus (Ramsay pointed out that T and Theta were
interchangeable on the Galatian plateau).

Does my suggestion concerning Elymas make sense? Is my information correct?
Has anything similar been proposed before?

Richard Fellows.