Kata Markon

["Sid Martin" <smartin6 AT mindspring.com>]

Forgive me for being a little confused but doesn't "temptation" simply mean
"testing" or "trying" in a moral sense?  A person's character is "tested" or
"tried" when one is faced with a choice between what is morally right and
what is personally appealing.  One is "tempted" to do what is easier or more
profitable or more sensually satisfying.  One passes the "test" or "trial"
when one refuses to give into "temptation," i.e., to fail the test by
choosing the lesser good or the greater evil.  Without the "temptation"
there is no "test" so that in reality they are the same thing.  Just as ore
may be assayed to see if it has the chemical composition of gold, so too a
person may be tested by temptation to see if he has the "right stuff."  One
can also be tempted in a prudential sense by choosing immediate
gratification over a person's greater interests; breaking one's diet is a
good example.

In the context of Mark 14:38, the sense is clearly that the disciples are to
watch and pray and not give in to the temptation to sleep - the easier, more
satsfying course of conduct - rather than pass the fatigue test and stay
awake.  Note God's Word, "Stay awake, and pray that you won't be tempted."
Many a soldier ordered to stand guard late at night has known what it is to
say that the soldier's spirit is willing to do his duty but the long day's
march has made his exhausted flesh too weak to watch.  Indeed, Mark is very
likely alluding to this military model.  Falling asleep at one's post would,
I am sure, be an instant death sentence in the Roman army.

Perhaps it would be helpful if Jeffrey would share with us his concern that
PEIRASMOS be rendered "trial" or "test" rather than "temptation" which, to
my mind, is at best a distinction without a difference, especially where the
context suggests that the test or trral of one of moral character, i.e.,
temptation.  Jeffrey rests his case on the LXX  **nisah** = a "test", a
"trial."  Brown-Driver-Briggs (based on Gesenius) has as the third
definition "test, try prove, tempt [but not in modern sense of the word]."
Does anyone know what the "modern sense of the word" is, other than a test
of character?

If Joe is mistaken in his translation, it is a mistake that the majority of
translators make.  See KJV, RSV, NKJV, NIV, NASB, NLT, ESV, KJ21, ASV, TEV,
NCV, CEV, as well as Young, Phillips, Darby, Webster, Green, Wesley,
Weymouth.  This was Jeromes's translation, "in temptationem," and following
the Vulgate, Douay-Rheims and Knox.  Cognates of temptation are found in
French, "tentation" (Segond, Jerusalem), Italian, "tentazione" (CEI, LND,
IBS), Spanish, "tentacion" (RVR1960,  NVI, RVR1995, DHH, RVA, LBLA,
CST-IBS), and Portugues, "tentacao" (NVI, IBS, PORAA).  Luther chose
"Versuchung" as did his revisers (1912, 1975, 1984) and successors
(Elberfelder).   The Staatenvertaling, "verzoeking," and the IBS
"verleiding" are equivalent.  Scandanavian versions are all of the
"frestar/frestele" variety (SVL, SV1917, DN1933, DNB1930, Nor-IBS), while
Russian has "iskushyeniye" (Russv, IBS).  In all of these languages, the
terms used have the sense of resisting temptation, i.e., passing a test of
moral character.

The use of "test" or "trial" to render PEIRASMOS is decidedly out of the
ordinary, if not idiosyncratic.  The only prominent English translation to
do so is NRSV which has "time of trial", although there is nothing about
"time" in the Greek.  Such usage may reflect a desire to simplify the
language to the point of being rather overly colloquial, as in the Basic
English "not be put to the test," Contemporary English "won't be tested,"
Worldwide English "will not do wrong," and Biblia en Lenguaje Sencillo's "la
prueba."  Notable is the IBS's Hoffnung fuer Alle which has "damit ihr die
kommenden Tage ueberstehen koennt."  This reflects a view that the
temptation/test/trial is yet to come, rather than being present in the
natural urge to sleep.  Such may foreshadow a future peirasmos, but the main
sense is more immediate.

Sid Martin
Tulsa, Oklahoma

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeffrey B. Gibson" <jgibson000 AT attbi.com>
To: "Kata Markon" <gmark AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Saturday, October 19, 2002 10:14 PM
Subject: [gmark] PEIRASMOS =temptation"?


> To aid Joe in the question I asked him about showing me evidence that
> PEIRASMOS ever meant "temptation", I decided to reproduce the data which
> needs to be examined if some resolution of the question is to be
> attained, i.e., a listing of all the instances of the use of PEIRASMOS
> before the middle of the second century CE.
>
> If requested, I can also produce the data on the cognates of PEIRASMOS,
> namely, PEIRAZW and EKPEIRAZW.
>
> And in the meantime, I'd also like to ask Joe what his warrant is for
> translating SARC as "body"?
>
> Yours,
>
> JG
>
> PEIRASMOS  occurs
>
> (A)  thirteen times in the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew
> Scriptures (Ex. 17:17; Deut. 4:34; 6:16; 7:19; 9:22; 29:3(2); Ps.
> 94(95):8; and Eccl. 3:10; 4:8; 5:2, 13; 8:16 if we accept as authentic
> the reading of Alexandrinus in Eccl. 3:10; 4:8; and 8:16 [B and
> Sinaiticus have PEIRISPASMOS], of Sinaiticus in 5:13 [A and B have
> PERISPASMOS], and of the three main textual witnesses in 5:2, where it
> is used without exception to translate the Hebrew **nisah** -- a "test",
> a "trial"
>
> (B) seven times in the Apocrypha of the Septuagint (Sir. 2:1; 6:7; 27:5,
> 7; 36(33):1; 44:20; 1 Macc. 2:52),
>
> (C) twice in the Pseudepigrapha (Test. Jos. 2:7; Fragment of Greek
> Jubilees W on Jub. 10.8 [text in Fragmenta Pseudepigraphorum Quae
> Supersunt Graeca, A.M. Denis, ed., Vol. 3 of Pseudepigrapha Veteris
> Testamenti Graece, A.M. Denis and M. DeJonge, eds. (Leiden: Brill, 1970)
> 87]),
>
> (D) once in the extant fragments of non-Septuagintal Greek versions of
> the Hebrew Scriptures (Symmachus, Gen. 44:15),  and, not including Mk.
> 14:38,  twenty times in the New Testament ( Matt. 6:13; 26:41; Lk. 4:13;
> 8:13; 11:4, 14; 22:40; 46; Acts 15:26 (D E), 20:19; 1 Cor. 10:13
> (twice); Gal. 4:14; 1 Tim. 6:9; Heb. 3:18; James 1:2, 12; 1 Peter 1:16;
> 2 Peter 2:9; Rev. 3:10).
>
> In the so called Apostolic literature composed before 150 C.E. PEIRASMOS
> appears at least four times -- once in the Didache (Did. 8:2),  once in
> Hermas (Hermas Man. 9:7), once in Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians
> (Epistula ad Philippenses 7.2.5), once in a fragment of Ignatius' To
> Polycarp (Fragment 25, from e cod. Florent. Laur. 6.4 [Ad Polycarpum] in
> J.H. Crehan, "A New Fragment of Ignatius' Ad Polycarpum', Studia
> Patristica 1 [T. & U.] 63 [1957] 24) -- and nine times if we accept a
> relatively early date for both the Acts of Paul, where the noun appears
> four times (Acta Pauli et Theclae 25.6; 25.9; 40.7; Recenscion C Codex E
> 5.14), and 2 Clement, where PEIRASMOS appears once (2 Cor. 39.7).
>
> PEIRASMOS also occurs in pre-150 C.E. "secular" literature at least ten
> times.
>
> PEIRASMOS appears once in a section of the work by the (probably) second
> century B.C.E. grammarian Ptolemaeus of Ascalon entitled De differentia
> vocabulorum (Sigma 146, according to the enumeration of the work in the
> edition of De differentia vocabulorum edited by V. Palmieri in Annali
> della Facolta di Lettere e Filosofia dell' Universita di Napoli 24
> [1981-1982] 191-225),  once in the preface to the Materia Medica, a work
> on the medicinal properties of plants and the effects of drugs by the
> first century C.E. physician and pharmacologist Pedanius Dioscorides
> (Mat. Med. Praef. 5.12),  once in the Partitiones, a work by the first
> century Alexandrian grammarian Aelius Herodianus (Partitiones 110.5, ed.
> J.F. Boissonade, Herodiani paertitiones [London, 1819]), three times in
> what I take to be a pre-2nd century C.E. commentary by an anonymous
> author on Aristotle's Art of Rhetoric (In Anonymi in Aristotelis Artem
> Rhetoricum 98.29 [on Rhet. Book II.iv (1381b) 27]; 102.29 [on Rhet. Book
> II.v (1383a) 17]; 103.9 [on Rhet. Book II.v.(1383a) 18]),  once in an a
> pre-2nd century anonymous commentary on Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics
> (Anonymi in Aristotelis Ethica: In Ethica Nichomachea Commentaria 454.10
> [on Nichomachean Ethics Book VII.xiii (1153b) 17]), once in an early
> Scholion on Euripides' Hecuba (Scholia in Eupripdes, sch Hecuba 1226
> which appears in cod. Vat. 909), once in the Syntipas (Ed. V. Jernstedt
> and P. Nikition,  Memories de l'Academie Imperiale des Sciences de St.
> Petersbourg, 8me Serie, Classe des Sciences historico-philologique, Tome
> XI. No. 1. (1912) 124), an anonymous first century C.E. Arabian Nights,
> and once in the Cyranides  (Cf. F. de Mely and C.-E Ruelle, Les
> Lapidaries de l'antiquite et du moyen age, II: Le Lapidaries grecs,
> (1898) Sec. 40.24), a first century C.E. work on magical curative powers
> of plants, stones, and animals.
>
>
> --
> Jeffrey B. Gibson, D.Phil. (Oxon.)
> 1500 W. Pratt Blvd.
>           Floor 1
> Chicago, Illinois 60626
> e-mail jgibson000 AT attbi.com
>           jgibson000 AT hotmail.com
>
>
>
> ---
> You are currently subscribed to gmark as: smartin6 AT mindspring.com
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to
$subst('Email.Unsub')