...
The evidence from the word Messias is scant. I am curious even to know
when it is first attested (that is, the earliest copy of the NT where
it is found). ...
... While one recognizes an apparent patah in the end, the word itself seems
to
exhibit a different noun form (q-ttil) rather than that recognized in Hebrew
(q-ti:l). That is, we notice first the gemination of the letter Shin.
Secondly, the
first vowel is transcribed as an epsilon. An epsilon was used to transcribe
short i and e (tsere). Thus, we have a difference of quality (i/e instead of
patah/qamats) and a difference of quantity (short vs long) from the Hebrew
word's initial vowel. The issue of the gemination can be probably considered
an internal Greek development. According to:
http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/TCG/TC-John.pdf (p. 42, TVU 17),
there are variants where the gemination does not appear. ...
... Now, in an article
on the short vowels in the second column of the Hexapla, Alexey Yuditsky
notes transcriptions of the word with suffixes in Hebrew as mesiw. ...
... (He alsoThis does seem to be a possible alternative explanation. I note that this would only work with an Aramaic common noun which could take the definite suffix. A proper name would not have this suffix, and so if we could find in Greek, for example in the New Testament or in Josephus, a proper name with an -IAS type ending where there might be a furtive patah in Hebrew, this would prove that furtive patah was pronounced at the time these books were written.
notes a Hieronymus transcription of "messio"). Yuditsky argues that the first
vowel (a short "a" in Tiberian Hebrew) assimilated to the sibilant nearby to
become epsilon. We can argue the same for the word Messias. That is, the
word Messias in the Greek represents a short assimilated patah in the first
vowel and no gemination in the second letter. Now, while Hebrew had a long
first vowel in this word, the Aramaic cognate ma$i:xa: did not. In fact, the
transcription Mesias appears to match the Aramaic perfectly. There is no
reason to suggest then that the word Messias in the NT shows evidence of
a patah.
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