Which if any scenes in Matthew do you consider fictional midrash?
Do you think Isaiah 7:14, Micah 5:2, Zechariah 3:8, Isaiah 11:1, and/or Isaiah 53 prophesied anything?
Isaiah 7:14 (NIV)
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Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign:
The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son,
and will call him Immanuel.
Micah 5:2 (NIV)
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“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
though you are small among the clans of Judah,
out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel,
whose origins are from of old,
from ancient times.”
Zechariah 3:8 (NIV)
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“’Listen, High Priest Joshua, you and your associates seated before you,
who are men symbolic of things to come:
I am going to bring my servant, the Branch.
Isaiah 11:1 (NIV)
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A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch [n-tz-r] [5342 wə·nê·ṣer וְנֵ֖צֶר and a Branch] will bear fruit.
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Which ‘prophecies’ of Daniel do you consider to have been written _after_ the events they ‘predicted’ had already occurred?
Daniel made a prophecy unusual in that it had a time limit.
Was Daniel a false prophet?
Jerusalem and its temple were destroyed in A.D. 70.
What’s the identity of the Messiah mentioned below?
And when was he slain?
When did “the forgiveness of the iniquity” occur?
Re: “to bring in everlasting righteousness,” when did that occur?
Daniel 9 (Peshitta Tanakh, Lamsa translation)
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24 *Seventy times seven weeks are determined upon your people and upon your holy city,* to finish the transgressions and to make an end of sins and *for the forgiveness of the iniquity* *and to bring in everlasting righteousness* and to fulfill the vision of the prophets *and to give the most holy to Messiah.*
25 Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to *the coming of the Messiah* the king shall be seven times seven weeks, and sixty-two times seven weeks;
the people shall return and build Jerusalem, its streets, and its broad ways at the end of the appointed times.
26 *After sixty-two times seven weeks, Messiah shall be slain,* and the city shall be without a ruler; and *the holy city shall be destroyed* together with the coming king; and *the end thereof shall be a mass exile,* and at the end of the war, desolations are determined.
27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for seven weeks and half of seven weeks, then *he shall cause the sacrifice and gift offerings to cease,* and upon the horns of the altar the abomination of desolation;
and the desolation shall continue until the end of the appointed time; the city shall remain desolate.
William Struse, _Daniel’s 70 Weeks: The Keystone of Bible Prophecy_, location 2244
Davidson and Aldersmith’s theory, which I fully understood only decades later, was based in part upon the Persian chronology of Sir Isaac Newton and Josephus and their explanations of failed first-century Jewish messianic expectations. In short, Davidson and Aldersmith showed that Newton discovered that nearly 240 years of missing Jewish Rabbinic chronology were directly related to the failed Jewish messianic expectations of the Second Temple era and a divine command to restore and build Jerusalem. Davidson and Aldersmith, upon calculating each of the failed messianic attempts, realized that amongst all the different time elements used by the early Jewish messianic expectants, a biblical lunar cycle of 14 was missing. They had tried solar years, lunar years, and 6-, 9-, and 16-cycle lunar “years,” but the one number ignored just happened to show that a Jewish man named Yeshua fit the prophecy of 70 sevens perfectly.
Daniel 9 (Brenton Septuagint)
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24 *Seventy weeks have been determined* upon thy people, and *upon the holy city,* *for sin to be ended,* and to seal up transgressions, *and to blot out the iniquities, and to make atonement for iniquities,* and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal the vision and the prophet, *and to anoint the Most Holy.*
25 And thou shalt know and understand, that *from the going forth of the command for the answer and for the building of Jerusalem until Christ the prince there shall be seven weeks, and sixty-two weeks;* and then the time shall return, and the street shall be built, and the wall, and the times shall be exhausted.
26 And *after the sixty-two weeks, the anointed one shall be destroyed,* and there is no judgment in him: and he shall destroy the city and the sanctuary with the prince that is coming: they shall be cut off with a flood, and *to the end of the war which is rapidly completed he shall appoint the city to desolations.*
27 And one week shall establish the covenant with many: and *in the midst of the week my sacrifice and drink-offering shall be taken away:* and on the temple shall be the abomination of desolations; and at the end of time an end shall be put to the desolation.
In prophecies, 1 prophetic day = 1 year. Hence, 1 prophetic week = 7 years. Reference:
Leviticus 25 (Brenton Septuagint)
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8 And thou shalt reckon to thyself seven sabbaths of years, seven times seven years; and they *shall be to thee seven weeks of years, nine and forty years.*
Numbers 14:34 (Brenton Septuagint)
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According to the number of the days during which ye spied the land, *forty days, a day for a year, ye shall bear your sins forty years,* and ye shall know my fierce anger.
Ezekiel 4 (Brenton Septuagint)
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5 For I have appointed thee their iniquities for a number of days, for a hundred and ninety days: so thou shalt bear the iniquities of the house of Israel. 6 And thou shalt accomplish this, and then shalt lie on thy right side, and shalt bear the iniquities of the house of Juda forty days: *I have appointed thee a day for a year.*
One adherent of Judaism realized that Rashi had correctly identified the right time period, but misidentified the name of the Messiah that was killed. That individual ended up following Yeshua the Meshikha.
Rashi, on Daniel 9
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26 And after the sixty-two weeks, the anointed one will be cut off, and he will be no more, and the people of the coming monarch will destroy the city and the Sanctuary, and his end will come about by inundation, and until the end of the war, it will be cut off into desolation. כווְאַֽחֲרֵ֚י הַשָּֽׁבֻעִים֙ שִׁשִּׁ֣ים וּשְׁנַ֔יִם יִכָּרֵ֥ת מָשִׁ֖יחַ וְאֵ֣ין ל֑וֹ וְהָעִ֨יר וְהַקֹּ֜דֶשׁ יַ֠שְׁחִית עַ֣ם נָגִ֚יד הַבָּא֙ וְקִצּ֣וֹ בַשֶּׁ֔טֶף וְעַד֙ קֵ֣ץ מִלְחָמָ֔ה נֶֽחֱרֶ֖צֶת שֹֽׁמֵמֽוֹת:
*And after:* those weeks.
*the anointed one will be cut off:* Agrippa, the king of Judea, who was ruling at the time of the destruction, will be slain.
*and he will be no more:* Heb. וְאֵין לוֹ, and he will not have. The meaning is that he will not be.
*the anointed one:* Heb. מָשִׁיחַ. This is purely an expression of a prince and a dignitary.
*and the city and the Sanctuary:* lit. and the city and the Holy.
*and the people of the coming monarch will destroy:* [The monarch who will come] upon them. That is Titus and his armies.
*and his end will come about by inundation:* And his end will be damnation and destruction, for He will inundate the power of his kingdom through the Messiah, and until the end of the wars of Gog the city will exist.
*cut off into desolation:* a destruction of desolation.
from
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Herod Agrippa, also known as Herod or Agrippa I (Hebrew: אגריפס; 11 BC – 44 AD), was a King of Judea from 41 to 44 AD. He was the last ruler with the royal title reigning over Judea and the father of Herod Agrippa II, the last King from the Herodian dynasty. The grandson of Herod the Great and son of Aristobulus IV and Berenice,[1] He is the king named Herod in the Acts of the Apostles 12:1 (Acts 12:1)…
Those prophecies took an unexpected u-turn backwards against the Sons of Jacob-Children of Israel during the Jewish Roman Wars. That all sets up the right of a New Covenant and Holy Trinity, because their traditional understandings of the Torah must’ve been incorrect. 😑
Hot-tempered relationships between the prophets and priesthood.
A Holy Trinity concept is right there in the Septuagint LXX.
Ezekiel 36:33
ταδε λεγει αδωναι Κυριος
αδωναι: Hebrew word “Adonai” transliteration into Greek is a nominative plural. PLURAL. So what else could the suffix ναι (ι) be? Dative singular?
In the previous passages the typical phrase translated as LORD GOD was written in the LXX as Κυριος Κυριος. But at 36:33 it becomes for the first time: αδωναι Κυριος and again at 36:37 and it’s done at chapter 37. Chapter 36 is unique. 😯 αδωναι
@DavidFord
Is there anything odd about the wording for the names of God in the Peshita beginning at Ezekiel 20?
αδωναι
It could be a 3rd declension nueter nominative, but then the genders don’t match between αδωναι Κυριος
So to fix that and match genders αδωνσι is 1st declension masculine nominative PLURAL.
Oh boy 😨 here it goes. Cannons and catapults everywhere. What happens is that the Masoretic text is preferred to clarify the Greek weirdness. 😇🎭
Isaiah 7:14
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Is it “the LORD”?-1QIsa^a
Or is it “my Lord”?-Masoretic
Is it “his name will be”?-1QIsa^a
Or is it “she will name him”?-Masoretic
The LXX says “virgin”– how do you explain that?
Jonathan ben Uzziel in his Aramaic paraphrase & interpretation of Isaiah, as translated by Pauli, says “virgin”– how do you explain that?
The Peshitta Tanakh, as translated by Lamsa, says “virgin”– how do you explain that?
Isaiah 7 (Brenton Septuagint), ** you do not have permission to see this link **
10 And the Lord again spoke to Achaz, saying, 11 Ask for thyself a sign of the Lord thy God, in the depth or in the height. 12 And Achaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord. 13 And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; is it a little thing for you to contend with men? and how do ye contend against the Lord? 14 Therefore *the Lord himself shall give you a sign; behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Emmanuel.* 15 Butter and honey shall he eat, before he knows either to prefer evil or choose the good. 16 For before the child shall know good or evil, he refuses evil, to choose the good; and the land shall be forsaken which thou art afraid of because of the two kings.
_A New English Translation of the Septuagint_, PDF 33 Esaias, tr. Moisés Silva, ** you do not have permission to see this link **
10 And the Lord spoke further to Achaz, saying, 11 Ask for yourself a sign of the Lord your God, in depth or in height. 12 But Achaz said, I will not ask, nor will I put the Lord to the test. 13 Then hed said: “Hear now, O house of Dauid! Is it a small thing for you to provoke a fight with mortals? How then do you provoke a fight with the Lord? 14 Therefore *the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and you shall name him Emmanouel.* 15 He shall eat butter and honey; before he knows or prefers evil things, he shall choose what is good. 16 For before the child knows good or bad, he defies evil to choose what is good, and the land that you fear from before the two kings will be abandoned. 17 But God will bring on you and on your people and on your ancestral house such days as have not yet come since the day that he took Ephraim away from Ioudas– the king of the Assyrians.”
_The Chaldee Paraphrase on the Prophet Isaiah [by Jonathan b. Uzziel]_ (1871), translated by C.W.H. Pauli
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ISAIAH VII
14 Therefore *the Lord Himself shall give you a sign* ; *Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and she shall call His name Immanuel.*
Isaiah 7:14 (Peshitta Tanakh, Lamsa translation), ** you do not have permission to see this link **
Therefore the LORD himself shall give you a sign;
Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
Matthew 1 (based on Paul Younan’s translation of the original Aramaic), ** you do not have permission to see this link **
22. And all this happened that it might be fulfilled what was said by MrYa [Master YHWH] from the nabia [prophet],
23. “Behold, a virgin will conceive and give birth to a son,
and they will call his name Aimnuail,”
which is interpreted ‘Aimn Allahan.’
[With-us (is) our-Allaha, i.e. our God is with us. The last part of Aimnuail is ‘ail,’ which is short for Elohim, which means Allaha.]
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Is it your belief that:
“the prophetess” was pregnant *before* Isaiah “went unto the prophetess; and she conceived”?
a particular child was named both “God is with us” and also named “The spoil speedeth, the prey hasteth”?
Isaiah 7 (JPS Tanakh 1917), ** you do not have permission to see this link **
10 And the LORD spoke again unto Ahaz, saying:
11 ‘Ask thee a sign of the LORD thy God: ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.’
12 But Ahaz said: ‘I will not ask, neither will I try the LORD.’
13 And he said: ‘Hear ye now, O house of David: Is it a small thing for you to weary men, that ye will weary my God also?
14 Therefore *the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: behold, the young woman shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel [footnote: That is, God is with us].* 15 Curd and honey shall he eat, when he knoweth to refuse the evil, and choose the good. 16 Yea, before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land whose two kings thou hast a horror of shall be forsaken.
Isaiah 8 (JPS Tanakh 1917), ** you do not have permission to see this link **
1 And the LORD said unto me: ‘Take thee a great tablet, and write upon it in common script: The spoil speedeth, the prey hasteth; 2 and I will take unto Me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah.’ 3 And *I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bore a son.* Then *said the LORD unto me: ‘Call his name Maher-shalal-hashbaz [footnote: That is, The spoil speedeth, the prey hasteth].* 4 For before the child shall have knowledge to cry: My father, and: My mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be carried away before the king of Assyria.’
@DavidFord
I’m listing LXX verses. It does not always match up exactly to a KJV chapter and verse
ISBN 978-0-913573-44-0
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Ezekiel 35:3 Κυριος Κυριος
Ezekiel 35:6 Κυριος Κυριος
Ezekiel 36:2 Κυριος Κυριος
Ezekiel 36:33 αδωναι Κυριος
Ezekiel 36:37 αδωναι Κυριος
Those are the only two verses that I’ve found so far in my studies that use : αδωναι
´
Hebrew to English
Ezekiel 35:3 (Literal Standard)
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and you have said to it, Thus said Lord YHWH: Behold…
Ezekiel 35:6 same.
Ezekiel 36:2 same.
Ezekiel 36:33 same.
Ezekiel 36:37 same.
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In Hebrew
Ezekiel 35:3
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136 ’ă·ḏō·nāy אֲדֹנָ֣י the Lord
3069 Yah·weh יְהוִ֔ה
Ezekiel 35:6 same.
Ezekiel 36:2 same.
Ezekiel 36:33 same.
Ezekiel 36:37 same.
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Peshitta Tanakh
Ezekiel 35:3a
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(Lamsa)
And say to it, Thus says the LORD God: Behold…
(Peshitta Holy Bible Translated)
And say to it, ‘Thus says THE LORD OF LORDS: behold…
Ezekiel 35:6 same.
Ezekiel 36:2 same.
Ezekiel 36:33 same.
Ezekiel 36:37 same.
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Targum Ezekiel for those passages, rendered into English: Lord God
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Dead Sea Scrolls
Ezekiel 36:2 Lord GOD
Ezekiel 36:33 Lord GOD.
The known DSS lack:
Ezekiel 35:3
Ezekiel 35:6
Ezekiel 36:37
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Brenton LXX
Ezekiel 35:3a
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and say to it, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold….
Ezekiel 35:6 same.
Ezekiel 36:2 same.
Ezekiel 36:33 same.
Ezekiel 36:37 same.
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“Ezekiel 36:33 αδωναι Κυριος
Ezekiel 36:37 αδωναι Κυριος
Those are the only two verses that I’ve found so far in my studies that use : αδωναι”
What’s at the following?:
Judges 13:8; 16:28
1 Samuel 1:11
Ezekiel 33:25; 36:23
Ezekiel 36:23 does not contain the phrase “declares the LORD God.”
Ezekiel 33:25, but it’s verse 27 in LXX, has Κυριος Κυριος.
1 Samuel 1:11, called 1 Kings in LXX, has Αδωναι Κυριε. First time I’ve seen it capitalized.
Judges 13:8 has the Vocative case forms, Κυριε αδωναιε
Judges 16:28 also has the Vocative case forms, αδωναιε Κυριε
Targum Jonathan on Isaiah 11:1-10
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And a king shall come forth from the sons of Jesse,
and from his children’s children the Messiah shall be anointed.
And there shall dwell upon him the spirit of prophecy from before the Lord:
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.
He shall bring him to the fear of the Lord:
and he shall not judge according to the sight of His eyes,
neither reprove after the hearing of his ears.
But with righteousness shall he judge the poor,
and reprove with faithfulness the needy of the earth;
and he shall smite the sinners of the earth with the word of his mouth,
and with the speech of His lips he shall slay Armillus the wicked.
And the righteous shall be round about him,
and the workers of faith shall draw nigh unto him.
In the days of the Messiah of Israel
peace shall be multiplied in the earth.
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall dwell with the kid;
and the calf, and the lion, and the fatling together;
and a little sucking child shall be leading them.
And the cow and the bear shall feed together,
their young ones shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put forth his hand on the sight of the pupil of the eyes of the cockatrice.
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain,
for the earth shall be
full of the knowledge of the fear of the Lord,
as the waters cover the sea.
And there shall be at that time a son of the son of Jesse,
who shall stand for an ensign of the people;
kings shall obey him,
and the place of his dwelling shall be in glory.
Targum Micah 5
_The Aramaic Bible: The Targum of the Minor Prophets_ (1989), 259pp., on 122
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Page 122
1. And you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,
you who were too small to be numbered among the thousands of the house of Judah,
from you shall come forth before me the anointed One,
to exercise dominion over Israel,
he whose name was mentioned
from of old,
from ancient times.
2. Then they shall be handed over in the time when she who is in labour gives birth,
and the rest of their brethren shall rely upon the children of Israel.
3. He shall arise and rule with might from the Lord,
by the greatness of the name of the Lord his God;
and they shall be gathered in from among their exiles,
for now his name shall be great to the ends of the earth.
4. Then it shall be peace for us. …
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Targum Zechariah 3
_The Aramaic Bible: The Targum of the Minor Prophets_ (1989), 259pp., on 192-193
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Page 192
6. And the angel of the Lord charged Joshua, saying,
7. “Thus says the Lord of hosts,
‘If you walk in paths which are good before me,
and if you keep the charge of my Memra,
then you shall judge those who serve in my Sanctuary
and you shall have charge of my courts,
and at the resurrection of the dead I will raise you to life
and will give you feet to walk among these seraphim.
8. Hear now, Joshua the high priest, you
and your companions who sit before you,
for they are men who are worthy that a sign be performed for them,
for behold, I will bring my servant the anointed One,
and he shall be revealed.
9. For behold, the stone which I have set before Joshua–
upon one stone are seven facets;
behold, I will reveal its facets,’
says the Lord of hosts,
‘and I will remove the sin of that land in one day.’
When Acts 21:7 was originally written, did it have:
Ptolemais?
Akko/ Aku/ Acco/ Acu?
Acts 21:7
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(NIV)
We continued our voyage from Tyre and landed at Ptolemais,
where we greeted the brothers and sisters and stayed with them for a day.
(Aramaic Bible in Plain English)
And we journeyed from Tyre and we came to the city Akko,
and we gave greeting to the brethren there and we lodged with them one day.
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(Etheridge) But we voyaged from Tsur, and came to Aku the city,
and gave the salutation to the brethren who were there, and abode among them one day.
(Murdock) And we sailed from Tyre, and arrived at the city Acco;
and we saluted the brethren there, and stopped with them one day.
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Michael Grisanti, “Inspiration, Inerrancy, and the OT Canon: The Place of Textual Updating in an Inerrant View of Scripture” (Dec 2001), 577-598, on 584
PDF:
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There are five other examples of scribal glosses in Genesis 14 where an updated place name is given instead of an outdated one.^22
This updating of the onomastic entries indicates the antiquity of the source document and was done to make the text intelligible to the reader.
22:
14:2: “Bela (that is, Zoar)”;
14:3: “the valley of Siddim (that is, the Salt Sea)”;
14:7: “Enmishpat (that is, Kadesh)”;
14:8: “Bela (that is, Zoar)”;
14:17: “the valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley).”
Hat tip
Douglas Petrovich, _Origin of the Hebrews_ (2021), 314pp., on 35
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Norton, William. 1889. _A Translation, in English Daily Used, of the Peshito-Syriac Text, and of the Received Greek Text, of Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, and 1 John, With an Introduction on the Peshito-Syriac Text, and the Revised Greek Text of 1881_ (London: W.K. Bloom), ~140pp.
What’s below is from a Google books copy; the book is also at
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In the Introduction, pages l – li:
In the names of places, the Peshito shows the same independence of the Greek. . . . .
in Acts xxi. 7, the Gk. has, Ptolemais; the Syriac has, Acu.
Mr. Jer. Jones, in his work on the Canon, 1798, contends that the use of the name Acu, for Ptolemais, is a decisive proof that the Peshito must have been made not far in time from A.D. 70, when Jerusalem was destroyed. (vol. i. p. 103.)
He says that the most ancient name of this place among the Israelites was Aco, or Acco, Judges i.31;
that this name was afterwards changed to Ptolemais;
that some say it had its new name from Ptolemy Philadelphus, about 250 B.C.
He says it is certain that the old name Aco, was antiquated and out of use in the time of the Romans, and that the use of the old name Acu, in the Peshito, can be accounted for in no other way, but by supposing that the persons for whom the version was made were more acquainted with it, than with the new name Ptolemais;
that upon any other supposition it would have been absurd for him to have used Acu.
He says, that until the destruction of Jerusalem, one may suppose that the Jews may have retained the old name Aco still, out of fondness for its antiquity; but, he says,
“how they, or any other part of Syria, could, after the Roman conquest, call it by a name different from the Romans, seems to me impossible to conceive. . .
To suppose, therefore, that this translation, in which we meet with this old name, instead of the new one, was made at any great distance of time after the destruction of Jerusalem, is to suppose the translator to have substituted an antiquated name known to but few, for a name well known to all” (pp. 104, 105.)
Mr. Jones says that a similar proof that the Peshito cannot have been made much after A.D. 70, is found in the fact that the Peshito often calls the Gentiles, as the Jews were accustomed to do, _profane persons_, where the Greek calls them _the nations_, that is, the Gentiles.
The Peshito calls them profane, in Matt. vi.7; x.5; xviii.17; Mark vii.26; John vii.35; Acts xviii.4, 17; 1 Cor. v.1; x.20, 27; xii.2; 1 Pet. iv.3.
The expression is used, therefore, throughout the Peshito.
Mr. Jones says, that it shows that the writer was a Jew, for no other person would have called all the world profane; and that after the destruction of the temple, all Hebrew Christians must have seen that other nations were not to be reckoned unclean and profane in the Jewish sense, and that therefore this version must have been made either before, or soon after, A.D. 70. (On Canon, Vol. i., pp. 106-110.)
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How do you account for the geographical details present in the Peshitta, but lacking in Greek mss.?
What letters are had in the Old Syriac for these geographical locations?: Capernaum. Bethania. Bethphage. Bethesda in John v.2.
Johann David Michaelis, _Introduction to the New Testament, tr., and augmented with notes (and a Dissertation on the origin and composition of the three first gospels)_ as translated by Herbert Marsh, 4 vols., vol. 2 part 1 (1802), 43-44
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In the Curæ, in Act. Apost. § vi. p. 73, 74. I have taken notice of certain traces in the Syriac version, which lead to the supposition of its having been made by a native Jew.
To the reasons alleged in that treatise, which I submit to the determination of my readers, I will add, that the Syriac translator appears to have been so well acquainted with Palestine, that he must at least have visited that country, for he has frequently restored geographical names in the Greek Testament to their true Oriental orthography.
Capernaum is written in the Syriac Testament … , that is, the village of Nahum;
Bethania, is written … ;
Bethphage is written … , which perfectly corresponds to its situation, for … , in Arabic, signifies ‘a valley between two opposite mountains,’ an etymology which alone removes a contradiction which was supposed to exist between the New Testament and the Talmud ;
and Bethesda, John v.2. is written … , which is probably conformable to the derivation, whether we translate it ‘place of favour,’ or ‘place of the conflux of waters.’
The Syriac version therefore is the surest, and indeed the only guide, in discovering the etymology of geographical names, for the Arabic versions are too modern, and in other translations it was impossible to preserve the orthography of the East.
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The name of the ancient city was renamed after the era of Alexander the Great. The Greeks had two names for it, Ακη and Πτολεμαις. Ακη was the ancient name of the ancient city before the era of Alexander the Great and the renaming of it to Πτολεμαις.
Do you believe that in the original rendition of Mk 4:9-12, Jesus spoke of his intentionally “concealing the true meaning” of parables?
Richard Carrier, _On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt_ (2014), 696pp., on 419
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Page 419
… In the Sea Narrative Jesus starts telling parables about the gospel (even beginning with an explanation of the whole concept of parable as a way of concealing the true meaning behind fictitious stories: Mk 4.9-12)…
Mark 4 (Berean Literal)
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9 And He was saying,
“He who has ears to hear,
let him hear.”
10 And when He was alone, those around Him with the Twelve began asking Him about the parable.
11 And He was saying to them,
“To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God,
but to those who are outside, everything is done in parables,
12 so that,
‘Seeing, they might see
and not perceive;
and hearing, they might hear
and not understand;
lest ever they should turn,
and they should be forgiven.’”
Mark 4 (Lamsa)
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9 And he said,
He who has ears to hear,
let him hear.
10 When they were alone by themselves,
those who were with him together with the twelve asked him about that parable.
11 And Jesus said to them,
To you is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God,
but to the outsiders everything has to be explained by parables.
12 For seeing they see,
and yet do not perceive;
and hearing they hear,
and yet do not understand;
if they return,
their sins would be forgiven.
===========================
T. W. Manson (1893-1958), _The Teaching of Jesus: Studies of its Form and Content_ (1935), 351pp., on 76-80
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Page 76
mean those whom Jesus himself had called and a further group of people who had attached themselves to him.
With this class is contrasted the other class who are outside.
To the inner circle is given the secret of the Kingdom of God, to the others only parables.
The most obvious question to ask at this stage is how the two classes are divided :
what is it that places a man in the one class rather than the other?
In view of what has been said above on the nature of parables, there can be only one answer to this question.
It is the man himself who places himself in one category or another, and that simply by the response which he makes to the parables.
Those in whom religious insight and faith are awakened by the hearing of parables press into the inner circle for more.
Once more the saying applies:
‘To him that hath shall be given’.
The parable is in practice a test :
and the response of a man to it is what determines whether he shall ever get beyond it to the secret of the Kingdom.
We are now brought face to face with the chief difficulty of the passage :
ἵνα βλέποντες … ἀφεθῇ αὐτοῖς.
The stumblingblock here is the ἵνα.
As the text stands it can only mean that the object, or at any rate the result, of parabolic teaching is to prevent insight, understanding, repentance, and forgiveness.
On any interpretation of parable this is simply absurd.
If parables had this object or result, that in itself would be the strongest possible argument against making use of them, and would make it impossible to imagine why Jesus should have employed such a way of delivering his teaching.
The solution of the difficulty is to be sought in two directions.
The first clue is the parable of the Sower itself.
Commentators have pointed out that _vv_. 11, 12 are really an intrusion between the parable and its interpretation :
and the step from ‘intrusion’ to ‘interpolation’ is easily made.
But the intrusion of this saying is perfectly natural, if, as I believe, the ‘Sower’ is a parable about parabolic teaching.
‘The sower sows the word’ (_v_. 14) :
‘and in many such parables he spake the word to them’ (_v_. 33)
Now the one thing that is clear in the parable is that the result of the sowing depends, not on the seed, but on the kind of ground in which it lodges.
In other words the efficacy of parables depends, not on the parables, but on the character of the hearers.
The object of sowing is not to prevent growth and fruition but rather to see whether anything will grow and give fruit.
Granted this, it will follow that the inner circle in _v_. 11 represent the good ground which brings forth fruit ;
while those outside correspond to the ground which, for various reasons, produces nothing.
The second clue lies in the fact that the quotation from Is. vi. 9 f. ends with the words καὶ ἀφεθῇ αὐτοῖς, departing from LXX …, and the Hebrew …, and agreeing with the Targum … .
This suggests that the last part of the quotation is given in what was the accepted version for synagogue purposes, a version which later was incorporated in the written Targum.
It also stamps the saying as Palestinian in origin and thus creates a strong presumption in favour of its authenticity.
If we now turn to the beginning of the quotation we find that in the Targum it runs as follows:^1 [1: Ed. P. de Lagarde, p. 230]
…
And he said :
Go and speak to this people
who hear indeed
and do not understand,
and see indeed
but do not know.
Turned into Greek this would be: … .
Here again the quotation in Mark agrees with the Targum against both the Hebrew and the LXX in putting the verbs in the third person rather than the second.
The chief point of difference is that the Marcan form gives final clauses where the Targum has relative clauses.
Now in Aramaic the particle … [I’m guessing it’s ר resh, which looks like ד dalet], which is used in the Targum here, can be used to introduce either a relative or a final clause :
it can mean either
οἵ
or
ἵνα.
The conclusion to be drawn is, I think, that the form in which the words were spoken by Jesus approximated to what we find in the Targum, and that the Marcan version rests on a misunderstanding of the Aramaic due mainly to the ambiguity of the particle … [I’m guessing it’s ר resh, which looks like ד dalet]
We may conjecture that what Jesus said was:
To you is given the secret of the Kingdom of God;
but all things come in parables to those outside who
See indeed but do not know
And hear indeed but do not understand
Lest they should repent and receive forgiveness^1 [1: Cf. Is. xlii. 18-20]
where the last words would seem to mean :
‘For if they did, they would repent and receive forgiveness’.
In support of this interpretation one other point may be mentioned.
If the object of the quotation were to show that parabolic teaching was calculated to harden the hearts of the hearers, it is curious that the words in Is. vi. 9 f. which would most strongly suggest this are precisely those which are omitted in Mark :
‘Make the heart of this people fat
and make their ears heavy,
and shut their eyes,
lest they see with their eyes
and hear with their ears,
and understand with their heart’.
These would surely be more apt to the purpose than what we actually have in Mark :
and it seems to me significant that they are _not_ quoted.
With the omission of these words the conjunction … is left in the air :
and at once two possibilities emerge.
Either it may be taken in the sense suggested above, in which case it will appear that the real cause of the blindness of those outside is that they do not wish to repent and be forgiven : a deadly self-satisfaction is the real hindrance to the efficacy of parabolic teaching.
Or, though this seems to me less probable, we may place a full stop after ‘understand’ and take … in its other sense of ‘perhaps’.
The last words would then express a hope that the unresponsiveness of these people will yet be overcome– ‘Perhaps they may yet repent’.
If it be objected that this interpretation of the passage makes Jesus do violence to the Old Testament text, the answer is that this passage is a piece of Haggadah and that the passage from Isaiah is not cited as a proof-text but as an illustration.
Further, it is not cited in the original but in the current Aramaic version, which, as we have already seen, departs from the Hebrew in several important particulars.
And it may be added that Jewish practice permitted and approved a much greater freedom in the use of the Scriptures when quoted in Haggadah than would be allowable when strict interpretation of the Law was in question.
Anyone who is familiar with the feats of exegesis performed in the homiletic Midrashim will find nothing startling in this case.
We may conclude then that the text as it stands in _v_. 12 rests on a misunderstanding of what Jesus really said and that the true sense of his words would be given by a text running somewhat as follows:
…^1 [1: This represents an Aramaic original which would be somewhat as follows: …
which has been misunderstood as if it were: …
thus producing the text which stands in Mark.]
The passage will then be in complete agreement with what we learn elsewhere in the Synoptic Gospels about the nature and object of teaching in parables.
It will be clear that the purpose of parables is not to harden the hearts of the hearers, but that it is the hardness of heart of the hearers that defeats the purpose of parables.
The quotation from Isaiah is not introduced by Jesus to explain the purpose of teaching in parables, but to illustrate what is meant by
οἵ ἔξω :
it is in fact a definition of the sort of character which prevents a man from becoming one of those to whom the secret of the Kingdom is given, a description in language borrowed from the Jewish Bible of those people who did not produce the things for which Jesus was constantly seeking– insight, repentance, and faith.
οι εξω
who(plural🤷♂️) without, them without
the verse means those without understanding are outside the kingdom,
those who can understand are inside the kingdom
ινα is about creating order out of chaos,
The people live in chaos because they cannot understand anything, which explains why they break the laws. The Sanhedrin had failed at their job of explaining the law to the people in ways they could understand. They are without understanding and exist outside of the kingdom as a result of it all.
EPIC FAIL 👎 boo to them. να
The Sanhedrin was required to only speak Hebrew when teaching at the temple and synagogues, but the people spoke Aramaic because the paleo Hebrew language was long forgotten after the Babylonian Captivity Era.
The priesthood and workforce no longer spoke the same language.
T. W. Manson, _The Beginning of the Gospel_ (1950), on 74
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Page n85
This story [“The Fruitless Fig-tree”], taken at its face value, bristles with difficulties, most of which arise from two sources.
…
The other source of difficulty is the so-called ‘cursing’ of the tree.
It is felt to be completely out of tune with what we otherwise know of the character of Jesus.
…
As for the second difficulty, it has been pointed out that in Aramaic only the tone of voice would distinguish between a simple statement and what seems like a curse.
I suspect that there are some serious misunderstandings in the story as it stands;
but any attempt to correct them involves more guess-work than can be indulged in here.
Do you believe that Paul coined the phrase “obedience of faith”?
Delio DelRio, _Paul and the Synagogue: Romans and the Isaiah Targum_ (2013), 133pp., on xvii
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…the phrase ὑπακοὴν πίστεως (“obedience of faith”)…
the uniqueness of the phrase, which is found only in Rom 1:5 and 16:26 within the whole of ancient literature.
The uniqueness of the phrase justifiably has led some scholars to describe the phrase [as] coined by Paul.
Romans 1:5 (Disciples’ Literal NT)
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through Whom we received grace and apostleship for _the_ obedience _of_ faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of His name,
Romans 16:26 (Disciples’ Literal NT)
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but now having been revealed and having been made-known to all the nations
through _the_ prophetic Scriptures
according to _the_ command _of_ the eternal God for _the_ obedience _of_ faith[a],
a: Same phrase as in 1:5.
Acts 6:7
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(Young’s Literal)
And the word of God did increase,
and the number of the disciples did multiply in Jerusalem exceedingly;
a great multitude also of the priests were obedient to the faith.
(Aramaic Bible in Plain English)
And the word of God was magnified
and the number of the disciples was multiplied greatly in Jerusalem,
and many people of the Judeans were obeying the faith.
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