medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Replying to John Dillon <[log in to unmask]>:
> Dear Kerry,
>
> On Sunday, March 26, 2006, at 3:24 pm, you wrote:
>
> > This is the medieval discussion list--whatever Jesus said, during
> > the middle
> > ages it was believed that he spoke all the beatitudes as they are
> > recorded in
> > the Latin Bibles.
>
> Except, of course, when it was believed by speakers of Coptic, Syriac,
> Armenian, Greek, Georgian, Old Church Slavonic, and doubtless other
> tongues also in use in the Middle Ages that the authentic form of the
> beatitudes was that given in _their_ bibles. Or when it was believed
> by those whose bibles preserved the Aramaic at Matthew 27:46 and Mark
> 15:34, especially if they had a commentary tradition that transmitted
> some knowledge about biblical languages, that Jesus spoke a Semitic
> tongue that they probably thought of as 'Chaldean'. To write as though
> the only texts of the Bible that were read medievally were written in
> Latin arrogates for that tongue a universality that it did not then
> possess and implies, ahistorically, that non-Latin medieval Christian
> cultures are unworthy even of mention (let alone thought).
Yo! Okay, you're right...
> > This requires commentary on the text as it is,
> > regardless of
> > its alleged prehistory!
>
> The text "as it is" is a congeries of texts in different languages and
> with variant readings in those languages. Including, as the page you
> find irritating points out, variant readings in the particular Greek
> text in question. It may not take much textual criticism to evaluate
> those variants and to decide in favor of 'kamelos' ('camel') rather
> than 'kamilos' ('rope'; the discussion adduced by Stan Metheny seems to
> have these backwards) as the original reading of the synoptic gospels
> in the manuscript tradition that is known to us. But, the readings
> being multiple, it does take at least _some_ textual criticism.
>
I don't believe I was critizing text criticism, if I did I recant. But when
someone concludes that none of the Beatitudes were spoken by Jesus this is
beyond text criticism.
> > [quoted out of order]... Either way in this case the Greek
> explanation doesn't
> > work because
> > Jesus was not speaking Greek.
>
> No, but the texts that we have to work with in this instance are Greek
> (plus, if we wish, translations from the Greek). Since Jesus spoke in
> Aramaic, we have either an accurate Greek rendition of what he said or
> a faulty one. At least one of the hypotheses about verbal agreement
> among the synoptic gospels assumes verbal copying from one gospel to
> another. On that view, there _could_ have been an error in the first
> Greek text that then found its way into the others as they were being
> composed. The "Greek explanation" may be invalid. But it is not
> invalid for the reason that you give.
Yes it is. The confusion can only take place in Greek and therefore
you only changed the argument to make it apply to textual transmission where I
would admit it must be regarded as a valid argument.
Stimulating response Dillon! Thanks!
V. K. Inmsn
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