Mark 1:41-43

[Keith]

Is there an example of polysemy in Mark 1:41?

In Mark 1:41 we find "...and Jesus had compassion on them..." (Younan's Translation)

This is also found in many Greek manuscripts as in the uNAS: "Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, "I am willing; be cleansed."

However, in several Greek scripts we also find "Jesus moved to anger..." (REB) or "In warm indignation..." (NEB)

While the Greek words (compassion and anger) look nothing alike, I believe they do in Aramaic. Anger is "tmx" while compassion is "mxr"

Keith

[Paul Younan]

Hi Akhi Keith,

This may be an example of mistranslation, look at how similiar the words are in DSS script:



The first word, "ith-ra-khem" (he had mercy) is found in the Peshitta.

The second word is "ith-kha-meth" (he had anger) is very close.

[Keith]

You're right. It's not a polysemous word. It is a mistranslation that could only happen when one translates for an Aramaic original to Greek. This explains the Greek variants.

Your friend,
Keith

[gbausc]

Very good, Paul! I wish I had put that one in my interlinear notes.
How do you post the DSS font here? I have those fonts, and would love to be able to post examples like that one.
There are hundreds in the NT.

Dave

[Paul Younan]

Very good, Paul! I wish I had put that one in my interlinear notes.
How do you post the DSS font here? I have those fonts, and would love to be able to post examples like that one.
There are hundreds in the NT.

Dave

Hi Akhi Dave,

I haven't quite figured out the DSS font on the forum software yet, so what I've been doing is just typing in a graphics program like Paint and uploading the image to the server.

[judge]

Bart Ehrman mentions this in his recent book Misquoting Jesus, The story behind who changed the bible and why.. Must have been a reasonably widely read book too as it made it to the front counter at my local bookstore when it came out and not too many books about the bible do that.
He suggests that the original reading was becaming angry but at later editors wanted to portry Jesus as being compassionate and not angry so they changed the text. Not that one can blame Ehrman. He seems to have tried to find a solution the the facts but unfortunately was only trained in greek and taught that the greek was the original.
As this example has the public eye , to some degree, this is an important example.

[son_of_lite]

This is a quote of Bart Ehrman


"..... Jesus spoke Aramaic, my, my opinion is that he did not know Greek, eh, and he did not know Latin, and i probably think he probably knew Aramaic. The Gospels are written in Greek, so already when you are reading the Gospels in Greek you are a step removed from the words of Jesus...... There are sayings in the Gospels that make better sence if you re-translate them into Aramaic from Greek, its trickey to do, but its fun to."

Then he goes on to give an example of this in Mark 2. about he Son of Man.


He is getting close... yes, he is getting close.... just not close enough! <!-- s:lookround: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/lookround.gif" alt=":lookround:" title="Look Round" /><!-- s:lookround: -->

[judge]

I was looking again at this example and was interested to find that Metzger had suggested this too.

It is difficult to come to a firm decision concerning the original text. On the one hand, it is easy to see why orgistheis ("being angry") would have prompted over-scrupulous copyists to alter it to splagchnistheis ("being filled with compassion"), but not easy to account for the opposite change. On the other hand, a majority of the Committee was impressed by the following considerations. (1) The character of the external evidence in support of orgistheis is less impressive than the diversity and character of evidence that supports splagchnistheis. (2) At least two other passages in Mark, which represent Jesus as angry (3:5) or indignant (10:14), have not prompted over scrupulous copyists to make corrections. (3) It is possible that the reading orgistheis either (a) was suggested by embrimesamenos ["warn sternly"] of ver. 43, or (b) arose from confusion between similar words in Aramaic (compare Syriac ethraham, "he had pity," with ethra`am, "he was enraged"). (pp. 76-77A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament)

[judge]

Interestingly the connection to Aramaic is referenced in work by
Willker, Wieland. "A Textual Commentary on the Greek Gospels. Vol. 2: Mark, p.41" (PDF). TCG 2007: An Online Textual Commentary on the Greek Gospels, 5th ed.. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/TCG/TC-Mark.pdf">http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/TCG/TC-Mark.pdf</a><!-- m -->. Retrieved 2008-01-09.