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"Eil, Eil": Possible Scribal Error?
#1
I always found the Peshitta's "Eil, Eil" during the cry of dereliction instead of "Eli, Eli" very peculiar. Could the Peshitta be saying "El"? I know Mark renders it both as "Eil" and "Alahi" to make it more familiar to the Assyrian/Aramean audience. The Curetonian Gospels and the Sinaitic Palimpsest say "Alahi, Alahi" instead (more evidence of the Old Syriac Gospels being revisions of the Peshitta?). I know that the letters Lamed and Yod could be mistaken for each other if you draw one or the other of them to small or too large. Could this be a scribal error? Is "Eil" (if "El" is not intended) attested to as an Aramaic word outside of the Peshitta?
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#2
Another interesting thing to note is that Syriac is (as far as I am aware) the only dialect of Aramaic to spell this word plene in this particular manner. The "normal" form /)l/ as a generic name for "God" (as opposed to El, the deity) doesn't really show up in Aramaic until the post-Exillic period in Jewish texts. To me that says that it's what's translational (in multiple senses, be it from Hebrew or otherwise).

Perhaps later I'll do a bit of lexical digging and see if I missed any examples.

Peace,
-Steve
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#3
Thanks, Brother Steve. I appreciate your work and your replies! So "Eil" is just an unusual form of "El"?
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#4
ScorpioSniper2 Wrote:I always found the Peshitta's "Eil, Eil" during the cry of dereliction instead of "Eli, Eli" very peculiar. Could the Peshitta be saying "El"? I know Mark renders it both as "Eil" and "Alahi" to make it more familiar to the Assyrian/Aramean audience. The Curetonian Gospels and the Sinaitic Palimpsest say "Alahi, Alahi" instead (more evidence of the Old Syriac Gospels being revisions of the Peshitta?). I know that the letters Lamed and Yod could be mistaken for each other if you draw one or the other of them to small or too large. Could this be a scribal error? Is "Eil" (if "El" is not intended) attested to as an Aramaic word outside of the Peshitta?

Shlama Akhi Dylan.

I think the answer to your question is alluded to in the very next verse (v.47):

"And some there thought He was crying out to Eliyah."

Matthew was simply spelling out phonetically how the word was pronounced so that he could explain the confusion among the hearers.

It's like if we write that a person from the south said "Good Lawd" in his accent, and confused his hearers who thought he was referring to something other than "Lord".

I would be careful in trying to etymologically analyze "Eil" - it might just be a phonetic spelling, for purposes of clarifying v. 47.

Remember also, the final Yodh in the 1st-person possessive noun is not pronounced. So Matthew wrote it phonetically as annunciated, and Mark wrote it grammatically as a literary style.

+Shamasha
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#5
I thought real briefly about that possibility. It definitely makes sense!
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#6
ScorpioSniper2 Wrote:I thought real briefly about that possibility. It definitely makes sense!

When I write Akhi (my brother) in addressing you, it's really pronounced "Akh" (the final Yodh is silent). You will see me occasionally alternate, and simply write "Akh" - I'm saying the same thing, but I'm spelling it phonetically that way.

Similarly, "Eli" and "El" are both potentially the same word (1st p poss), if the latter is spelled phonetically (for dramatic purposes, as seemed to have been by Matthew.)

+Shamasha
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#7
Akhi Paul,

I'd argue that it's a bit more than a mere phonetic transcription for emphasis, though, because the plene /)yl/ is also used in terminal theophoric names:

Peshitta/Syriac vs. Other Dialects
/)ysr)yl/ vs /)ysr)l/ or /)y&r)l/ = Israel
/yw)yl/ vs /yw)l/ = Joel
/dny)yl/ vs /dny)l/ = Daniel
/(mnw)yl/ vs /(mnw)l/ = Immanuel
/gbry)yl/ vs /gbry)l/ = Gabriel
/gmly)yl/ vs /gmly)/l/ = Gamaliel
/pnw)yl/ vs /pnw)l/ = Phanuel
/myk)yl/ vs /myk)l/ = Michael

etc. etc. etc.

And yet if the theophoric is initial, it's written defective:

Peshitta Spelling
/)ly)/ = Elijah (a double-theophoric)
/)ly$(/ = Elisha
/)ly(zr/ = Eleazar or Eliezer
/)ly$b(/ = Elizabeth
/)lyqym/ = Eliakim

Given the consistency, this looks more like a dialect feature than mere emphasis.

Peace,
-Steve
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#8
SteveCaruso Wrote:Akhi Paul,

I'd argue that it's a bit more than a mere phonetic transcription for emphasis, though, because the plene /)yl/ is also used in terminal theophoric names:

Peshitta/Syriac vs. Other Dialects
/)ysr)yl/ vs /)ysr)l/ or /)y&r)l/ = Israel
/yw)yl/ vs /yw)l/ = Joel
/dny)yl/ vs /dny)l/ = Daniel
/(mnw)yl/ vs /(mnw)l/ = Immanuel
/gbry)yl/ vs /gbry)l/ = Gabriel
/gmly)yl/ vs /gmly)/l/ = Gamaliel
/pnw)yl/ vs /pnw)l/ = Phanuel
/myk)yl/ vs /myk)l/ = Michael

etc. etc. etc.

And yet if the theophoric is initial, it's written defective:

Peshitta Spelling
/)ly)/ = Elijah (a double-theophoric)
/)ly$(/ = Elisha
/)ly(zr/ = Eleazar or Eliezer
/)ly$b(/ = Elizabeth
/)lyqym/ = Eliakim

Given the consistency, this looks more like a dialect feature than mere emphasis.

Peace,
-Steve

But again, Syriac name spellings (especially of Hebrew names) is known to be phonetic. So the above examples are consistent with that phenomenon, and unrelated to the OP.

+Shamasha
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