Re: Mk 1.2 and an infinite loop on my computer
Michael H Burer (burer@juno.com)
Wed, 19 Feb 1997 08:37:13 EST
On Wed, 19 Feb 1997 11:37:46 +0000 "Brian E. Wilson"
<brian@twonh.demon.co.uk> writes:
>Mk 1.2 reads:
>
> KAQWJ GEGRAPTAI EN TW HSAIA TW PROFHTH, IDOY APOSTELLW TON ANGELLON
>MOU PRO PROSWPOU SOU hOJ KATASKEUASEI THN hODON SOU.
>
> I have set my computer to search repeatedly through the Greek version
>of HSAIAJ to find some sort of match to this quotation. After several
>days, the machine is still busy, even though the cpu works at 75
>megahertz. I have assumed the inerrancy of Mk 1.2. Can someone please
>rescue my computer from an infinite loop?! I would like to use it for
>something else! A friend tells me that he has the same problem with Mt
>27.9 and hIEREMIAJ.
>Brian E. Wilson
>
This is an interesting problem in the book of Mark. The quote in Mark
1:2-3 which he attributes to Isaiah is actually an amalgamation from
three sources. The section you quoted which appears in v.2 is from Exodus
23:20 (LXX) and Malachi 3:1 (Masoretic Text). The quote in Mark 1:3 is
from Isaiah 40:3 (LXX). Reset the computer to those parameters and you
should get better results. Also, Mark changes the wording slightly which
might affect your search results. Mark changes the original quote from
Malachi which reads the first person pronoun "me" to the second person
pronoun SOU. The quote from Isaiah originally reads "a highway for our
God," but Mark changes it to the third person possessive pronoun AUTOU.
Ostensibly these changes were made to introduce both John the Baptist and
Jesus, and they lend a messianic slant to the whole introduction of the
book.
A thorny problem here is why Mark attributes all of these to Isaiah only.
My guess is that Isaiah was the best known prophet. There are other
instances of this kind of generalizing in the NT (cf. Mt 2:23). The
authors must not have felt that quotations had to be as exact as we
currently make them.
Michael Burer
Th.M. Student
Dallas Theological Seminary