>What you're looking at here is the standard Roman arrangement in the
>imperial period. The Greek ANAKLINESQAI does imply reclining to eat, but
>I've never known whether the eastern Mediterranean arrangments are quite so
>formal as the Roman ones. Nevertheless, it's always seemed curious to me
>that pictures of the last supper show Jesus and disciples actually seated
>at the table, but the Greek text of the last supper stories does use the
>Greek word ANAKLINESQAI, and John's gospel actually describes the Beloved
>Disciple as lying with head in Jesus' bosom.
Yes, John 13:23-25:
HN ANAKEIMENOS hEIS EK TWN MAQHTWN AUTOU EN TWi KOLPWi TOU IHSOU, hON HGAPA
hO IHSOUS. NEUEI OUN TOUTWi SIMWN PETROS PUQESQAI TIS AN EIH PERI hOU LEGI.
ANAPESWN OUN EKEINOS hOUTWS EPI TO STHQOS TOU IHSOU LEGEI AUTWi: KURIE, TIS
ESTIN?
John 13:23 (NASU) There was reclining on Jesus' bosom one of His disciples,
whom Jesus loved.
24 So Simon Peter ^gestured to him, and ^said to him, "Tell [us] who it is
of whom He is speaking."
25 He, leaning back thus on Jesus' bosom, ^said to Him, "Lord, who is it?"
This image hit me very hard about a year and a half ago, because it depicts
graphically how close Jesus was to this disciple. I was reading this out
loud to myself, and I felt my head leaning back into his bosom, and the body
warmth against the back of my head. This kind of picture is just a little
threatening to me, because Mennonite men don't usually touch each other
much, and certainly wouldn't be found that close to each other. If I set up
a triclinium for our next men's breakfast, I suspect it would create just a
little controversy (grin!).
And while we're at it, did you notice that ANAKEIMAI and KATAKEIMAI mean the
same thing? Here is a relevant footnote from Louw and Nida:
Footnote 8242: One would assume that anakeimai {b} and katakeimai {c} would
have almost opposite meanings in view of the prefixes ana- and kata- . It
is, of course,
possible that anakeimai {b} refers to being propped up on a couch where one
was eating
and katakeima {c} refers specifically to reclining, that is to say, `lying
down,' but the
contexts in which these two expressions occur do not provide a clear basis
for such a
distinction in meaning. In fact, the two are largely generalized to simply
mean `to eat a meal,'
though their etymological history may be significantly different. See also
Domain 17, footnote
8.
Jonathan
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Jonathan Robie jwrobie@mindspring.com http://www.mindspring.com/~jwrobie
POET Software, 3207 Gibson Road, Durham, N.C., 27703 http://www.poet.com
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