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b-greek-digest V1 #736
b-greek-digest Monday, 5 June 1995 Volume 01 : Number 736
In this issue:
B-GRK: Re: Dynamic Equivalence
Re: Dynamic Equivalence
Re: Ending of Mark
B-GRK: animals in Revelation
Mark and Midrash
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Re: Ph.D. Programs in Textual...
Re: Mark 16:8 (and Mark 1:1)
Introduction
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From: Shaughn Daniel <zxmli05@student.uni-tuebingen.de>
Date: Sun, 4 Jun 1995 12:41:56 +0000
Subject: B-GRK: Re: Dynamic Equivalence
To drop in another musing into this great discussion. :)
Recently, I have been gathering some info for my fiancee on the translation
of tekton, a description of Jesus' occupation. Interestingly, there are
various sources which state that term can mean different things entirely:
carpenter, mason, and stonecutter.
I've preached it before, and have heard it said many times, that "the hands
that worked with wood were nailed to a tree", or something similar to that,
all based on the concept of Jesus, the carpenter's son. Well, I've been
wondering about the symbolic significance of Jesus as a stonecutter.
Homiletically, if the Greek language bears this out, there are some
interesting things to ponder: "destroy this temple, I will rebuild it in 3
days (because the temple was fashioned from stone and I'm the perfect
mason)" or "to the Jews a stumbling block" and "Jesus is the chief
cornerstone" etc, etc, etc....
Get the picture? Oh yea, on that last one, in German, they render skandalon
in Romans as "Stolperstein" a "stumbling block", but I'm wondering if the
Greeks were thinking of a picture of tripping over a stone in a street when
they used "skandalon". Bauer also gives a neato definition "das Widerspruch
Herausrufende" rendered by me as "that which calls out protest".
Any way, back to our regularly scheduled program.... =)
Sincerely,
Shaughn Daniel
Tuebingen, Germany
------------------------------
From: Shaughn Daniel <zxmli05@student.uni-tuebingen.de>
Date: Sun, 4 Jun 1995 12:50:51 +0000
Subject: Re: Dynamic Equivalence
Kenneth Litwack wrote to someone else on the list:
>What you
>have observed makes me feel like the problem of the Two Horizons is
>unsolvable and all attempts at translation are doomed to end in
>inaccuracy. Can someone save me from this despair?
Ken,
Welcome to the world of translational mania!!! Where a "figure" is a
statue, an abstract idea, a verb, a number, both, neither, or somewhere in
between.
Sincerely,
Shaughn Daniel
Tuebingen, Germany
Tue-bing-en (Tue = do!; bing = bing, not bong; en = ing)
= do bing-ing! not bong-ing!
------------------------------
From: Carl W Conrad <cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu>
Date: Sun, 4 Jun 1995 06:26:12 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: Ending of Mark
On Sat, 3 Jun 1995 Timster132@aol.com wrote:
>
> The waxed wooden tablets were used for writing practice by
> young pupils. They could easily be recoated and used over
> and over again. It's hard to imagine anyone wanting to preserve
> the teachings of their Master on such a temporary medium.
> But I guess since Q is "vaporware", then that is appropriate. :)
Despite your emoticon, Tim, lest anyone not fully realize you're being
facetious, let me clarify the statement on which you commented by adding
that I never supposed that it was the PUGILLARIA, the wax-coated wooden
tablets, that Sato imagined the Q materials were committed to, but rather
parchment pages with holes tied together by thongs in a sort of
loose-leaf notebook. This would, presumably (it's not my theory), be an
inermediate stage between the PUGILLARIA and the CODEX, wherein a whole
bundle of parchment pages are permanently sewn together.
"Vaporware," eh? So the computer metaphors have infected even our
perspective on antiquity--well, of course. Keep your interface clean,
Tim! ;-)
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
------------------------------
From: Shaughn Daniel <zxmli05@student.uni-tuebingen.de>
Date: Sun, 4 Jun 1995 14:58:47 +0000
Subject: B-GRK: animals in Revelation
Dear folks,
I got an easy question from a friend: what's available on the topic of
"animals" in the book of Revelation?
I got the problem: 1 hour of searching for a web page to allow me to
do a search like that gives me relevant information on:
1) journal articles in print
2) abstracts of books
3) commentaries
I didn't find much but an abstract on "Animals in the Apocalypse of Enoch"
or something like that. Maybe there is a Revelation expert here that knows
of something relevant to the topic of the symbolism and use of "animals" in
Revelation. My friend is writing a paper for a college course, so it's not
a dissertation or anything. She is not a religion major, so it probably
won't go into the Greek aspects. In fact, I doubt if she even reads Greek.
Any suggestions? I just need some addresses.
Thanks,
Shaughn Daniel
Tuebingen, Germany
------------------------------
From: Paul Moser <PMOSER@cpua.it.luc.edu>
Date: Sun, 04 Jun 95 12:39 CDT
Subject: Mark and Midrash
Tim Staker suggested that midrash, of some sort, occurs
in Mark's gospel. I wonder, Tim, which of the various
senses of "midrash" you had in mind, and what evidence
you would offer in support of your claim. Since, in
certain quarters, NT scholarship suffers from midrashomania
(remember parallelomania?), we must be careful regarding
definition and evidence. It is arguable (following
Gundry and others) that some midrashic tendencies occur
in Matthew, given Matthew's embellishments of Mark and Q,
and given Matthew's predisposed Jewish audience. The case
for midrash in Mark, however, is more tenuous. One
consideration is that Mark's sources are less transparent
than Matthew's (e.g., Mark and Q). (I won't deny that
Matthew may have written the Q-source available to Luke.)
Another consideration is that Mark very likely had a Roman
audience unfamiliar with midrash. Mark translates
Aramaic phrases for his audience, and he explains Greek
expressions by Latin parallels; in addition, he uses
various Latin terms. We also have evidence from Clement
of Alexandria and Irenaeus favoring a Roman audience
for Mark's gospel. I wonder what Larry Hurtado thinks
about midrash in Mark. (Sorry to bait you like this,
Larry, but I'm sure you could shed needed light.)--
Paul Moser, Loyola University of Chicago.
------------------------------
From: RevRussell@aol.com
Date: Sun, 4 Jun 1995 16:01:58 -0400
Subject: Unsubscribe
Unsubscribe B-Greek RevRussell@aol.com (Kathryn Russell)
------------------------------
From: RoyRM@aol.com
Date: Sun, 4 Jun 1995 16:42:05 -0400
Subject: Re: Ph.D. Programs in Textual...
I was (am) under the impression that Dan Wallace at Dallas was pretty much up
to snuff on text crit., but I have to admit to not being conversant enough in
text crit. to make a good evaluation, or even of knowing if a Dallas PhD.
program would meet the needs in this case.
Roy Millhouse
Grandview, MO
RoyRM@aol.com
------------------------------
From: "Marmorstein, Art" <marmorsa@wolf.northern.edu>
Date: Sun, 04 Jun 95 15:55:00 CDT
Subject: Re: Mark 16:8 (and Mark 1:1)
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FORWARDED FROM: Marmorstein, Art
Return-Path: <DGOWLER@micah.chowan.edu>
From: "David B. Gowler" <DGOWLER@micah.chowan.edu>
To: "Marmorstein, Art" <marmorsa@wolf.northern.edu>
Date: Sat, 3 Jun 1995 10:53:55 EST
Subject: Re: Mark 16:8 (and Mark 1:1)
X-Pmrqc: 1
Priority: normal
X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail v3.1 (R1a)
Message-Id: <120946B5156@micah.chowan.edu>
Art Marmorstein wrote, in part:
> The actual beginning of Mark (the citation of Isaiah) would be an
appropriate
> introduction to the gospel only if Mark, like Matthew, placed a great deal
of
> emphasis on Jesus' fulfillment of OT prophecy as evidence that he was in
fact
> the Messiah. But this is not what Mark does--Mark places far more emphasis
> on Jesus as a miracle worker.
>
> All one has to do is look objectively at Mark 1 and the parallels in
Matthew
> and Luke to be convinced that the thesis of Marcan priority involves some
> major difficulties . . . .
> . . . Mark (who, after all, wants to show Jesus as a wonder-
>worker) would leave out material which shows Jesus deliberately
>not performing miracles.
It seems that this analysis of "Mark's" view of Jesus ends with
8:21! -- instead of reading Mark's further commentary on
Jesus as miracle worker, beginning in Mark 8:22. Perhaps 8:21 is
the "real" ending of Mark, instead of 16:8!?! :-)
I would put this differently, although I would not claim to have
the absolute "objective" viewpoint. Mark seems to be arguing
against the common assumptions of what a "miracle worker" is;
instead the suffering son of man is the more important focus. It
is true that Mark is more concerned about miracles than Matthew
(who has more of a focus of Jesus as teacher), but, as Vernon
Robbins has shown, Mark blends both some Hellenistic patterns and
some Hebrew Bible patterns of teacher/disciple relationships in
this narrative (the hellenistic pattern cited by Robbins, by the
way, includes a period of misunderstanding and "stupidity" by the
disciples, but ends with understanding and reconciliation).
I would also argue that Matthew clearly amends Mark, even in the
area of "miracles": The Markan Jesus who "*could* do no
miracle" in his home town is amended to the Matthean Jesus who
"*did* no miracle," for example (Mk 6:5; Mt 13:58).
Carl, Carlton, Larry, and others have eloquently stated the
rationale for the conclusion that Mark ends at 16:8. The whole
rhetorical structure points in that direction -- including the
important use of irony of the (revised form of the) messianic
secret. The narrative, ending at 16:8, gives a powerful witness
for the absolute necessity of spreading the word about the
resurrected Jesus (including a syllogistic argument that begins
with John the Baptist's example), in a way conducive to those who
are in a situation of (perceived?) persecution or crisis. In
fact, I would also argue that Mark 16:1-8 can make a much more
powerful Easter sermon than any of the other resurrection stories
(with one possible exception), if the narrative structure of Mark
is followed closely.
Mark portrays a particular kind of miracle worker, a particular
kind of Messiah, a particular kind of Son of God. Some/many
early Christians had other conceptions and disagreed with Mark's
view (In a more general sense, Luke, for example, contains in
his preface some polite and restrained commentary that his
narrative will be superior to the ones previous -- but I am NOT
claiming that he was talking about this aspect of Mark's ending
specifically).
It seems to me that *part* of some people's disillusionment with
Mark's ending at 16:8 today is analogous to the first-century
situation of disagreement with Mark -- hence the added endings
later on. But then I could be wrong, because I actually prefer
the Markan Jesus and the Lukan Jesus to the Matthean Jesus or
the GJn's Jesus.
David
********************************
David B. Gowler
Associate Professor of Religion
Chowan College
dgowler@micah.chowan.edu
------------------------------
From: Willard Renner <WILLARD@univscvm.csd.scarolina.edu>
Date: Sun, 04 Jun 95 21:26:27 EDT
Subject: Introduction
I signed on to this list Friday and I just wanted to introduce myself.
Born Hannibal, Mo. 3/26/26
Vandalia, Mo. K-12
U.S.Army Air Corp. 1944-45
University of Missouri 1946-50 Mech. Eng.
A.P.Green Industries Mexico, Mo. 1950 to 1986
Various jobs and places both operations and sales
Retired 4/1/86
Since retirement at University of S.Carolina
Completed a Religion Studies major
Completed a Classical Greek major
Play golf three <3> days a week
Go to school two <2> days a week
Take off in the summer except for golf
This list has looked interesting the last three days. I will probably be quite
most of the time, but will enjoy the discussions.
Willard Renner
W. Columbia, SC
willard@univscvm.csd.scarolina.edu
------------------------------
End of b-greek-digest V1 #736
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