From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Wed Dec 30 1998 - 08:48:31 EST
<x-rich>Since we're off of B-Greek, I'm going to comment rather freely here and
voice some of my views which I would avoid expressing direclty on list.
I frankly don't understand the tenor of some of your questions and
responses; perhaps an exchange will facilitate mutual understanding.
At 4:51 PM +0000 12/29/98, Trevor Jenkins wrote:
>Thanks to you all for your suggestions and comments. I realise that
some of
>my original comments were not on-topic for the list so my follow-up
here is
>to you each personally.
>
>yochanan bitan <<ButhFam@compuserve.com> comments:
>
>> (trevor jenkins wrote:}
>> >As I progress in my study of New Testament Greek I am sure other
>> >infrequent words will confuse me. So in conclusion I'd like advice
upon
>> >is what other references can I check that would resolve my
problem.
>>
>> in every language, the language interprets itself.
>
>That's what had me puzzled about the "politically correct" translation
of
>MAGOS of the nativity account in the KJV and RSV as "Wise Men" but
obvious
>pejorative use of sorcerer/magician in Acts. If I follow your
suggestions
>for reading extra-biblical sources (and here I *DO* agree with Wenham)
then
>I'm going to end up with the same question why the P.C. translation
in
>Matthew and not in Acts?
One thing I don't understand is your use of "politically correct" in
this context. If I were to use that word at all about Biblical
translations, I think I would use it of efforts to avoid masculine
pronouns where the Greek words indicate common gender. So far as MAGOI
are concerned, I honestly don't think the translators are doing
anything other than giving what they believe is the most appropriate
English equivalent of the word. This is a difficult word, NOT because
it refers to "pagans," but rather because it is a word used for more
than one category of people, some of whom (in Acts) are viewed
negatively by the writer while others (the visitors to Bethlehem) are
viewed positively. For that reason I think it would be wrong to
translate the word in both instances with the same English word UNLESS
one uses the Latin equivalent which has come over into English: Magi.
>Ron Rhoades <<rrhoades@jps.net> comments:
>
>> Very little here on grammar, but, sticking to the word used, the
"magi"
>> were not held in honor by the writer of Matthew or the first
century
>> Christians. Justin Martyr, Origen, and Tertullian, when reading
Matthew
>> 2:1, thought of magi as astrologers. The name Magi became current as
a
>> generic term for astrologers in the East with all its negative
>> connotations.
>
>My problem is that the KJV/RSV (and by cop-out NIV) translsators have
toned
>down the negative aspects of these magi. I've just checked my copy of
the
>Good News Bible in which the translators say "...men who studied the
>stars...", which today is ambiguous as it could be taken to be
astronomers
>not astrologers. (As an aside to Randall the GNB uses an English
vocabulary
>of only 2,000 words!)
>
>> So the evidence is strong that the magi who visited the infant
Jesus
>> were astrologers not "wise men" in a positive sense. Correctly,
then,
>> many modern English translations read "astrologers" at Matthew 2:1.
Perhaps my perspective was not clear enough in response to Ron Rhoades.
I disagree very much with the notion that Matthew did not hold the
MAGOI in respect. I do NOT believe that Matthew portrays them as in
collusion with Herod the Great; although they confer with him in an
effort to learn where the "King of the Jews" is supposed to be born,
they scrupulously AVOID reporting back to Herod what they have found in
Bethlehem and return without seeing him again. My own view of the visit
of the MAGOI in Matthew's gospel is that they underscore a Matthaean
theme that signs and portents associated with the birth, life, and
death of Jesus impinge so discernibly even on the non-Jewish world that
Gentiles are aware of and ask questions about events which even their
own sources of divination discern as epochal in nature.
>The only modern translations I have to hand NIV being the most recent
do
>not say "astrologers" but various P.C. and acceptable nouns. Although
J B
>Phillips in his translation from the 1950s does say "a party of
>astrologers".
Here again, I do think that there are indeed indications of astrology
in Matthew's reference to the MAGOI as having seen the star and being
cognizant from star-lore that Israel's king was about to be born. But I
am not convinced that there is a uniform Biblical perspective on
astrological thought (in fact, I think there are pointers to
astrological notions in Ephesians and even more in Colossians). At any
rate, I don't see any clear indication in Biblical texts that
astrological calculations are condemned. I think that astrology is a
major phenomenon in the Hellenistic world and a belief in it in some
part was very widely held.
>Carl W Conrad:
>
>> ... Herodotus tells of the MAGOI in the original sense as
Zoroastrian
>> priests in Persia, but in the syncretist climate of the Hellenistic
era
>> associations of any one national religion came readily to be linked
up to
>> each other in various combinations.
>
>Syncretism is still a problem today so perhaps my questioning has
more
>merit than I though.
Syncretism is a mixed bag, not something one can judge as either wholly
positive or wholly negative. It is quite clear, for instance, that
apocalyptic eschatology in Judaism developed as a consequence of the
spread of religious conceptions from Zoroastrianism; moreover, the
gospel could not have been spread into the Hellenistic world without
evangelists making use of categories of religious experience known in
the Gentile world and understood, at least to some extent, by
evangelists. Syncretism can be a threat when what is an essential core
notion of the faith is diluted or lost in the process of cultural
diffusion. So yes, syncretism is a problem, but it is not per se
something to be feared.
>> I think the association with astrology
>> is clearly there in Matthew's birth narrative, but in Acts I think
the
>> association is rather with sorcery: Simon Magos endeavors to learn
from
>> Peter how to exploit the phenomena associated with the Holy Spirit
to
>> work magic--and MAGIKH (TECNH) surely derives from MAGOS bearing
this
>> sense.
>
>Which backs up randall buth's assertion on the language (i.e.
context)
>interpreting itself. But I still feel that we are being short-changed
by
>the translators. It appears to me that they wish to dilute the force
of the
>original in an effort not to annoy anyone. Maybe that is harsh but as
an
>author myself I know how important it is to select the best word. I
fear
>that the use of wise men (or even Magi as Conrad himself would use) is
to
>side-step the issue that believers from a false religion came and
>worshipped Jesus that first Christmas.
And here's where I'm disturbed by the notion that the translators have
"diluted" the force of the original--I don't think it's a question of
"believers from a false religion coming and worshipping Jesus," but
rather I think that Matthew is trying to tell us that God has revealed
even to Gentiles the earth-shaking importance of the event taking place
in Bethlehem. The MAGOI, I believe, are not to be seen as "pagans"
coming to worship Jesus as something other than who he is but rather as
Gentiles who, through their own by-no-means-wholly-illegitimate means
of divination have had it revealed to them that this infant is destined
to govern the future of the whole of humanity and therefore they come
to pay their respects.
Quite frankly, this inquiry has surprised me; I now see how it can have
arisen because of the different use of the same Greek word in two
different contexts with two very different valuations of the word.
While I think that "sorcerer" is appropriate enough for MAGOS in Acts,
and while I think that "astrologer" is not really wrong for the passage
in Matthew, I suspect that in 20th-century English "astrologer" has
connotations and associations that are misleading and therefore the
committee translators have not used it. It may well be that we won't
find a phrase much better than "wise men" for MAGOI in Matthew. Surely
no one will dispute that there ARE really Gentile "wise men," and I
would hope that no one would suppose that God has never revealed
himself in any way to Gentile "wise men."
Let me conclude by citing Louw and Nida on the difference between the
two usages of MAGOS:
<bold>32.40 MAGOS , OU </bold><italic>m:</italic> a person noted for
unusual capacity of understanding based upon astrology (such persons
were regarded as combining both secular and religious aspects of
knowledge and understanding) - 'a wise man and priest, a magus.' IDOU
MAGOI APO ANAATOLWN PAEGENONTO EIS IEROSOLUMA 'soon afterward, some
magi came from the East to Jerusalem' Mt 2:1. In Mt 2:1 MAGOI may be
translated as 'men of wisdom who studied the stars.'10
<bold>53.97 MAGOS , OU </bold><italic>m:</italic> (derivative of MAGEUW
'to practice magic,' 53.96) one who practices magic and witchcraft -
'magician.' ANQISTATO DE AUTOIS ELUMAS hO MAGOS 'the magician opposed
them' Ac 13:8.
<fontfamily><param>Geneva</param><bigger>Certainly you may want to
persist in this view that the MAGOI of Matthew's birth narrative are
cast in a pejorative light, but I really don't believe that
personally.
Best regards, cwc </bigger></fontfamily>
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
</x-rich>
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