From: Steven Craig Miller (scmiller@www.plantnet.com)
Date: Fri Dec 03 1999 - 15:25:57 EST
<x-flowed>To: Charles Powell,
<< Can ARCIEREWS in Mark 2:26 mean "prominent priest" rather than "high
priest" in Mark 2:26? Or must ARCIEREUS in the singular mean "high priest"
in the gospels. In Acts 19:14, ARCIEREWS is used of Sceva, although he
certainly was not the "high priest." >>
First of all, even if one assumes that there was no high priest by the name
of "Sceva," that is not proof IMO that Luke used the term ARCIEREWS here at
Acts 19:14 to mean something other than "high priest." It is completely
reasonable to assume that Luke had heard of some legend about a high priest
by the name of Sceva, which he deemed to be historical (even if it is not).
It seems to me that some NT lexicographers held the opinion that ARCIEREUS
in the singular must refer specifically to the "high priest," but the
plural of the same term could be used to refer to ex-high-priests and
members of the high-priestly families. But Louw & Nida's lexicon suggests
that ARCIEREUS may mean either "high priest" or "chief priest" (this latter
term I take to be similar to your suggestion). They don't mention the need
for the latter to be plural, although the example they cite is plural.
Fitzmyer [1998] at Acts 19:14 translates ARCIEREWS as "chief priest," and
he cites Acts 4:23 as justification (the term at Acts 4:23 is plural,
although the one at 19:14 is not). Fitzmyer also suggests that Sceva might
not be a member of the Jewish priesthood of Jerusalem, but rather might be
a "renegade Jew" who was a priest in the Roman imperial cult. So instead of
having "a Jewish high priest named Sceva" (as the NRSV), Fitzmyer
translates: "Sceva, a Jew, a chief priest." (All of this strikes me as a
tad odd, but who knows?)
As for Mark 2:26, it seems to me that (assuming the Two-Source hypothesis)
both Matthew and Luke, and later scribes, thought that the Markan Jesus had
been in error. For according to the Two-Source hypothesis, Matthew and Luke
omit "when Abiathar was high priest," presumably because they knew that
such a statement was historically incorrect. Likewise some later scribes
omitted the passage from their copy of Mark's text, some only omitting the
prefix ARC-, while still some other later scribes added the article TOU
before ARCIEREWS in order to permit the interpretation that the event
happened during the time of Abiathar who was later a high priest. Thus it
would seem that it was not common to use the singular ARCIEREUS to refer to
one who was merely a member of the high priest's family, otherwise it would
be hard to explain why so many went to remove what undoubtedly appeared to
them as an error in Mark's text.
It might also be interesting to note that LEH states that ARCIEREUS occurs
44 times in the LXX, but 41 [!] of these 44 times are in those books which
were not included in the Hebrew Bible. Thus for the rest of the LXX,
ARCIEREUS is practically never found.
Also, I will note that LEH cites an article by Kilpatrick 1969:203-208,
this has been reprinted in: "The Principles and Practice of New Testament
Textual Criticism" (edited by J. K. Elliott) 1990:229-240.
Also, I will note that both BAGD and Kilpatrick cite Emil Schurer's "A
History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ," but the pages
they cite do not match the pages of the Hendrickson Publishers edition, for
which the discussion can be found at 2.1.203-206.
-Steven Craig Miller
Alton, Illinois (USA)
scmiller@www.plantnet.com
"Words are like people. To know them well one must meet them on their own
level, in their own environment. In different circumstances they react
differently. Like a face they take on varying expressions. Some of them
move from place to place; some never return to their earlier familiar
surroundings. But to know their past is to know a little better what makes
them act as they do in the present" (Frederick W. Danker, "Multipurpose
Tools for Bible Study," 1993:135).
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