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Julius_Caesar
Guest
How are we certain that the soldier who pierced Jesus’s side was named Longinus?
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Lunam_Meam
Guest
Again, it was not in regards to Him appearing to Mary Magdalene as you think, because her actions did not reflect fear. He says to not be afraid regarding His instruction to her.Lunam_Meam:
Jesus told Mary not to be afraid. Why would she tell her that if she wasn’t afraid?Julius_Caesar:
Over Jesus appearing to her? No, because she approached, embraced His feet, and did Him homage, which are actions that do not reflect fear. It is after this Jesus says to not be afraid regarding His instruction to her.Lunam_Meam:
"And, behold, Jesus met them on their way and greeted them. They approached, embraced his feet, and did him homage. Then, Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.” Matthew 28:9-10
It says here Mary was afraid.
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How I am certain that soldiers’s name was Longinus will not be the same as you, and it is irrelevant to my question anyway, which is how are you certain of the name of a supposed unnamed disciple?Lunam_Meam:
How are we certain that the soldier who pierced Jesus’s side was named Longinus?Julius_Caesar:
The second disciple is named in Lk. 24:34, for reasons explained. Since you claim the second disciple is unnamed, then how are you certain they were named Luke?Lunam_Meam:
The other disciple is unnamed…the other disciple is Luke.
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Julius_Caesar
Guest
Again, you venture into a novel interpretation. Mary was scared because Jesus appeared out of nowhere.
CHRYSOLOGUS. (Serm. 80.) They held His feet to shew that the head of Christ is the man, but that the woman is in Christ’s feet, and that it was given to them through Christ, not to go before, but to follow the man. Christ also repeats what the Angel had said, that what an Angel had made sure, Christ might make yet more sure. It follows, Then saith Jesus unto them, Fear not.
JEROME. This may be always observed, both in the Old and New Testament, that when there is an appearance of any majestic person, the first thing done is to banish fear, that the mind being tranquillized may receive the things that are said
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Julius_Caesar
Guest
It is relevant. As the link I posted to TMC shows, it’s a common tradition in the Eastern Church that Luke was at Emmaus.
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BartholomewB
Guest
But if it was Luke himself, why doesn’t he say so? Does the Eastern tradition offer any explanation? In Acts there are the famous “We” passages, such as Chap. 27, “We boarded a ship … We put out to sea … Aristarchus was with us … We landed at Sidon … We put out to sea again … The winds were against us …” But in the Emmaus episode, Luke only ever writes “they,” never “we.”
T
TMC
Guest
I find Papias to be such a thin source, TBH. We don’t actually have any of his writings, we only know him through Eusebius (and maybe Iraneus??), and Eusebius himself dismissed Papias as a “man of small intelligence.” Much of what we do have of Papias (again, only what Eusebius bothered to quote in his works) has been dismissed as wrong or ahistorical, but we cling to his description of Mark and a few other things. I don’t give it much credit.
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BartholomewB
Guest
The editors of the Jerusalem Bible clearly gave careful consideration to the “third James” hypothesis. In fact they seem to have preferred it to the alternative hypothesis, that James the Just and James the Less are the same man. Take a look at their translation of Gal 1:18-19, compared with other Catholic translations:
• Even when after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and stayed with him for fifteen days, I did not see any of the other apostles; I only saw James, the brother of the Lord. (JB)
• Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas, and remained with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord’s brother. (RSVCE)
• Then, when three years had passed, I did go up to Jerusalem, to visit Peter, and I stayed a fortnight there in his company; but I did not see any of the other apostles, except James, the Lord’s brother. (Knox)
In the second and third versions shown here, Paul says he met two apostles, Peter and James, but no others. In the JB, however, Paul is made to say he met only one apostle, Peter (Cephas). He also met James, who was — implicitly — not an apostle.
If any of our resident Greek experts, notably @OddBird, @Bithynian, and @Gorgias, should happen to see this, I would like to ask them: Are all three translations fully compatible with Paul’s Greek?
• ἔπειτα μετὰ ἔτη τρία ἀνῆλθον εἰς Ἱεροσόλυμα ἱστορῆσαι Κηφᾶν, καὶ ἐπέμεινα πρὸς αὐτὸν ἡμέρας δεκαπέντε: ἕτερον δὲ τῶν ἀποστόλων οὐκ εἶδον, εἰ μὴ Ἰάκωβον τὸν ἀδελφὸν τοῦ κυρίου.
The key words, evidently, are εἰ μὴ in v. 19, shown here in bold. This is the explanation that the JB gives in a footnote to this verse:
• Lit. ‘but only James’. Others translate ‘except James’, either identifying this James with the son of Alphaeus, Mt 10:3p, and taking him for one of the Twelve, or else understanding ‘apostle’ in the wider sense, cf. Rm 1:1+. (Jerusalem Bible, footnote to Gal 1:19)
In the Vulgate as shown alongside the Knox Bible, the corresponding word is nisi:
• deinde post annos tres veni Jerosolymam videre Petrum, et mansi apud eum diebus quindecim: alium autem Apostolorum vidi neminem, nisi Jacobum fratrem Domini.
In v. 19 the Nova Vulgata amends vidi neminem, “I saw nobody,” to non vidi, “I did not see,” but I don’t think this has any bearing on the “third James” issue:
Deinde post annos tres, ascendi Hierosolymam videre Cepham et mansi apud eum diebus quindecim; alium autem apostolorum non vidi, nisi Iacobum fratrem Domini.
The Latin text, in both versions, seems to suggest that both Cephas and James were apostles: “Among the other apostles I saw none except James.” But is Paul using the term “apostle” here in the narrower sense of the Twelve or, as he usually does, in the broader sense?
Knox Bible with Greek and Vulgate:
https://www.newadvent.org/bible/gal001.htm
Nova Vulgata:
http://www.vatican.va/archive/bible/nova_vulgata/documents/nova-vulgata_nt_epist-galatas_lt.html
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BartholomewB
Guest
How many women are listed in John 19:25? Three or four?
Standing by the cross of Jesus were (1) his mother, (2) his mother’s sister, (3) Mary the wife of Clopas, and (4) Mary Magdalene
or (1) his mother, (2) his mother’s sister Mary, the wife of Clopas, and (3) Mary Magdalene.
Only three, I think. If there were four, we would expect to see an extra kai (“and”). But I suppose both readings are possible.
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Julius_Caesar
Guest
The Peshita has four.
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Julius_Caesar
Guest
It’s good either way. But if in the first sense, Paul has to justify his Apostleship.
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Gorgias
Guest
Mounce would say that εἰ μὴ forms an idiom meaning “except”. The problem, though, is that apparently, it’s not always used as an idiom, in which case it’s translated literally. (Yeah. Thanks for that. “It means ‘except’, except when it doesn’t.”)
So, all three translations seem to fit the text fairly well, with the caveat that the JB deviates from the literal text a bit:
- it chooses to eliminate the idiom
- it inserts a semicolon to pick up the “change of direction” that ‘except’ provides
- it inserts an explicit “I saw” that’s not literally in the text as such (but is inferred)
- it adds the word “only”, which isn’t in the text at all, seemingly in order to pick up the meaning of εἰ μὴ.
That’s the big question!
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Julius_Caesar
Guest
What’s your answer?
I agree with @Gorgias. I’d be interested to hear what @Bithynian has to say, though.
I checked the variant readings for these verses and there is no alternate formulation attested for ει μη, which, had there been one, could have indicated that the meaning was seen as problematic and that some felt the need to make it clearer. But, apparently, the text posed no issues here.
The only noteworthy variant is the occidental text (Codex Bezae – a first hand, meaning it was corrected later, probably to fit the majority reading) and a few others who have ειδον ουδενα (I saw none) instead of ουκ ειδον (I didn’t see), but that’s still qualified by the “except…”
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B
Bithynian
Guest
Yes. I generally prefer the RSV-CE and Knox’s choice of translation, as it’s more plain, but all in all JB’s choice of translation is very much within the norm for εἰ μή. From a semantic perspective, ‘except’ and ‘only’ are approximately equivalent and most grammars treat them as equally viable English translations for εἰ μή.
It typically carries the ‘except’ meaning when its associated verb is not present. More fully, εἰ μή marks an implicit protasis (implicit because its verb is omitted) of a conditional that suggests a contrasting exception to the apodosis. In this case, the omitted protasis verb is εἶδον:
Very literally translated (to the point of contorting English idiom):
There is a very fine ambiguity in determining where the exception occurs:
(1) he ‘did not see except’ in the sense of ‘I didn’t see another apostle, but I did see James, who isn’t an apostle but I saw him anyway’; or
(2) ‘another of the apostles except’ in the sense of ‘I didn’t see another apostle, but I did see James the apostle and he’s the only apostle I saw’.
I think (2) is more plausible, since it would be awkward to specify the direct object of εἶδον beyond an unspecific οὐδένα to a specific ἕτερον δὲ τῶν ἀποστόλων unless the specification were to affect the protasis.
The sentence is largely the same as the other (more well known) example of εἰ μή:
John even specifices that εἰ μή in this instance (as in most instances) imputes a contrasting exception to the apodosis’ verb and direct object.
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Gorgias
Guest
I think it’s open to interpretation. If the answer is meant in service to answering the question “did Jesus have uterine siblings?”, then my answer is ‘no’, so I would answer that the quote from Galatians doesn’t support that thesis.
Ahh…! Thanks for looking at other texts! I didn’t have a chance to do that! I was wondering where that footnote about the change in Latin was coming from. That makes sense, now, if they were following ειδον ουδενα…!
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Julius_Caesar
Guest
So you believe in three Jameses.
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Gorgias
Guest
I believe it’s open to interpretation.
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Julius_Caesar
Guest
Okay. Not the answer I was hoping for but you can say that.
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Gorgias
Guest
LOL! Just trying to not get drawn into the kerfuffle…
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BartholomewB
Guest
@Gorgias, @OddBird, and @Bithynian, thank you all for your response. The consensus, evidently, is that one reading (Peter and James are both apostles) is more plausible than the other, but neither is impossible.
I don’t know about other languages, but in English, at least, this places an additional burden on translators and editors. There is no way in English, that I know of, that we could retain the ambiguity of Paul’s Greek. We are forced to opt for one clear meaning or the other.
Does anybody here happen to have Henry Wansbrough’s Revised New Jerusalem Bible? It would be interesting to see whether he endorses the earlier JB translators’ preference for the “one apostle” view, or whether he has changed sides and now aligns with the majority.
I don’t know about other languages, but in English, at least, this places an additional burden on translators and editors. There is no way in English, that I know of, that we could retain the ambiguity of Paul’s Greek. We are forced to opt for one clear meaning or the other.
Does anybody here happen to have Henry Wansbrough’s Revised New Jerusalem Bible? It would be interesting to see whether he endorses the earlier JB translators’ preference for the “one apostle” view, or whether he has changed sides and now aligns with the majority.
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