The Minor, Trivial Stuff Thread

[patrick457]

Can’t be done, I’m afraid. What time did the Pharisees or Sadducees go to bed?

The answer, I think, is quite obvious: according to the almighty wikipedia, “sleep timing is controlled by the circadian clock, sleep-wake homeostasis, and in humans, within certain bounds, willed behavior.” So, sleeping hours would vary between each Pharisee or Saducee, or for that matter, any Jew or Greek. No late-night TVs back then, so I guess many people probably slept early, unless they had some reason to stay up late. And many would have also woke up early: the day’s tasks at the Temple were usually allotted by the priests before dawn, for instance.

 

[Spirithound]

The answer, I think, is quite obvious: according to the almighty wikipedia, “sleep timing is controlled by the circadian clock, sleep-wake homeostasis, and in humans, within certain bounds, willed behavior.”

Now that’s interesting, because I’ve heard that the human circadian clock, absent all other outside factors, like being able to see the sunrise, is actually on a 25 hour cycle, meaning that to function with our 24.004~hr day, we need to apply our willpower, and appeal to an arbitrarily-set daily schedule…something which I’ve been woefully inadequate at doing since school let out for the summer…

 

[Thing]

… And many would have also woke up early: the day’s tasks at the Temple were usually allotted by the priests before dawn, for instance.

They did’nt have dandelion coffee or anything of that **kind **in the Bible?

 

[Thing]

Now that’s interesting, because I’ve heard that the human circadian clock, absent all other outside factors, like being able to see the sunrise, is actually on a 25 hour cycle, meaning that to function with our 24.004~hr day, we need to apply our willpower, and appeal to an arbitrarily-set daily schedule…something which I’ve been woefully inadequate at doing since school let out for the summer…

I think you’ve raised an interesting idea. In Adam and Eves’ day everything was grand. A spring from under the earth to water everything, no rain, etc., etc.
So what conditions could lead to just these two facts alone? Lets see…

1. An immense body of water underground.
2. An atmosphere not inducive to precipitation.

An auxiliary fact (1.a) might be greater storage capacity beneath the earth for all this water.

The earth is at present 25,040 miles in circumference, but, there is little room underground for loads of water. So I’ll increase the earths diameter in the Garden of Eden by fourteen miles. Meaning that the earth is 7 miles bigger or higher or wider at its radius, or the surface of the earth, the ground, is now seven miles up in the sky. This gives a lot of empty space underground for all the water and it also smoothes out, I guess, all of the mountains and gives us, also, shallow tropical seas. All in all the climate just might not have those extreems of temperature difference and local turbulence which leads to precipitation in our earth.
As a guide for this idea I used your 25 hour natural sleep cycle, I chose an arbitrary but plausable number 7 for an increased earth radius and calculated an earth rotation speed of a gentle 1003.36 miles per hour at the equator as opposed to the present hectic speed of rotation of 1038 miles per hour at the equator.
So Adam and Eve had their full 25 hour day, a super-dooper climate of watered land but no rain, and a bigger, smoother [flatter?] earth.

• one never knows where an idea might lead one.

 

[patrick457]

They did’nt have dandelion coffee or anything of that **kind **in the Bible?

Well, I’ve read that dandelion leaves and buds have been a part of traditional Mediterranean cuisine, so it’s not unlikely some Israelites have developed a taste for them. BTW, dandelion ‘coffee’ was quite well known as a coffee substitute since the 19th century (here’s one early source I can cull, dating from 1830) but it seems improbable that they already knew of this in 1st century Roman Judea, considering that the history of true coffee goes at least as far back as the 13th century, but with its origin remaining unclear. How can you come up with a substitute if the original hasn’t been invented yet?

In the most important feastdays such as Passover, the gates of the Temple would be opened at midnight - all the gates were usually shut and fastened at night while priests and Levites would patrol the precincts - in order to ensure sufficient time for all the individual and group offerings. Even before dawn, the court would already be filled with crowds.

The Temple guard, by the way, was conducted by watches stationed in twenty-four locatons. According to Alfred Edersheim (The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah): “Of these twenty-one were occupied by Levites alone; the other innermost three jointly by priests and Levites. Each guard consisted of ten men; so that in all two hundred and forty Levites and thirty priests were on duty every night. The Temple guards were relieved by day, but not during the night, which the Romans divided into four, but the Jews, properly, into three watches, the fourth being really the morning watch.*”

• • The watch at some of the gates seems at one time to have been hereditary in certain families. For this, see Herzfeld, vol. i. p. 419; ii. p. 57.

So yeah, it’s not easy being a priest, especially during feastdays.

Josephus in fact once recorded an incident which happened during the prefecture of Coponius (6-9 AD): during Passover, some Samaritans sneaked into Jerusalem and scattered human bones throughout the Temple precincts when the doors were opened at midnight - which, according to the Law, would make it ritually unclean. As a result, the priests, though they had previously observed no custom, had to exclude everyone present from the Temple and keep a closer watch to prevent something like this from happening again (Antiquities 18.29-30)

 

[patrick457]

Let’s do the golden calf for a moment.

We’ve talked about the sin of Jeroboam a bit before and the role of the ‘calves’ he erected, which are either supposed to be (1) a representation of God-as-an-ox - an easy mistake to fall on in light of the common tendency to depict divinities, especially storm or water deities, riding on bulls or as oxen themselves as in the ANE; (2) an representation of the guardian beasts YHWH is pictured to be riding/sitting on (like the cherubim of the Ark), in which case the ‘calves’ would be a mount/platform, with God being imagined to be sitting/standing over it; or (3) an outright attempt to introduce a foreign cult.

The Aaronic golden calf was apparently pretty much the same in this regard; although, based on Exodus 32:1 it can also be interpreted as a sort of surrogate for Moses in his role as leader rather than as an outright substitute for the God of Israel. Most of the above explanations would help explain Aaron’s statement in verse 5: “Tomorrow is a feast to YHWH.”

Now we go to the calf itself. According to Exodus 32 it was made of gold and fashioned with an engraving tool. Some think that the calf was 100% gold, based on the Hebrew description of it in verse 4 as an 'egel massekah, which many translations render as ‘molten calf’. This of course brings up a problem where the Biblical account notes that an angry Moses burned the statue and pulverized it - neither of which would have been possible with pure gold. It thus could be more probable that rather than being a purely golden statue, it was probably also made of other materials - such as clay or wood or stone or something like that, which in turn was covered with gold. (good news: Mr. DeMille probably got it right in showing the calf as being made of wood plated with gold! )


A bronze bull statuette covered in gold leaf, from a Phoenician temple at Byblos.
There are those who point out that there is also no indication in the text that Aaron melted all the golden earrings either; rather, the text just reads “and he received from their hand, and fashioned with an engraving tool and made an 'egel massekah”. The text does not explicitly say anything to the effect that Aaron melted all the gold, though it is obviously not clear how he managed to make a calf out of them using a simple scalpel.

Now as for the term massekah, another theory proposes that the word should be understood in its other sense of ‘libation’ (massekah is derived from the root nsk ‘to pour’): thus, Aaron made a ‘calf of libation’: i.e. the Israelites performed a libation of sorts over the golden calf in their worship.

 

[Spirithound]

As a guide for this idea I used your 25 hour natural sleep cycle, I chose an arbitrary but plausable number 7 for an increased earth radius and calculated an earth rotation speed of a gentle 1003.36 miles per hour at the equator as opposed to the present hectic speed of rotation of 1038 miles per hour at the equator.
So Adam and Eve had their full 25 hour day, a super-dooper climate of watered land but no rain, and a bigger, smoother [flatter?] earth.

• one never knows where an idea might lead one.

Amazing!

 

[Thing]

Let’s do the golden calf for a moment.

We’ve talked about the sin of Jeroboam a bit before and the role of the ‘calves’ he erected, which are either supposed to be (1) a representation of God-as-an-ox - an easy mistake to fall on in light of the common tendency to depict divinities, especially storm or water deities, riding on bulls or as oxen themselves as in the ANE; (2) an representation of the guardian beasts YHWH is pictured to be riding/sitting on (like the cherubim of the Ark), in which case the ‘calves’ would be a mount/platform, with God being imagined to be sitting/standing over it; or (3) an outright attempt to introduce a foreign cult.

The Aaronic golden calf was apparently pretty much the same in this regard; although, based on Exodus 32:1 it can also be interpreted as a sort of surrogate for Moses in his role as leader rather than as an outright substitute for the God of Israel. Most of the above explanations would help explain Aaron’s statement in verse 5: “Tomorrow is a feast to YHWH.”

Now we go to the calf itself. According to Exodus 32 it was made of gold and fashioned with an engraving tool. Some think that the calf was 100% gold, based on the Hebrew description of it in verse 4 as an 'egel massekah, which many translations render as ‘molten calf’. This of course brings up a problem where the Biblical account notes that an angry Moses burned the statue and pulverized it - neither of which would have been possible with pure gold. It thus could be more probable that rather than being a purely golden statue, it was probably also made of other materials - such as clay or wood or stone or something like that, which in turn was covered with gold. (good news: Mr. DeMille probably got it right in showing the calf as being made of wood plated with gold! )

http://www.bible-archaeology.info/images/gold_leaf_bull_phoenician.jpg
A bronze bull statuette covered in gold leaf, from a Phoenician temple at Byblos.
There are those who point out that there is also no indication in the text that Aaron melted all the golden earrings either; rather, the text just reads “and he received from their hand, and fashioned with an engraving tool and made an 'egel massekah”. The text does not explicitly say anything to the effect that Aaron melted all the gold, though it is obviously not clear how he managed to make a calf out of them using a simple scalpel.

Now as for the term massekah, another theory proposes that the word should be understood in its other sense of ‘libation’ (massekah is derived from the root nsk ‘to pour’): thus, Aaron made a ‘calf of libation’: i.e. the Israelites performed a libation of sorts over the golden calf in their worship.

Indeed, , as Moses and everyone resided in Egypt for a while they would know about gold plating wooden statues from the Egyptians if from no-one else. Here is a letter to Pharaoh Akhenaten from a local king dated somewhere around the time of Exodus:

“I…asked your father, Mimmureya, for statues of solid cast gold, one of myself and a second statue, a statue of Tadu-Heba (Tadukhepa), my daughter, and your father said, “Don’t talk of giving statues just of solid cast gold. I will give you ones made also of lapis lazuli. I will give you, too, along with the statues, much additional gold and (other) goods beyond measure.” Every one of my messengers that were staying in Egypt saw the gold for the statues with their own eyes. Your father himself recast the statues *n the presence of my messengers, and he made them entirely of pure gold…He showed much additional gold, which was beyond measure and which he was sending to me. He said to my messengers, “See with your own eyes, here the statues, there much gold and goods beyond measure, which I am sending to my brother.” And my messengers did see with their own eyes! But my brother (ie: Akhenaten) has not sent the solid (gold) statues that your father was going to send. You have sent plated ones of wood. …”. (EA 27)

Perhaps the ‘scalpel’ was for gold plating, y’know, for burnishing gold leaf.*

 

[Thing]

Amazing!

Truely, just don’t quote me, though…

 

[patrick457]

Indeed, , as Moses and everyone resided in Egypt for a while they would know about gold plating wooden statues from the Egyptians if from no-one else.

[Very good citation snipped out for length]

Perhaps the ‘scalpel’ was for gold plating, y’know, for burnishing gold leaf.

No wonder about that, since Egypt was the place where “gold was more plentiful than dirt”! Gold was considered to be the material the skin of the gods are made from and a luxury originally available only to the Pharaoh (later extended to priests and some other members of the royal court). Never tarnishing, it was used extensively in the statues of gods and even to adorn temples. Mixed with other metals, it coated the benbenets, aka pyramidions (the capstone of a pyramid) and obelisks to reflect the rays of the sun.

Let’s do a little comparison between films showing the Golden Calf incident, shall we? Whoever does not want to be spoiled must skip my next posts.

 

[patrick457]

Here we go. As mentioned, spoiler alert!

The Ten Commandments (1923 silent version): After showing Moses being given the Commandments (no pillars of fire burning off stone here; Moses had to carve the words himself after God flashes the commandment into the screen!), DeMille conveys what happens at the foot of Sinai with an intertitle, a paraphrase of Exodus 32:1-4:

And when the people saw that Moses delayed, they murmured and came unto Aaron, saying: Make us gods which shall go before us! And Aaron took their gold and cast it into the fire and fashioned a golden calf.

We are then shown the Israelites collecting the trinkets and operating a big forge, and Aaron hammering the gold plates into place, with men passing the plates to him using very big tongs.

After another brief interlude showing Moses still engraving the words onto the mountainface (interestingly, he only carves one Hebrew letter for each commandment - which is comparable to depictions showing the tablets as having nothing more than numerals in them. Here’s God using big, flashy letters of fire - in English no less! - and all that Moses can do is carve a single Hebrew letter!* ), we go back to Aaron putting the finishing touches on the Calf while a young Miriam (who acts as the ‘high priestess’ of the calf-cult of sorts) strokes the statue with her hair. After a brief reprimand by Joshua, who has never come up the mountain with Moses unlike in the Biblical story, yet another cut to Moses, and another intertitle emphasizing the gravity of the sin of Israel, the worship proper commences.

And, if you are familiar with the 1956 version, you can already guess how the worship of the Golden Calf would look like in the hands of Cecil B. DeMille, so no further elaboration on my part. Suffice to say that later, the statue is perched on a high cliff while Miriam engages the people in the worship of the calf, dubbed the ‘golden god of pleasure’. Dathan the ex-slave and apparent ringleader comes up, but notices something strange with her - she has been stricken with leprosy.

It was at this point that Moses comes down the mount holding the Tablets. We all know what happens next: Moses’ anger waxes hot, prompting him to throw the Tablets onto the ground. The now-leprous Miriam comes up to him, asking for healing, at which Moses points his finger at the idol, prompting it to be struck by bolts of lightning and crash into the ground. The people of Israel are now driven into chaos and confront Dathan for bringing death upon them. More lightning comes and strikes the idolaters dead.

• Another quibble: in this scene, God was already handing Moses Commandment number five/six: “Thou shalt not kill,” but Moses is still yet to write gimel (= number three). Now that’s some slow writing there (must be the reason why God decided to do the job Himself in the 1956 version). The Lord is patient though, and waits for Moses to reach vav (= six), at which He gives two commandments AT ONCE. Poor Moses goes back immediately to scratching the letters, er numbers.

BTW, interestingly enough, Moses used the Samaritan version of the Hebrew alphabet. Hmm…

The Ten Commandments (1956 version): DeMille generally follows the 1923 film in many places (such as intercutting between Moses and the people). Some of the main differences are:

• Joshua is now with Moses, as in the Bible
• God is now the one carving the Tablets
• No ‘idolatrous Miriam’ subplot. All of the guilt apparently gets transferred to Dathan, here portrayed as an ex-overseer of the Hebrews and informant for the Egyptians (in comparison to 1923’s discontented Hebrew slave).
• Moses now throws the Tablets onto the Calf itself, causing it to explode and be swallowed by the earth along with Dathan (lifted from the story of Korah) as lightning breaks forth, killing off all the idolaters.

As for the Calf, DeMille pretty much sticks to his 1923 version in portraying it as a gold-plated wooden statue which Aaron works on, complete with women stroking it with their hair:

And they overlaid the image with pure gold, and Aaron fashioned it and smoothed it with the hammer, ready to be graven by cunning art and man’s device. And he fastened it with nails, that it should not move. And he that smote the anvil did beat the molten gold into thin plates, for they had gathered their treasure into the midst of the furnace and did blow the fire upon it to melt it.

 

[patrick457]

Moses (1996): As is traditional in Moses films, the ‘bad ringleader’ part gets assigned here to someone named Zerach - who heretofore is the quintessential complainer: like DeMille’s Dathan, he is like this film’s version of the personification of all bad stuff the Israelites said and did that the Bible records.

Days (something like a month) after Moses went back up, Zerach finally grows discontented and suggest that they make something “the people will look to for inspiration.” Nope, according to him it would apparently be not a graven image: it was a ‘symbol’, a ‘guide’ of sorts. Aaron first resists this suggestion, but after seven more days with no Moses, he finally gives his assent to them despite Miriam’s protests.

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/2577/199620moses20golden20ca.jpg

We are not shown how exactly the calf was made, or even who made it, as the next scene shows Zerach consecrating the idol and burning incense to it. His wording is wonderfully ambiguous: he just calls the Calf a “symbol of the great Force that led us out of Egypt”. The sons of Israel then rejoice and make merry to this ‘symbol’, as Aaron hides in shame.

Moses and Joshua finally appear, in great anger in seeing his people fall into sin, while Aaron rushes to him, asking for forgiveness. The Lawgiver then smashes the Tablets of the Law (the making of which also happened off-screen, like the Calf), to which Zerach replies: “If that was the word of God, Moses, it was easily shattered!” Moses then calls all those faithful to God to his side, and orders that all those who worshipped the idol be killed. Zerach is of course the first to fall down.

The anguished Moses then gets handed a dagger, which he uses to smash the Calf’s head (we notice here that the idol was ‘easy to shatter’ as well!) He takes the sun-disk portion, throws it into a nearby fire, and goes back up the mountain for forgiveness. The next scene shows the people pounding up what remained of the idol into dust.

The Ten Commandments (2006): You’ve probably guessed what would happen here: the ringleaders (here three Israelites) suggest to Aaron and the Israelites that they make a statue, a “reminder” (here it is again!) that the Israelites are God’s people. Unlike the 1996 series, here Miriam is on their side. This adaptation is rather unique in that unlike traditional depictions of the Calf as being gold all over, here the idol is depicted as made out of earth and straw with a wicker core, with the golden trinkets being merely tacked over it.

http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/9253/calfx.jpg

On one hand, it does seem to provide a solution to that interpretation which points out that the Bible does not explicitly say anything about the gold trinkets being melted. “And [Aaron] received from their hand, and fashioned with an engraving tool and made an 'egel massekah.” On the other hand, this has been a source of confusion for viewers used to seeing a totally-golden, molten calf.

So, we go on to the usual worship scene. The film here shows Aaron and Miriam fully participitating in the sins of the people; in fact, the only sane person left is Joshua (he gets left out with these people often in the movies, doesn’t he? ) - to whom Aaron’s words in verse 5 (“Tomorrow is a feast to the LORD”) is directed, as a sort of excuse. The film then continues to the next day, with Moses coming down, getting angry, confronting Aaron, and smashing the Tablets. He also topples the Calf from its pedestal, takes its now-severed head and throws it into a fire.

The Ten Commandments (2007): As in DeMille, the ringleader is Dathan - here a more shorter, stockier, whinier and admittedly more comical character than Edward G. Robinson’s. Aaron is convinced - or rather, bullied - into making the idol. Out of all the films we’ve mentioned here, this is the one which may show it being a literal (huge) ‘molten calf’. Again, here the idolaters die and the idol gets destroyed by being swallowed by the earth.

- END OF SPOILERS -

 

[mariyka]

Fascinating information!

Off topic:
I’m hoping you can give more background to the following thread (post 53). How ancient and widespread was the making of “signs” for religious or spiritual reasons? Did the people of Biblical/Roman times have documented rituals like the Sign of the Cross?

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=457402&page=4

Thank you for your elucidations and your wonderful thread.

 

[patrick457]

Fascinating information!

Off topic:
I’m hoping you can give more background to the following thread (post 53). How ancient and widespread was the making of “signs” for religious or spiritual reasons? Did the people of Biblical/Roman times have documented rituals like the Sign of the Cross?

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=457402&page=4

Thank you for your elucidations and your wonderful thread.

Thanks for the comment!

I’m afraid I’m getting slow lately, and I’ll have to ask: ‘sign’ as in written signs? Gestures?

 

[mariyka]

Thanks for the comment!

I’m afraid I’m getting slow lately, and I’ll have to ask: ‘sign’ as in written signs? Gestures?

Hand gestures, mostly. I did see your (name removed by moderator)ut on the thread— automatically enriches the discussion!

 

[Thing]

Well heres a very trivial question. As a young kiddie I’d hear farmers rattling on about their silos. Later, I saw the light, ‘those eighteen upon whom the tower fell in Siloe’, and had dramatic visions of local farmers being squashed by fearsome silos.
So what other words or terms in english we don’t think about have similar origins, - all for the benefit of other young minds, of course.

 

[patrick457]

Hand gestures, mostly. I did see your (name removed by moderator)ut on the thread— automatically enriches the discussion!

Sorry for the long wait.
Hmm, it would seem to me for the present that there is no direct parallel in other ancient pre-Christian religions for the practice of making the Sign of the Cross (you also have to remember the stigma attached to crucifixion in the ancient world): it seems to be a custom unique to Christians. I’d need to check further on this though.

 

[patrick457]

Well heres a very trivial question. As a young kiddie I’d hear farmers rattling on about their silos. Later, I saw the light, ‘those eighteen upon whom the tower fell in Siloe’, and had dramatic visions of local farmers being squashed by fearsome silos.
So what other words or terms in english we don’t think about have similar origins, - all for the benefit of other young minds, of course.

Well, let’s do ‘Siloe’ first, shall we?
In most translations today, we find it written as ‘Siloam’, as in Greek (Silōam; the Hebrew equivalent is Shiloaḥ). Siloë is just the Vulgate version of the placename: and because it’s Latin, the actual pronunciation would be more like see-low-eh instead of see-low or sigh-low.
Now for the word silo. It comes from Spanish silo, which in turn is from Basque zilo, zulo “grain cellar”. So nuh-uh, it ain’t related to Siloam, apparently.

Here’s something more mundane: the word sack. It derives from Middle English sak ‘bag, sackcloth’, which in turn comes from Old English sacc ‘bag’, sæcc ‘sackcloth’. These have their origin from Proto-Germanic *sakkiz ‘sack’ (cf. Dutch zak, German Sack, Swedish säkk), from Latin saccus ‘large bag’, from Ancient Greek σάκκος (sákkos) ‘bag of coarse cloth’, from Phoenician (cf. Hebrew שַׂק (śaq) ‘sack, sackcloth’, Akkadian ������������ (saqqu)), from Ancient Egyptian s3q ‘sack’. Quite a long history for a single word, huh?

And to close this post: the words god and good. We often make a pun on them nowadays, but the origins of the words are actually different:

God comes from Middle English, from the Old English god, which in turn was from Old High German got (a rank of deity; cf. Modern German gott). These are believed to be derived from Proto-Germanic **ǥuđa-*, *ǥuđan, from the Proto-Indo-European *ǵhuto- (that which is invoked), which in turn is proposed to come from Proto-Indo-European *ǵhaw- (to call, to invoke) or *ǵʰew- (to pour). Germanic cognates of the word include Old Frisian god, Old Saxon god (Dutch god), Old High German got (German Gott), Old Norse goð, guð (Danish and Swedish gud), Gothic guþ. The Proto-Indo-European root is also believed to be the source of Ancient Greek καυχάομαι (kauchaomai) ‘I extol, boast’), Old Irish guth ('voice’), Old Church Slavonic зъвати (Russian звать (zvat’) ‘call’)).

Good, meanwhile, is also derived from Middle English, from Old English gōd, from Proto-Germanic *ǥōđaz (cf. Dutch goed, German gut), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰedʰ- ‘to unite, be associated, suit’ (cf. Lithuanian guõdas ‘honor’, Old Church Slavonic godŭ ‘pleasing time’, Sanskrit gádhya ‘fitting, suitable’). Good is, by origin, related to gather, which is from Middle English gaderen, from Old English gædrian, from Proto-Germanic *ǥađurōjanan (cf. Dutch gaderen, Middle High German gadern), frequentative of *ǥađōjanan (cf. Old Frisian gadia), from *ǥađaz ‘fellowship’ (cf. Old English gæd), ultimately also deriving from Proto-Indo-European **gʰedʰ-*. Some cognates include god (Danish, Norwegian, Swedish); góður (Faroese, Icelandic), goed (Afrikaans, Dutch, Frisian); and gut (German, Yiddish).

Here’s something amazing that I just found out: the word giddy is related to god! Giddy comes from Old English gidig, variant of *gydig “insane, mad, stupid, possessed by a spirit,” probably from Proto-Germanic *guthigaz, from *ǥuđan “god” + *-ig “possessed.” So, whenever someone is ‘giddy’, they’re apparently, erm, ‘possessed by the gods’ (read: ‘need a trip to the psychiatric hospital’).

 

[patrick457]

Bump!

 

[twinc]

That could have been possible, since the Greek syngenēs (syn ‘[together] with’ + genos ‘race, kind, nation, offspring’) can refer to various forms of kinship, say a cousin or an aunt or any kind of nearer or wider family relationship. BTW, the Quick Questions section from the July-August 2001 issue of This Rock talks briefly about the ambiguity:

The New Testament does not say that Elizabeth is Mary’s cousin, the Greek word for which is anepsios. The word used in Luke 1:36 to describe Elizabeth is suggenes (pronounced su-gen-ace*), which simply means kinswoman or relative. It tells us nothing about her exact relation within the extended family. All we can tell from the word suggenes is that Elizabeth was some kind of female relative of Mary’s. But whether she was an aunt, a cousin, or a more distant relation cannot be determined from the word.

*Personal note: This pronunciation follows the common ‘Erasmian’ convention of pronouncing Biblical Greek. Note, however that when gamma precedes kappa, chi, or another gamma it has the nasal sound ŋ] (ng, as in English ring or singer) so the pronunciation should be soo-ŋen-ace, if we follow the Erasmian method. In the Koine as it was spoken at the time, however, the letter υ aka upsilon/ypsilon would have been pronounced quite like the close front rounded vowel [y] (pronounced like , but with the lips rounded as for ) of modern French ‘U’, with the letter η eta/ita read like iota; thus, συγγενής was probably sy-ŋen-is, quite close to the Byzantine and Modern Greek pronunciation where ypsilon has fully iotacized: si-ŋen-is.

Indeed, Islamic tradition follows the idea that Elizabeth was sister of Mary’s mother.

There was a traditional belief that St. Anne had a sister named Sobe, who in turn was the mother of Elizabeth, which makes her Mary’s literal maternal cousin. The name first appears in writings of about the 8th century by Eastern writers such as Hippolytus of Thebes, St. Andrew of Crete, and Epiphanius Monachus, and later in Nicephorus Callistus and Andronicus. All recount essentially the same passage, given by the last two as follows:

There were three sisters of Bethlehem, daughters of Matthan the priest, and Mary his wife, under the reign of Cleopatra and Sosipatrus, before the reign of Herod, the son of Antipater: the eldest was Mary, the second was Sobe, the youngest’s name was Anne. The eldest being married in Bethlehem, had for daughter Salome the midwife; Sobe the second likewise married in Bethlehem, and was the mother of Elizabeth; last of all the third married in Galilee, and brought forth Mary the mother of Christ.

Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich implies meanwhile that the mother of Elizabeth was a woman named Emerentia, the maternal aunt of Anne’s sister Sobe.

It would appear that Elizabeth was related to St.Joseph of Arimathae uncle to Mary and latter day guardian of Jesus and Mary - twinc