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Text and image Copyright © 2023 by Donald C. Traxler aka Yablom.
Saturday, April 29, 2023
Thursday, April 27, 2023
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Wednesday, April 26, 2023
Udugi Primer
https://www.blogger.com/blog/posts/3614352460871739319?q=%E1%8E%B4
If the link doesn't work for you, I can send you a .mhtml file (size 6.89 MB) that you can use as an index. There are 565 Udugi blog entries in this primer.
All content Copyright © 2018-2023 by Donald C. Traxler.
Tuesday, April 25, 2023
Friday, April 21, 2023
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Saturday, April 15, 2023
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Friday, April 14, 2023
Just to say, "Hi!"
In the photo above I am in my workspace. The small, blue book on the printer is my "well-worn copy of NA25," mentioned in a recent blog post. The picture on the wall is a water color by my mother, Eileen Traxler, while she was still on the planet (I was going to say "with us," but she is that).
I'm feeling a bit tired, since I worked pretty hard on my last couple of blog entries. Therefore, I decided to do something more relaxing for this post.
All of these photos were shot today (80.56 years old). I just wanted to say "Hi!" to all of you, in many countries, who faithfully read the words of this naked poet month after month and year after year. Thank you, it is an honor to communicate with you.
Text and images Copyright © 2023 By Donald C. Traxler aka Yablom.
Wednesday, April 12, 2023
Synoptica XXXVII - The Sources of the Proto-Narrative
In the world of Lukan Priority, a hypothetical document called the Proto-Narrative (PN) is required. Although we don't have a copy of it, we should be able to say quite a lot about it. It was, for example, probably written in Hebrew. We know this because of Hebraisms in Luke. We should also be able to say something about its sources, in terms of quotations from and references to the Hebrew Bible. If we are successful in doing this, we may also be able to reconstruct it, as has been done for Q, the Sayings source.
The first step in this process will be to weed out as much Q material as possible, leaving principally the narrative elements of the Gospel story. It is often said that all three Synoptics basically follow "the Markan order" (in other words, the PN order), so an easy way to do this "weeding out" is to use the Gospel of Mark for our source-analysis. As it turns out, there are about 100 quotations of or references to verses of the Hebrew Bible in Mark. Here they are, in order of appearance, gleaned from my well-worn copy of the Nestle-Aland NOVUM TESTAMENTUM GRAECE, twenty-fifth editon (NA25). This list may not be complete, but I'm sure that I got most of them.
Ex 28,20
Is 40,3
2 Rg 1,8
Zch 13,4
Lv 13,49
Is 43,25
Ps 103,3
Ex 15,26
Dn 4,9.18.
Ez17,23; 31,6
Ps 104,12
1 Rg 17,18
Lv 18,16
Sir 25,21
Nu 27,17
Ez 34,5; 8,1-9
Dt 28,5
Nu 15,38
Is 29,13 (LXX)
Ex 20,12
Dt 5.16
Ex 21,17
1Rg 17,8-24
1Rg 3,8
Is 35,5.6.
Dt 28,5
Ez 12,2
Ps 49,8
Is 53,3
Is 66,24
Jdt 16,21
Gn 1,27; 2,24
Ex 20,12
Dt 5,16-20
Gn 18,14
Job 42,2
Zch 8,6 (LXX)
Ps118,25
Is 56,7
Jr 7,11
Is 5,1
Ps 118,22
Dt 25,5
Gn 38,8
(Is 4,1)
Ex 3,2.6.
Dt 6,4 (Shema)
Lv 19,18
Dt 4,35
1Sm 15,22
2Sm 23,2
Ps 110,1
Dn 2,28
Is 19,2
2Chr 15,6
Mch 7,6
Dn 12,11; 9,27
Dn 12,4
Ez 7,16
Dn 12,1
Joel 2,2
Dt 13,2
Is 13,10
Is 34,4
Dn 7,13
Zch 2,10
Dt 30,4
Dt 15,11
Ps 41,10
Ex 24,8
Jr 31,31
Zch 9,11
Is 53,11
Ps113s; 115-118
Zch 13,7
Ps 42,6.12.
Ps 48,5
Jon 4,9
Ps 51,14
Ps 9,6
2Sm 24,14
Am 2,16
Is 58,7
Ps 110,1
Dn 7,13
Lv 24,16
Is 53,7
Ps 69,22
Ps 22,19
Ps 22,8
Ps 109,25
Ps 14,58
Am 8,9
Jr 15,9
Ps 22,2
Ps 69,22
Ex 34,25
Dt 21,22
Ps 110,1
These citations are the sources of the Proto-Narrative. Is it important? I think it is, very. To give just one example, let's look at the three references to Psalm 22, all of which occur within the context of the Passion Narrative.
Ps 22,19 "They divide my garments among them, and for my raiment they cast lots."
Ps 22,8 "All who see me mock at me, they make mouths at me, they wag their heads, , , "
Ps 22,2 "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
Many people have questioned that last quotation. It sounds like despair. Some will say that Jesus said that to "fulfill" the words of David, written about the Palmist himself almost a thousand years earlier. David was a king, a military man, not known as a prophet. Anyone who wishes to believe that David's words in his poem have anything to do with Jesus on the cross is free to do so.
What about the dividing of garments and casting lots for them? Even if Jesus intentionally quoted Psalm 22 in his last agony (which to me seems extremely doubtful), the Roman soldiers would have known nothing about it. It is not that the soldiers were inadvertently "fulfilling" the words of a thousand-year-old Hebrew poem; it is that the entire Proto-Narrative was written to "backfill" the words of Hebrew Scripture. The Gospel narrative is, in other words, fiction, very creatively composed.
Note: The list of references to the Hebrew Bible gleaned from my copy of NA25 is not complete; it does not include Ps 22,17 (in the Hebrew verse-numbering), which is quite important, so much so that I devoted to it the following blog posts:
The Secrets of Psalm 22 - Part I, published on August 3, 2022
The Secrets of Psalm 22 - Part II, published on August 4, 2022
In those blog entries I showed, in great detail, that "they have pierced my hands and my feet" should actually be "they have bound my hands and my feet."
When I fill in the words of all those Biblical citations, it will be an eye-opener. I guarantee it.
So where does this leave us? I have more hope for the Sayings material, which is, in any case, the part that is more meaningful to me, personally. The Sermon on the Mount, whether it was given on a mountain or on a plain, is a wonderful legacy for our world.
Copyright © 2023 by Donald C. Traxler.
Monday, April 10, 2023
The Suffering Servant: Honesty in Bible Translation
Biblia Hebraica Kittel, 12th ed., 1961
The verses of Isaiah that pertain to the Suffering Servant (52:13 - 53:12, but especially 53:7-12) have been interpreted by Christians as referring to Jesus for nearly 2000 years. What do we know about them?
First of all, they were not written by Isaiah; they are part of "Deutero-Isaiah," which begins with Chapter 40. They were written by an anonymous prophet, 150 years later.
The "Lamb of God" imagery of Catholic liturgy comes, ultimately, for Isaiah 53, by way of the "Gloria in excelsis" prayer, which was originally part of Matins.
Some Christians will say, "Well, of course it refers to Jesus! There is the reference to his "tomb being with the rich" in Isaiah 53:9. Surely that is a reference to Joseph of Arimathea, and that PROVES it!"
Not so fast, my friend. The reference to "the rich" was, it is true, present before the Gospels were written (in the Dead Sea Scrolls, first century BCE, and even in the Septuagint, ca. 200 BCE). The reference to "the rich" is a corruption of Isaiah 53:9; it is not original, and in its original state the verse had nothing to do with the rich.
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Dead Sea Scrolls: Isaiah 53:9
How do we know this? First of all, the two halves of verse 9 form a parallelism. This is a literary device by which a statement is repeated, using slightly different terms, the second line saying almost exactly the same thing as the first, and reinforcing it.
Here is the verse in question in my JPS Tanakh (Hebrew Bible):
"And his grave was set among the wicked,
d-And with the rich, in his death-d--
At the bottom of the page, under d-d, we read "Emendation yields 'And his tomb with evildoers.'"
It's easy to see how the line became corrupted. Remember, first of all that in those days Hebrew texts did not have vowel points.
rich = עשיר
evil-doers = עשירע
The restored verse:
And his GRAVE was set among the WICKED,
And his TOMB with EVIL-DOERS.
We have, thus, a perfect parallelism.
We don't know whether the story of Joseph of Arimathea was invented to fulfill the mistaken words of the "Deutero Isaiah," or whether there was a wealthy follower of Jesus who, familiar with those words, felt that it was incumbent upon him to offer his own fresh-cut tomb. What we do know, for sure, is that Isaiah did not foretell anything about a tomb among the rich.
Other echoes of the Suffering Servant verses of Isaiah 53 may be found in Acts 8:32-35; John 1:29; and more than thirty references in the book of Revelation,
What about Arimathea? Was there such a place? If there was, no record of it has survived. The name sounds more Latin or Greek than Hebrew. Luke said (23:50) that it was a "Jewish town." No more is known.
What about the proposed emendation of Isaiah 53:9? Is it something new? No, it isn't I've traced it back in the Biblia Hebraica Kittel as far as the edition of 1906, and it may have been known earlier. I have examined many modern, Christian versions, and the only one that has translated Isaiah 53.9 correctly, or even taken note of the emendation of "rich" to "evil-doers" is the New American Bible, a Catholic Bible published in 1970, and its precursor, the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine version of 1961.. They deserve high credit for their honesty.
Text Copyright © 2023 by Donald C. Traxler.
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