Lk 4:1 EN THi ERHMWi (Luke in Codex Bezae issue)

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Oct 7 06:00:56 EDT 2002


Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 08:59:07 +0000
Englished and forwarded for: "S Chabert d'Hyeres" <laodicy at ifrance.com>


Reply George Somsel
Polycarp66 at aol.com

Upon reading the English dictionaries on-line, I must admit that the nuance
which they accord to  EN + a verb of motion accounts for Lucan usage:
LSJ, § 8.: "EN  in a pregnant construction with Verbs of motion, into;
implying both motion to and subsequent position in a place."
Middle Liddell § 6." when EN  is used with Verbs of motion, where we use
the prep. into, the construction is called pregnant."

In French "pregnant" = "weighty in sense"; which could be reflected in
translation with the addition of an adverb such as "really" .


Lk 1:6  POREUOMENOI EN PASAIS TAIS ENTOLAIS KAI DIKAIWMASIN TOU KURIOU AMEMPTOI
	(NKJV) Luke 1:6 And they were both righteous before God, walking in all
	the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.

 Lk 1:78 EPISKEYETAI hHMAS ANATOLH EX hUYOUS
	(NKJV) Luke 1:78 Through the tender mercy of our God, With which the
	Dayspring from on high has visited us;

 Lk 7:50 and 8:48 D: POREUOU EN EIRHNH
	"Go in peace."

22:27D : EN MESW hUMWN HLQON...hWS hO DIAKONWN
	"Among you I came ...as the servant"

So I line up, both behind the dictionaries and with your original view -
when you wrote: "I would not understand this have figurative."  But it
isn't without regret because I liked to think that the figurative sense was
a bridge between Hebraic thought deeply rooted in reality and  Greek
thought which employs abstract concepts.

But in Lk 4:1, on what is being asserted? What did Luke intend to say? I
didn't understand.

LK 4:1 KAI  HGETO  EN TWi  PNEUMATI  EN THi  ERHMWi

You presented a parallel with:

	Ezek 40.2 where Ezekiel explicitly states that ...
	[Gk] . . . KAI HGAGEN ME (2)  EN hORASEI QEOU EIS THN GHN TOU ISRAHL

	"Note that here EN is used to refer to the manner while EIS is used
to refer to the journey itself.
Upon further consideration, you may be correct in considering that Jesus'
temptation in the wilderness is to be understood as a visionary journey.
 Note that in Ezek 40.1/2 [LXX] the same verb is used to describe the
journey as is used to describe Jesus' being led into the wilderness.  This
would be a very real precedent to any reader familiar with the OT account
of Ezekiel.  In many cases it takes only a word or two to establish a link
to an OT passage in the mind of the reader.  In Ezek he is "led" by God to
the land of Israel while in Lk Jesus is led by the Holy Spirit.  I think
the two are quite comparable.  While I'm not prepared to say that it is
DEFINITELY presented as a vision journey, I am prepared to state that it
MAY be such."

It seems to to me that your comparison could extend to Matthew's text; in
his vision, the prophet was taken onto on a very high mountain, EP OROUS
hUYHLOU SFODRA, an expression which is found in the temptation narrative of
Matthew: EIS OROS hUYHLON LIAN (MT 4:8). The authors have stressed the
difference from Luke, who had been content to say that the devil had lifted
Jesus up (with ANAGAGWN), and without alluding Ezekiel, Luke seemed to them
to be closer to a metaphorical view than did Matthew.

L''arrestation de Jean par Hérode venait d'être connue du lecteur (Lk
3::20) Dans quelle mesure le récit des tentations n'est-il pas là pour
exprimer le désert spirituel dans lequel Jésus se trouva plongé, avec le
désir ardent de libérer Jean?
The arrest of John by Herod had just been noted by the reader (Lk 3::20) To
what extent is the temptation narrative there to express the spiritual
desert into which Jesus was plunged, with the burning desire to release
John?

S Chabert d'Hyeres




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