Acts 9:4 and Luke 10:41

Nichael Cramer nichael at sover.net
Wed Sep 11 11:14:20 EDT 2002


Greetings

The following is not, perhaps, a Greek question per
se; but I would interested in gaining the insights of this
group on a question I've wondered about for some time.

Many introductory texts on Form Criticism give, as an example,
the use of the "double summons" as one of the markers for various 
types of theophanies, epiphanies and other appearances of --or
calls by-- divine beings.

A couple of examples from the HB:

 "But the angel of Lord called to him and 
    said 'Abraham, Abraham'..." [Gen 22.11]

 "God spoke to Israel in visions of the night, 
    and said, 'Jacob, Jacob'..."  [Gen 46.2]

Now, examples of such an apparent "double summon" appear
twice in the NT.  The most famous is in Acts 9:4 (initiating
the conversion of Paul):

 "He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him,
     'Saul, Saul, who do you persecute me?"

This clearly fits into the model above.  (We might note that
is perhaps interesting that this construct appears to have carried
over from the Hebrew.  [To those more expert than I:  Are there 
other, extra-biblical examples of this formula in such a context,
in Greek?])

The other example from the NT, occurs in Luke 10:41 
(during the story of Martha and Mary):
  "But the Lord answered and said unto her, 'Martha, Martha,
   thou art anxious and troubled about many things'."[Lk 10:41]

To state the obvious, it less easy to see how this fits into
the pattern above.  Not least of all, perhaps, because Jesus
is still "earthly" at this point[*].

So, I suppose the question is:   Is this duplication of the name
in this instance simply coincidence?   Or is something more
subtle going on here (perhaps unrelated to the FC model)?

Thanks
Nichael

[* OTOH, it is perhaps easy for a modern ear to hear this with
Jesus shaking his head in exasperation and tsk-ing:  "Martha, 
Martha, Martha..."  But this seems, at best, unlikely.]



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