[B-Greek] John 18.27
Maurice A. O'Sullivan
mauros at iol.ie
Wed Apr 16 09:49:46 EDT 2003
At 05:24 16/04/2003, Steven Lo Vullo wrote:
>Raymond E. Brown mentions this interpretation of ALEKTWR EFWNHSEN in
>volume 2 of his commentary on John (p. 828)
Brown develops this further on pp.605-7 of his: The Death of the Messiah:
From Gethsemane to the Grave, vol. 1 (New York: Doubleday, 1994).
He ends his survey of commentaries on this particular point by summing up:
>> Consistently the Gospels refer to _a_ cock crowing; the lack of a
definite artlcle suggests that if the original reference was to the watch
of cockcrow, all the evangelists misunderstood it.<<<
>and Leon Morris adds this footnote in his commentary (p. 760, n. 55):
>
>< snip>
>The Talmud describes a dispute as to whether there were three or four
>watches, and seems to favor the view that there were three (Ber. 3a)."
As Brown rightly remarks of citations from the Talmud ( whether Tb or Tj
): >> None of this evidence is particularly pertinent for the Jerusalem of
Jesus' time <<
>On the other hand, the use of the noun and the verb (ALEKTWR EFWNHSEN)
>rather than the technical term (the noun ALEKTOROFWNIA) seems to favor the
>view that a literal crowing of a cock is in view.
Would the technical term not be the _verb_ KOKKUZEIN ? As BDAG and Brown
point out, this verb appears only in the Fayum fragment of Mark.
Brown's concluding paragraph illustrates the dafter side of even the most
renowned scholars:
>>> When did cocks normally crow at this time of the year? It is humorous
to think of scholars sitting up at night in 20th-cent. Jerusalem listening
for cocks to crow, but that has been done! M. J. Lagrange experienced the
earliest cockcrow in April at 2:30 A.M., with most of the cries coming
between 3:00 and 5:00 A.M.<<<
and he ends by drily remarking:
>>Despite all this, Cicero (De Divinatione 2.26.56) may well be right: "Is
there any time, night or day, that cocks do not crow?" The evangelists are
imagining the early hours of the morning before dawn; nothing more definite
can be concluded. <<
Regards
Maurice A. O'Sullivan [ Bray, Ireland ]
mauros at iol.ie
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