[B-Greek] Which spiritus on IEROUSALHM

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Jun 18 07:06:03 EDT 2004


At 10:40 AM +0100 6/18/04, D Jongkind wrote:
>Dear list,
>
>With excuses for the following technical question, but I need a bit of
>inspiration.
>Most modern editions print a spiritus asper on Jerusalem: hIEROUSALHM. Back
>in the 19th century this was not common at all, Westcott and Hort explicitly
>choosing for the spiritus lenis (Intro to NT in Grk, 331).
>
>Does it make any difference how one sees the first syllable (taking s -IE-
>as a diphtong or as two different syllables)?
>
>I have found several places in a certain 4th century manuscript where the
>word is broken off after the -I- and continued on the next line with
>EROUSALHM. Also, I think I have examples of an itacistic error EIEROUSALHM
>(but only in contractions), certainly one of a smilar proper noun IEREICW
>(written as EIEREICW).
>
>And if the first two letters do not make any difference, does it just come
>down to editor's choice?

The situation is more complicated: (a) there are TWO (2) distinct forms of
the name in the GNT: hH IEROUSALHM where IEROUSALHM has a SMOOTH breathing,
and TA or hH hIEROSOLUMA, with a rough breathing. I have seen some
suggestions that there are significant semantic differences between the two
forms, but I've never thought they were convincing; (b) you should take a
look at BDAG s.v. hIEROSOLUMA and the literature cited there, including BDF
§56, notes (1) and (4). Despite some recent only-slightly-justified
relegation of BDF to the category of Koine grammars still based on outdated
19th-century scholarship--so Porter in the just-published _The Face of NT
Studies: A Survey of Recent Research_, about which I'll be posting a
summary soon, there is considerable information of value in BDF that is not
readily available elsewhere.

I've always thought, but can't demonstrate (so it may not be true) that the
form hIEROSOLUMA might have been shaped in part by a dubious etymological
linkage to the Greek adjective hIEROS/A/ON and some notion that this was
the 'sacred city of Solomon.' Of course such an etymology is wrong, but
that doesn't mean it wasn't ever supposed by some.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/



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