[B-Greek] Re:Mk 15:24

nebarry at verizon.net nebarry at verizon.net
Thu Mar 10 13:53:43 EST 2005


> 
> From: jmtait <jmtait at wirhoose.co.uk>
> Date: 2005/03/09 Wed PM 09:23:36 EST
> To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: [B-Greek] Re:Mk 15:24
> I'm a huge fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who, of course, stakes 
> vampires. But you can also stake out a claim, or you can stake out a 
> building under surveillance. We know which of these meanings is meant by 
> their context. However, in a hypothetical future, when English is no longer 
> a spoken language and few understand its nuances, someone may write a book 
> claiming that the TV presentation of Buffy thrusting a wooden stick through 
> vampires' hearts is a misinterpretation of the original tradition, and that 
> what she is really doing in the original scripts is keeping them under 
> surveillance. To an English speaker familiar with the entire Vampire 
> legend, including Bram Stoker's Dracula, or even just the totality of the 
> Buffy stories themselves, this would seem absurd. To say that the word 
> 'stake' could mean surveillance isn't relevant - it obviously doesn't in 
> this context, and to maintain that it does would be doing violence to both 
> the immediate context of the word in the Buffy stories and its wider 
> context in the vampire tradition. It seems to me that Carotta is doing 
> something not dissimilar with Greek and the story of the death of Jesus. I 
> wonder how much of his thesis hangs (no pun intended!) on similar arguments.<<

I know this thread is officially closed, but I have to acknowledge the ultimate coolness of this analogy.  I have on occasion used far more boring analogies to communicate the same idea, but no longer!  With your permission, in ackowledgement of your greatness, I will now buff up my illustrations with Buffy!


N.E. Barry Hofstetter
Adjunct Faculty, CUTS
http://www.cuts.edu
bhofstetter at cuts.edu




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