[B-Greek] 1st and 2nd commandement? cultural background for reading Greek gospels
Randall Buth
randallbuth at gmail.com
Fri Feb 17 16:33:38 EST 2006
there is alot that can be brought out between the lines in the following
exchange:
>>If these words for love
>> are interchangeable, why didn't one of the three writers of the the
>> "First and Second Commandment" use FILEW or where are the equal number
>> of times FILEW is used compared to AGAPAW in 1 Corinthians 13?
>
>One possible explanation for the "first and second commandment"
>consistency would be that the original audience was an oral culture.
>And oral cultures tend to have certain "rules" regarding what can and
>can not be changed in the story. I would assume that the words used in
>something of the nature of the "first and second commandment" would be
>protected by the community and therefore they would be perfectly
>consistent across all tellings.
Consistency and Greek idiom choice need some elaboration in the pericope
that includes Mark's "1st and 2nd commandment".
Notice that only Mark leads with a "first and second commandment" (12:28),
POIA ESTIN ENTOLH PRWTH PANTWN?
"what is the commandment first of all?"
probably parallel to but different from
Luke 10:25 "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
Matthew says POIA ENTOLH MEGALH EN TW NOMW?
So which sentence was original in this oral AND literate culture?
Which is Greek? Which is Jewish/Hebrew-Greek?
Note the word order in Matt, the lack of the article, the lack of the
superlative, lack of estin, and the collocation of 'big' with the noun
refering to the law/commandment/principle. Plus mentioning "in the tora".
"what (be) commandment big in the law" is a word-for-word fit to
Hebrew MA-HU KLAL GDOL BA-TORA "what be principle-big in the tora?" (later
attributed to Rabbi Akiva 1-2cCE)
So which synoptic account is "more-Greek" and which wording more
likely reflects the original context? Mark's "first" can be explained as a
Greek clarification and improvement on a Hebraic 'big', probably for a
Western/Roman audience, while Matthew is giving a delightfully un-idiomatic
Greek (Hebraic-Greek, as it were).
Also note that in Luke 10 Jesus does not answer the question and there are
no numbers "first/second". But he elicits an answer from the questioner that
must certainly have been part of a shared, common culture (the joining of Dt
6:4 with Lv19:18 was based on a gzera shava [poetic exegesis based on shared
form]).
As for the words FILEIN/FILHSAI and AGAPAN/AGAPHSAI, those were fixed by the
LXX tradition at Deut 6:4.
(This is a fascinating pericope where careful attention to language and
idiom allows one to see that all three synoptists appear to have had
independent access to a source with an intro and question as preserved by
Matthew, a response as preserved by Luke, and a clarification reworded by
Mark [which is then picked up in Matthew]. This is not the forum to follow
up on these questions for their own sake, but it should be appropriate to
point out the language data and how it fits with the original culture and
communication.)
ERRWSQE
Randall Buth
--
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
randallbuth at gmail.com
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