[B-Greek] hWSANNA

Harold R. Holmyard III hholmyard at ont.com
Sun Feb 19 09:23:31 EST 2006


Dear Donald,

>	I'll address all three of you in this one email. Greek has no way of
>representing Semitic shin; sigma is the usual letter used to represent
>it. As for the two examples of Hebrew Hiphil imperatives of yasha with
>an /a/ vowel in the second syllable (Ps 86:2; Jer 31:7) out of 31
>occurrences, neither has a suffix, such as the precative particle that
>we have on hWSANNA. The presence of any suffix prevents the coloring of
>the i class vowel to /a/ as we have in these two anomalous forms. One
>never finds Hebrew Hosha<-na, only Hoshi<ah-na.

HH: But the simple Hiphil imperative of Y$( followed by N) only 
occurs once in the OT. There does not seem to be an absolute rule 
about the use of maqqeph with N) after imperatives. Sometimes there 
is one, and sometimes there is not. Even if there is one, this does 
not eradicate the possibility of a shortened Hiphil imperative. The 
long form of the Hiphil imperative of BW) is HfBiY)fH wih the long 
"i" (Gen 27:7) but a short form of HfB") also occurs (Hag 1:6) and 
does so with a following N) (Ex 4:6). See also Gen 15:5, where there 
is a short Hiphil imperative followed by N), although a long form 
with the "i" also exists (Ps 13:4). So the idea that a shortened form 
of the imperative could not occur before N) is not correct. Short 
imperative forms with Qamets occur before N) too, as in Gen 13:14 and 
31:12 (these are Qal).


>  As for the meaning of
>the precative particle, the "now" is not a temporal designation, but a
>logical one, one that is more akin to English "then." See my grammar,
>section 16.4. Therefore the Greek has to be a representation of an
>Aramaic expression.


HH: Whether it is translated "now," "please," or "then" does not seem 
to matter. Jim was just giving an English gloss.

>  As for Jim's reconstruction, what is the evidence
>of a Hebrew Vorlage for the Greek transliteration? Does anyone
>seriously doubt that Aramaic was spoken in Jerusalem at the time of
>Jesus? In my opinion, Hebrew was too, but the /a/ vowel simply
>eliminates Hebrew as the origin of the Greek transliteration.


HH: You have not convinced me. Perhaps you could explain your 
reasoning further. Like I said, you might be right about the Aramaic, 
but the reasoning is not yet convincing to me. Perhaps I am missing 
something about the "a" vowel.

>  That the
>Aramaic phrase comes from the Hebrew term as it is found in Psalm
>118:25 and elsewhere is obvious. But the fact remains the Greek is a
>transliteration of Aramaic and not Hebrew. As for the dating of the
>Talmud, of course it dates centuries after the NT, but that is
>irrelevant to the discussion as I was discussing the language. The
>Aramaic FORM does NOT date centuries after the time of Jesus. Further,
>the Talmud certainly does contain traditions and data that date back to
>the New Testament period.


HH: I think this is a valid point. A lot of our English was the same 
two and three hundred years ago, so that argument by Jim does not 
carry absolute conviction, though it was helpful to mention the gap 
in time.

>  Finally, Joseph Fitzmyer's article cited by
>Oun Kwon ("Aramaic evidence affecting the interpretation of HWSANNA in
>the New Testament"  (p. 119-129) of _The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian
>Origins_ Eerdmans 2000) argues for the Aramaic origins of the Greek
>term hWSANNA as found in the Gospels. Further he writes "Indeed, one
>wonders whether the short Hebrew form in  Ps 86:2 and Jer 31:7 (if
>imperatival) is not really Aramaized" (p. 126). He has a very
>interesting comment on p. 121:
>
>Even in one has to recognize that Ps 118:25-26 lies behind the
>acclamation in the Gospels, it is noteworthy that the Semitic form [he
>gives here in unvocalized Hebrew script "Hosha na"] is transcribed here
>in its earliest attestation in Greek as hWSANNA; none of the
>evangelists has used the Greek translation of it from the LXX. It
>stands, for that reason, a good chance of representing a genuine
>primitive Christian recollection of what was shouted to Jesus on the
>occasion of his entry into Jerusalem or at least of what was often
>shouted to pilgrims like him coming to the city of Jerusalem.


HH: This is all interesting, thanks, but it is not necessary to argue 
that the short form of the Hiphil imperative in Jer 31:7 is an 
aramaicized form.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard



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