[B-Greek] KATALUSAI and PLHRWSAI, and alleged semitic KTL

Randall Buth randallbuth at gmail.com
Sat May 20 14:50:07 EDT 2006


SUGGNWMH Excuse a rather late jump into the foray. It seems that some of the
answer to the original question may have been lost in discussions. I will
deal with the main point and then a few points of the later discussions.

*> found in Matthew 5:17 are Jewish idioms, the one meaning to
"misinterpret"
*> and *the latter meaning to "interpret correctly". Can this be
substantiated?
*>* Eric Bess,*

Yes, but it requires bilingual/bicultural processing.

One first establishes the terms that would be used in a discussion behind Mt
5.
E.g., a common rabbinic idiom is le-qayyem. One reads/hears in the midrashim
one rabbi asking another "how do you meqayyem this scripture?" The rabbi
responds, "I meqayyem ..." where he continues by giving an
interpretation/application to the scripture.
One should ask, does this fit the context of Mt 5?
BEBAIWS, MALISTA.
The rest of the chapter reads like that quite easily:
Scriptures or interpretations of scriptures by subgroups like the Essenes
are quoted and then Jesus provides his application/interpretation "I say to
you . . ." This is classic tannaitic Hebrew "le-qayyem". [PS: there is no
reason to go to later [post-tannaitic] Aramaic sources here, but the same
result would be obtained, where the same techterm is in use.]

Secondly, one compares this to Greek possibilities for expression. It
happens that le-qayyem (literally 'to establish') is the standard mishnaic
Hebrew term for FULFILL a promise, oath, etc. A Greek equivalent for this is
PLHROUN. Consequently, a very natural way in Greek to communicate an early
tannaitic discussion with the term le-qayyem would be to use PLHROUN, which
is what we have in Mt 5.

The problem comes in the overlap of PLHROUN with prophecy. Prophecies are
fulfilled PLHRWQHNAI.
Matthew 5 is typically read in Christian circles with the prophecy idiom.
Thus, Jesus "fulfills" the law, as if the fulfillment to a prophecy has
arrived.
Linguistically in Greek, both approaches are possible for a Jewish audience,
with varying sub-refinements.
I would recommend, after recognizing the existence of both idioms, try
reading Matthew 5. I think things are clear enough. Shouldn't one start
within a Jewish cultural/linguistic framework?

>[Dave Smith] but are common in Jewish Aramaic literature.>

There is a dating/cultural problem here where Christian circles typically
skip Hebrew discussions in order to bring in [usually later] Aramaic
discussions, but for some reason Jewish circles don't make the same mistakes
when discussing Hillel, Shammai and Gamliel, usually correctly citing Hebrew
texts for regular Hebrew, Aramaic for the occasional Aramaic.

>There are also content areas that are only explained from non-Greek,
religious sources, such as II Timothy 3:8 that refers to a gloss from the
Targums of the Pentateuch, not the Hebrew Text or LXX.>

Nice point, but chronologically/culuturally problematic. Except for the book
of Job, our Aramaic targum traditions, (oral and written, see Zeev Safrai
1991) are post-bar Kochba. And Qumran (eastern) Aramaic Job appears to be of
a more literal type than than later expansive type that would add "Jannes
and Jambres".

There is a simple solution, of course. Exegetical interpretations were
around long before the targumim chose to preserve some of them. One can be
grateful for the depositories that the targumim became, but one does not
need the existence of a targum in order to quote a general
midrashic/exegetical interpretation. In many cases the midrashim, both
tannaitic and amoraic, show how the interpretations were developed; some of
these appear later in the targumim, succinctly, as "spin".
PSS: this doesn't work with 2Tm3:8, though. We do not have a record anywhere
how those names were developed. For a possible parallel, consider the name
"Horqanos" in the Aramaic Genesis Apocryphon at Qumran. It is hard to avoid
the ring with the name of the Maccabean Hyrcanos, but the connection is
opaque, unclear, uncertain.

>In Mat. 5:17 it [KATALUSAI-RB] sure looks like the antithesis of fulfill,
which would be tear down or destroy/break a commandment.>

and which would make it "to misinterpret" in this context. A Hebrew
antithesis of le-qayyem is le-battel 'to cancel', and used here would be a
metaphor.

>With divergent schools of
thought in Israel in the first century, such as Shammai and Hillel, and
latter with the Talmud, it is hard to see how there could be such a thing a
misinterpretation in Jewish circles, unless it would be grammatical. ...
David Smith>

You don't think that the one group considered another group to be
misinterpreting?
Listen to the rhetoric (quoting Danby):

"The Saducess say, We cry against you, O Pharisees, for you declare clean an
unbroken stream of liquid. The Pharisees say, W cry out against you, O
Sadducees, for you declare clean a channel of water that flows from a burial
ground. ..." Mishna Yadayim 4:6-8. The verb for 'cry against' is li-qbol and
implies 'to bring charges' thus declaring the other interpretation invalid.

As for discussions on Turner, I recommend keeping him available. His Jewish
Greek dialect should not be bought into, (this leads him sometimes to argue
the opposite of what I see as correct, but so does Dalman, Moulton, et al,
-RB) but he discusses many items at length and with statistics that are at
least relatively representative [to be taken with a grain-of-salt, for
mixing genre and/or period], so he remains useful.

ERRWSQE
Randall Buth

-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
randallbuth at gmail.com


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