[B-Greek] Titus 1:12-13

Yancy W Smith yancywsmith at sbcglobal.net
Wed Dec 9 23:29:25 EST 2009


Since the quote is from a known Cretan "PROFHTHS" (with a similar  
social location to the PRFHTHS in the Euthyphro), is there any  
necesity to refer the quote to some "biblical" sense?

Yancy

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 9, 2009, at 5:34 PM, George F Somsel <gfsomsel at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Who says that "Paul" didn't consider Epimenides to be a "biblical"  
> prophet (or equivalent)?  He (whoever he may have been -- certainly  
> not Paul) simply calls him a prophet.  Nor, as B. Harris notes need  
> he be directly quoting Epimenides (though I think he was).  I happen  
> to have read Tennyson, but if I were to say
>
> Half a league, half a league,
> Half a league onward,
>
> need I be directly referencing the "Charge of the Light Brigade" or  
> might I simply be using it to urge someone to proceed?
>
> george
> gfsomsel
>
>
> … search for truth, hear truth,
> learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth,
> defend the truth till death.
>
>
> - Jan Hus
> _________
>
>
> From: Yancy Smith <yancywsmith at sbcglobal.net>
> To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> Sent: Wed, December 9, 2009 4:19:41 PM
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Titus 1:12-13
>
> George said:
> >Do you find any mention of Zeus in the passage? ...
> Whether or not "Paul" believed Zeus was buried in Crete doesn't  
> enter into the picture.  He is concerned solely with the character  
> of the Cretan people and agrees that one of their own properly  
> depicted their character.
>
> B.Harris asked:
>
> Are you saying then, that Paul's affirmation  hH MARTURIA hAUTH  
> ESTIN ALHQHS might also be a bit of irony, because Paul is agreeing  
> that they are lying, because Paul does not believe Zeus is buried in  
> Crete, simply, because Paul does not believe Zeus is real?  So   
> that, in English it would be better to translate it, "This testimony  
> is true! (using an exclamation point rather than a period)
>
>
> [Yancy Smith]
> I think it is important that we recognize that Paul does not need to  
> say what he assumes his audience already knows. Our problem is that  
> we don't come to the text with the same assumptions. Here I adapt  
> and cite Towner. You really need to get hold of his commentary. If  
> we assume for a moment that “the prophet” in view is Epimenides,  
> Paul does not consider him a biblical prophet, but rather in the way 
>  that Plato, Aristotle, and other ancient writers tended to think of 
>  "prophets" — as a teachers, philosophers, and even (according to so 
> me accounts) workers of miracles. “Prophet” would then be a title  
> of honor that attached itself to various historical (and legendary)  
> figures known to have been great teachers and poets. Epimenides is c 
> learly associated with Crete as a priest and prophet. Depending on w 
> ho is read (Plato or Aristotle), he can be dated to the fifth or six 
> th century B.C.E. The Christian-era writers Clement of Alexandria an 
> d Jerome linked the saying to him. Other early Christian writers, ho 
> wever, attribute the saying to Callimachus (third century B.C.E.), w 
> hose Hymn to Zeus (line 8) contains the first phrase of the saying.
>
> As Paul cites it, the saying was recognized as from a specific  
> Cretan prophet, whoever it was. There is a reference to Callimachus'  
> teaching in the language of Titus 1:2; that Callimachus also cites  
> the “Cretans are always liars” jibe, whoever Paul has in mind as  
> the prophet, only shows that Paul has at his disposal the necessary  
> traditions to construct, through allusion and citation, a virtual co 
> llage of criticisms leveled against Cretan culture by some fairly au 
> thoritative figures.
>
> "The saying itself divides into three parts, and allows Paul to  
> address the way the opponents speak and behave. Part one, “Cretans a 
> re always liars,” is found verbatim in Callimachus (Hymn to Zeus [li 
> ne 8]; the earliest extant source to preserve the line), who also su 
> pplies the reason for this long-standing opinion of Cretan deceitful 
> ness. ‡ This reputation for deceitfulness was, as noted above, wides 
> pread and quite possibly linked in a seminal way with the fundamenta 
> l Cretan religious claim to have the tomb of Zeus on Crete. This in  
> effect reduced the stature of Zeus to that of a human being-become-h 
> ero. Behind this Cretan perspective, and the response to it, were op 
> posing “theologies”: Crete’s was a “theology from below,”  
> which maintained that the Greek gods were first men and women. This  
> apparently grew out of the fundamental Cretan belief in its own race 
>  as the primal Greek race that emerged from the earth. Cretan belief 
> s included the view that many of the Greek gods were born on Crete;  
> Zeus also died there. The opposing “theology from above” was the  
> Olympian theology from mainland Greece in which, among other differe 
> nces, the transcendent status of the gods was protected and the dist 
> ance between the divine and the human races maintained. Thus the bas 
> is of the stereotype was a heretical religious claim."
>
> [Yancy Smith] So, George is right that the text does not directly  
> mention Zeus. But then we often allude to things in natural language  
> without mentioning them.
>
> Yancy Smith
>
>
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