[B-Greek] Walking on Water (Mk 6:49)
yancywsmith at sbcglobal.net
yancywsmith at sbcglobal.net
Sat Mar 20 03:32:46 EDT 2010
George,
OK, I'm pretty sure Carl is going to pounce on me any moment because ghosts and demons might seem to be way of topic for the list. The question was originally about whether "walking on the lake" should be "walking beside the lake." The answer to that has been pretty definite: walking on the water. That raises, of course, another issue, the disciples thought they saw a FANTASMA walking on the water. I guess I am asking whether that is expected behavior for a FANTASMA or not. It seems that ending up in the sea seems to be a sort of punctuation point for the end of a ghost story. for example, in Pausanias' Description of Greece 6.6.7, there is a delightful story (repeated in more than one form in other authors) of the besting of a ghost of a drunken sailor at that was terrifying a village. One of Odysseus' men does the needful when he falls in love with the yearly virgin given to appease the murderous ghost. καὶ ἡ παῖς τε συνοικήσειν κατώμνυτο αὐτῷ σώσαντι αὐτὴν καὶ ὁ Εὔθυμος ἐνεσκευασμένος ἔμενε τὴν ἔφοδον τοῦ δαίμονος. ἐνίκα τε δὴ τῇ μάχῃ καὶ – ἐξηλαύνετο γὰρ ἐκ τῆς γῆς – ὁ Ἥρως ἀφανίζεταί τε καταδὺς ἐς θάλασσαν. KAI hH PAIS TE SUNOIKHSEIN KATWMNUTO AUTWi SWSANTI AUTHN KAI hO EUQUMOS ENESKEUASMENOS EMENE THN EFODON TOU DAIMONOS. ENIKA TE DH THi MACHi KAI -- EXELAUNETO GAR EK THS GHN -- hO HRWS AFANIZETAI TE KATADUS ES QALASSAN. And the girl swore she would be [Euthymos'] wife if he would save her and Euthymos armed himself stayed in the ghost's [DAIMWN's] entry way. And he beat it in the fight--he drove him out of the area--the ghost [hHRWS] disappears and plunged into the sea."
The story in Mark 6:49 presents what to me an interesting contrast with the DAIMWN story (Mark 5:1ff) in which the bested LEGIWN also winds up plunging into the sea (in the pigs). I guess the value of the JBL article is that it points out a narrative incongruity in terms of the way Greco-Roman ghosts behave when entering water. I notice that Adela Y. Collins, in her Hermeneia Commentary on Mark gives a favorable nod to Comb's article. I suppose George has some ancient ghost stories up his sleeve where they walking on water like Jesus? That would be very fun to read, and very illuminating. We can only wonder about the background assumptions and attempt to reconstruct them on the basis of the stories we have. This is something I know very little about, so, don't hold back on us, George, if you have a neat story of an ancient Greek or Roman ghost walking on the water. It would be interesting to find out if Jewish ghosts behave differently. I suppose that LEGIWN was probably a Greco-Roman ghost (perhaps that's why he/they apparently sank). The whole water and ghost thing is fascinating, but I'm wondering if in these cases (Mark and Pausanias) the idea is the belief that lakes and seas also were frequently understood to be entrances to Hades.
Yancy Smith, PhD
yancywsmith at sbcglobal.net
Y.W.Smith at tcu.edu
yancy at wbtc.com
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On Mar 20, 2010, at 12:12 AM, George F Somsel wrote:
> It took me a while to locate that particular volume so I could read the article. It seems that the argumentation is rather deficient. While he notes that in certain cases ghosts were thought to be limited by water, it doesn't seem to establish that it was thus in all cases. Ghosts appear to be conceived as being limited much as humans are by oceans and streams. While water in one citation appears to be able in one case to kill a ghost (sic !) in the play by Apuleus, burial at sea seems to be overcome by the same method as would be the case if the departed had been buried on land but on the other side of water, namely, by calling the dead three times which would indicate that water would not therefore be deemed fatal to the shade. The point of the article seems to be that Jesus is depicted as divine, which may well be the case; but that Mark is constructing a farce on the order of Apuleus is by no means evident. Whether the disciples were to be considered to be credulous is not particularly dependent upon whether the ancients thought water was particularly inimicable to ghosts. I'm not at all accepting of a rule that the ancients considered water to be a kind of garlic or a cross to vampires (for anyone credulous enough to accept their existence). As to whether the word φάντασμα FANTASMA by itself could signify a god is similarly not established since it would appear that when φάντασμα FANTASMA is used to signify some divine being it does not appear by itself but in combination with δαίμονος DAIMONOS so that φάντασμα FANTASMA would seem to signify an apparition which may or may not be divine depending upon whether it is otherwise qualified.
>
>
> 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: bGreek <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Fri, March 19, 2010 2:09:30 PM
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Walking on Water (Mk 6:49)
>
> Mediterranean peoples seem to have known that ghosts couldn’t walk on water, they sink in water. But gods could walk on water. So, when the disciples say Jesus is a ghost, the audience would see to what great extent they were going to avoid the obvious conclusion that Jesus is divine. This point was masterfully brought out in a recent article by Jason Robert Combs, “A Ghost on the Water? Understanding an Absurdity in Mark 6:49-50” JBL 127.2 (2008): 345-58. So, the exclamation by the disciples would have been a further humorous demonstration of obtuseness. They just couldn't get the point about who Jesus really was and were willing to accept the most preposterous conclusions to avoid the obvious.
>
>
>
>
>
> Yancy Smith
> Yancy W. Smith, PhD
> World Bible Translation Center
> 4028 Daley Ave., Suite 201
> Fort Worth, TX 76180
> p 817-595-1664
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> yancy at wbtc.org
>
> Be kinder than necessary for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of George F Somsel
> Sent: Friday, March 19, 2010 3:13 PM
> To: theomann at comcast.net; bGreek
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Walking on Water (Mk 6:49)
>
> No, I don't think you missed a thing. Assuming, for the sake of discussion, that he was supposedly walking "by the sea", why would this have caused the disciples to think that he was an "apparition" or "ghost"? "Walking by the sea" certainly gives no reason for surprise.
> 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: "theomann at comcast.net" <theomann at comcast.net>
> To: bGreek <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Fri, March 19, 2010 12:56:16 PM
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Walking on Water (Mk 6:49)
>
>
>
>
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Walking on Water (Mk 6:49)
>
> Richard wrote:
>
> <My friend is a pretty bright fellow normally and yet he insists that he
> knows of a reputable source of Greek scholarship that upholds this notion of
> Jesus "walking by the sea" in Mark's gospel. So now let me ask this... Does
> anyone know of anywhere in Greek literature where "PERIPATWN EPI TH
> THALASSH" is used in this way or could be legitimately translated in this
> way or where he may have gotten this idea otherwise?>
>
> _____________________________
>
>
>
> I don't know if I'm on the same page as you, but is the question whether or not Jesus walked on water? If so, doesn't the context pretty much dictate that He did? Verse 47 says that the disciples were in a boat in the middle of the sea (lake), verse 48 says that Jesus went out to them and verse 51 says that He climbed into the boat with them. That Jesus walked on the water in order to reach them seems to be the natural conclusion.
> Sorry if I've misunderstood something.
>
>
>
> Ted
>
>
>
> Theodore H. Mann
>
> theomann at comcast.net
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