[B-Greek] HLI vs. HLIAS in Matt 27:46

Randall Buth randallbuth at gmail.com
Wed May 19 01:23:47 EDT 2010


Ken Litwak egrapse
> I was looking tonight at Jesus' cry of dereliction in Matt 27:46 tonight
. . .
> Looking then at the Hebrew test of Ps 22:1, I do see )LY )LY, which
> would explain the transliteration in Matthew 27, but it would not
> explain the crowd's reaction, as the word in Hebrew for "my God" is
> not equivalent to the name Elijah, )LYH.  So I find this an interesting
> puzzle, as I see no reason anyone should have confused the two,
> especially given that, to my knowledge, there is no Second Temple
> tradition of Elijah coming to help individuals.  This is probably not a
> B-Greek issue per se, but it is based upon the Greek text. I would
> be interested in any thoughts others have on this puzzle.  Thanks.

Firstly, one needs to follow the sound. HLEI (Hebrew name) and HLEIA
(Gk vocative and Hebrew name) are almost the same in both
Hebrew and Greek. The only real difference is that the Hebrew name
Eliya has an accent on the final 'a' sound, though even that may not
have been true for the first century Hebrew dialect.
The 'problem' only comes with Mark's ELWEI. (I am currently writing
a paper arguing that Mark's ELWEI is a purposeful change, while
the 'common view' is that Matthew's HLEI is a purposeful change.

And there was a Second temple tradition that Eliya had to come
before the Messiah.




-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth at gmail.com
Biblical Language Center
Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life



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