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

Kenneth Litwak javajedi2 at yahoo.com
Wed May 19 23:27:53 EDT 2010



--- On Tue, 5/18/10, Randall Buth <randallbuth at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Randall Buth <randallbuth at gmail.com>
> Subject: HLI vs. HLIAS in Matt 27:46
> To: "Kenneth Litwak" <javajedi2 at yahoo.com>, "B Greek" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Date: Tuesday, May 18, 2010, 10:23 PM
> 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,

  Whether HLI or HLWEI sound very similar or not, it strikes me as odd that the bystanders would not hear the Hebrew version of Ps 22:1 and know to whom Jesus was calling out.  Surely they dealt with people who had similar-sounding but not identical names all the time.  Did they always confuse those?  

  On your final point, and related to this, and my last comment on it since it is not about Greek per se, there is not so far as we know any Second Temple tradition that places the coming of Elijah before the Messiah.  See Richard Bauckham, "The Restoration of Israel in Luke-Acts", in James M. Scott, ed., Restoration:  Old Testament, Jewish and Christian Perspectives, 440-41.

Ken





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