ELWI ELWI LEMA SABAXQANI (Mk 15,34 / Ps 22,2)

From: Ulrik Petersen (ulrikp@daimi.aau.dk)
Date: Sat Dec 20 1997 - 11:00:56 EST


Dear List members,

thanks for letting me listen in on your very instructive
conversations. I have a question about Mk 15,34 versus Ps 22,2, where
Jesus is quoting David's words while being on the cross. It might be
more of a Hebrew question, and if the question is not approriate on
this list, please pardon me.

I don't know whether to classify the problem as belonging to text
criticism or to transcription theory or to something else, since I am
very ignorant about many things, including the way these texts were
compiled and preserved. Perhaps this is where some of you can educate
me?

Now, in my copy of the GNT (which is a Nestle-Aland 26), the quote is:

  ELWI ELWI LEMA SABAXQANI

My first question is: I suppose this is really supposed to be Hebrew
and not Aramaic?

My second question regards why the Greek text is not exactly the same
as what I read in my Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia? There, I find:

>LJ >LJ LMH <ZBTNJ

where my three main troubles are the absence of of any O sound in the
call on "my God" in the Hebrew, the absence of any leading e sound in
the Greek text (which is under the ayin in the Hebrew), and lastly the
absence of any palatal sound, aspirated or otherwise, between the Beth
and the Tav in the Hebrew.

Regarding the absence of the e sound in the Greek, which is under the
ayin in the Hebrew, can this be put down to rules of pronunciation of
Hebrew which we no longer know? Does the ayin distort the vowel so
much that it can't possibly be written and said by Greek-speaking
persons?

Now, in the apparatus in my NA 26, I find that some manuscripts do
indeed have HLI instead of ELWI. This helps a bit, but not much, since
never having been trained in using the apparatus, much less assigning
importance to the various pericopes or manuscripts, I find that this
information is not of much use to me. Along the same lines, I find
that some manuscripts have ZAFQANI, which seems a bit closer to the
Hebrew, but I still can't decide what importance should be put on
those manuscripts.

Perhaps what we have in the GNT is a transcription of an earlier
version of the Hebrew text than what we have from the Masoretes?

Can anyone help me resolve this one?

Thanks. And Happy Holidays *<:-)}}

Ulrik Petersen
student of computer science
University of Aarhus, Denmark
e-mail: ulrikp@daimi.aau.dk



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