clarifying new testament aramaic names - Dr. Tom McDaniel

375 Pages·2008·2.3 MB·English

CLARIFYING
NEW TESTAMENT
ARAMAIC
NAMES & WORDS
AND
SHEM TOB’S HEBREW
GOSPEL OF MATTHEW
BY
THOMAS F. McDANIEL, Ph.D.
©
Thomas F. McDaniel
2008
All rights reserved
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For the past thirty-eight years—from1969 to 2001 as the
Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Studies at The Eastern
Baptist Theological Seminary (which was renamed the Palmer
Theological Seminary in 2005) and from 2001 to the present as a
Professor Emeritus at the Seminary—I have enjoyed the friendship
and full support of my colleague in Biblical Studies, Dr. Glenn
Koch, the Professor of Greek and New Testament Studies. Both of
us became full time faculty at the Seminary in 1969. This volume
has benefitted from his input, beginning with his suggestion about
a year ago that we cooperate on an article dealing with the Aramaic
words in the New Testament. Chapter II in this volume is the result
of his suggestion, and his contributions to the introductory para-
graphs and bibliography of Chapter II are greatly appreciated.
Chapter III on the Shem Tob Hebrew Gospel of Matthew also
includes Dr. Koch’s input. In 1995 when I offered at the Seminary
a seminar on the Shem Tob text, Dr. Koch was a weekly
participant and the respected authority on the Greek texts of the
Gospels. His insights on Shem Tob’s Hebrew text and the Greek
texts were duly noted then. And now, a decade plus later, they have
contributed indirectly, if not directly, to my finally publishing here
in Chapter III my notes from that seminar and subsequent study of
the Shem Tob text. Thus, to my friend and colleague I express
heartfelt thanks!
Mrs. Elizabeth Oscanyan, a dear friend from Philomont, Virgin-
ia, and the North Fork Baptist Church, graciously proofread the
last draft of this manuscript, and thanks to her sharp eye and effort
a number of typographical errors were corrected.
Thomas F. McDaniel
Palmer Theological Seminary
Wynnewood, Pennsylvania
February 8, 2008
iii
In loving memory of
Hattori Onatsu San
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii
ABBREVIATIONS vi
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER II
ARAMAIC WORDS AND NAMES
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 11
CHAPTER III
THE SHEM TOB HEBREW
GOSPEL OF MATTHEW 62
NOTES 308
BIBLIOGRAPHY 353
APPENDIX 368
v
ABBREVIATIONS
A-text Codex Alexandrinus
AB Anchor Bible, New York
ABD The Anchor Bible Dictionary
AJSL American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literature, Chicago
AnBib Analecta Biblica, Rome
AOS American Oriental Society, New Haven
ATD Das Alte Testament Deutsch, Göttingen
AV Authorized Version of the Bible, 1611 (same as KJV, 1611)
B-text Codex Vaticanus
BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research,
Philadelphia
BCTP A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching
BDB F. Brown, S. R. Driver, C. A. Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon
of the Old Testament, New York
BH3 R. Kittel, Biblica Hebraica, third edition, Stuttgart, 1937
BHS Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia
BibOr Biblica et Orientalia, Rome
BR Bible Review
BSC Bible Student's Commentary
BibT Bible Today
BTal Bet Talmud
CAD I. Gelb, L. Oppenheim, et al., eds., The Assyrian Dictionary of the
Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago
CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Washington, D. C.
CTM Concordia Theological Monthly
CV Communio Viatorium
DR Downside Review
EBC The Expository Bible Commentary
ET Expository Times
GKC Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar, ed. E. Kautzsch, tr. A. E. Cowley,
Oxford
HAT Handbuch zum Alten Testament, Tübingen
HTR Harvard Theological Review, Cambridge, Massachusetts
IBCTP Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching
ICC International Critical Commentary, Edinburgh
IDB The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible
IVPNTC IVP New Testament Commentary Series
JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society, New Haven, Boston
vi
ABBREVIATIONS
JBL Journal of Biblical Literature, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and
Missoula, Montana
JBS Journal of Biblical Storytelling
JETS Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
JPSTC Jewish Publication Society Torah Commentary
JQR Jewish Quarterly Review, Philadelphia
JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament
JSOT Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Sheffield
JTS Journal of Theological Studies, Oxford
KJV King James Version of the Bible (same as the AV, 1611)
LTSB Lutheran Theological Seminary Bulletin
LXX Septuagint
MBC Mellon Biblical Commentary
MT Masoretic Text
NCB New Century Bible
NITGTC The New International Greek Testament Commentary
NRSV New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, New York, 1992
NTL New Testament Library
NTS New Testament Studies
OTL Old Testament Library, Philadelphia and London
PEFQS Palestine Exploration Fund, Quarterly Statement
PEQ Palestine Exploration Quarterly, London
RSV Revised Standard Version of the Bible, London and New York,
1952
SC The Speakers Commentary
TDNT Theological Dictionary of the New Testament
TDOT Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament
USQR Union Seminary Quarterly Review
UT C. H. Gordon, Ugaritic Textbook, Rome
VT Vetus Testamentum, Leiden
VTSup Vetus Testamentum Supplements, Leiden
WTJ Westminster Theological Journal, Philadelphia
ZAH Zeitschrist für Althebraistik
ZAW Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, Gießen and
Berlin
ZNT Zeitschrift für neuen testamentlische Wissenschaft
vii
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
In Joseph Fitzmyer’s chapter on “The New Testament Title
‘Son of Man,’” (in A Wandering Aramean: Collected
Aramaic Essays, 1978) he concluded, with reference to the
arthrous (definite) phrase o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrwp, ou “the Son of
the Man,” that this phrase must be understood as a title for
Jesus:
[It] could be an attempt to translate the emphatic state of
the Aramaic; but it may be something more. I suspect
that it was deliberately fashioned to carry the nuance of
a title.
But for Fitzmyer the “development of the titular usage is not
immediately obvious, and the missing link still has to be
found” (italics mine).
In my opinion the missing link has been found! As spelled
out in Chapter 25, “Adam, Enosh, and ‘The Son of Man’,” in
my book Clarifying More Baffling Biblical Passages (avail-
able online), the many missing links in biblical Aramaic and
biblical Hebrew lexicography can be found in Arabic cog-
nates. John Kaltner (2002: 78–85) has provided a brief but
very helpful summary of the way Arabic—thanks to its
“richer and more extensive corpus upon which to draw than
any other Semitic language”—“was the principal language of
comparison in Hebrew Bible scholarship.” One has only to
browse through Edmund Castell’s Lexicon Heptaglotton of
1669 (not mentioned by Kaltner, but now available online at
http://tmcdaniel.palmerseminary.edu/Castell.htm) to appreci-
ate how dependent Hebrew lexicography was upon Arabic.
2 INTRODUCTION
The “hyperarabism” Kaltner mentioned declined after the
discovery of Akkadian texts in the nineteenth century and the
Ugaritic texts in the twentieth century. But while the focus in
biblical Aramaic and Hebrew lexicography shifted to the new-
ly discovered Semitic texts, Edward Lane’s Arabic-English
Lexicon (1863–1893) continued to be a gold mine wherein lay
the missing links for recovering the meaning of obscure and
problematic words in the Tanak and in the Hebrew and Ara-
maic Vorlagen which underlie the Gospel traditions and other
New Testament Semiticisms.
Chapter II in this book focuses on the meaning of the
Aramaic names and words found in the New Testament. And,
although Arabic is seldom a tool used by New Testament
Greek scholars, it has proven to be a helpful tool for re-
covering the meaning of the more obscure Aramaic terms.
However, the contents in Chapter II of this volume will not be
restricted to insights based solely upon Arabic lexemes. All
the evidence will be addressed.
In Chapter III the focus shifts to the Shem Tob Hebrew
Gospel of Matthew (circa 1400), and again all the evidence
will be addressed in dealing with the problematic or obscure
passages in this Gospel. But it should come as no surprise that
the most beneficial reference works for interpreting the
obscure passages in the Shem Tob Hebrew Text (abbreviated
as STT) have been the Arabic lexicons.
By way of introduction to the discoveries presented in
Chapters II and III, the following list (on pages 3–13) of sixty-
four problematic words or phrases (with chapter and verse
cited, plus the Greek, Aramaic, or Hebrew word or phrase to
be discussed) identifies the biblical texts wherein Arabic cog-
nates provide the missing link for the proper interpretation of
word or phrase.
INTRODUCTION 3
A.
ARABIC COGNATES CLARIFY
ARAMIAC NAMES AND WORDS
(Lev 23:40) an"[.v;Ah “Hosanna” of Succoth = Arabic ]HÖ
(waša ca) “to mix things.”
Psa 118:25 aN" h['yviAh ,“Hosanna” “Please save!” = Arabic
]DÖ (wasaca/ wassac ) “he made one’s means of sub-
sistence ample and abundant.”
Matt 21:8 ~Wsanna “Hosanna!” = Aramaic an"v'h,' the cog-
J| I"|
nate of Arabic / (hašš/ hâšš) “he was, or
became joyful, or cheerful; one who rejoices or is
glad” (Mark 11:8, John 12:13).
Matt 21:9 (STT) ~lw[h corrected to ~yl[h “the poor” =
Arabic qáª\(cayl) or r"\ ( c âl) “he was poor.”
yntqbv yntbz[
Matt 27:46 sabacqani = Aramaic = in
Hebrew, the cognate of Arabic &Aª\( cazaba) “he
became distant, remote.”
yn[wB
Mark 3:17 Boanhrge,j( = = boanh “the shouters of”
vg<r<
+ rge,j = “thunder,” the cognate of Arabic
F3!@ Eè3@
(râjis) and (rajjâs) “thunder.”
Mark 15:34 (Dgr) wneidisaj me = yntbz[, the cognate of
Arabic &=ª\ (cad.aba) “he castigated, tortured,
tormented.”