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F.C. BURKITT
s:^ THE SYRIAC FORKS OF NEW TESTAMENT PROPER NAMES
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THE BRITISH ACADEMY
The Syriac Forms of
New
Testament Proper Names
F.
C/Burkitt
Fellow of the Academy
[Frovi the Proceedings of the Bntish Academy,
London Published for the British Academy
By Henry Frowde, Oxford
Amen Comer, Price
Two
University Press
E.G.
Shillings net
VoL F]
The Dolman.
following works are quoted by an abbreviated
— G.
Dalman, Grammatik
title.
des Jlidisch-Palastinischen Ara-
maisch (Leipzig, 1894).
GwiUiam.
— G.
1901).
H. Gwilliam, Tetra-evangelium sanctum (Oxford, [The number after Gwilliam signifies a Syriac MS., not
the page of his book.] Itinera Sancta.
—Vol. xxxviii of the Vienna Corpus
edited by P.
Geyer
Neubajier.—A. Neubader,
0^.— P.
Script. Eccl. Lat.,
(1898).
La Geographic du Talmud
(Paris, 1868).
de Lagaude, Onomastica Sacra (Gottingen, 1887), quoted
by the marginal pagination.
Mn\/ :
THE SYRIAC FORMS OF NEW TESTAMENT PROPER NAMES By
F.
C.^BURKITT
FKLLOW OF THE ACADEMY
Read January
The
24,
1912
subject I have chosen for this Paper sounds,
may not be out
fear, rather
I
dry and technical, so that
it
claiming that
one element of general interest.
it
presents
of place to begin by
The
Pilgrim from Palestine, with his staff and his scallop-shell and his tales of the
Holy Land,
the middle ages
:
it will
is
be
one of the most picturesque figures of
my
task this afternoon to introduce you
any record.
to the earliest of that band, the earliest that has left
His
tale
is
told in a dead language,
correct,
is
and perhaps not
all his
archaeology
but he deserves to be heard with the respect due to
a pioneer.
The New Testament is a collection
of Greek writings, and
the last quarter of the second century a.
d.
that there
is
it is
not
till
any evidence
But in the period between it into other tongues. 170 and 200 the Gospels, Acts, and Pauline Epistles were translated into Latin in the West, at Rome or Carthage, and into Syriac in the of efforts to translate
East, at Edessa in the Euphrates Valley. The translation of the New Testament into Latin presented no special difficulty, and least of all in the proper names. There is, of course, a right way and a wrong, as those know who have read Professor Housman's amusing article
number of the Journal of Philology on Greek Nouns in But the points raised are, after all, of subsidiary interest. The Latin translator had merely to give the Latin letter which custom and authority prescribed as equivalent to the Greek letter. He had no need to be wise above that which had been written it is a pretty question whether we ought to write Pharao in the last
Latin Poetry ^
:
worth while recording the fact that the oldest Christian MS!S. support Housman's general couclueious, e. g. k has ' Heroden ', and the W'iirzburg I'alinipsest in Jeremiah xiii lias ' Eufruten '. ^
It is
Professor
V
I'-l
7
imo
PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY
2
or Farao^ but all that either form of
Egypt
The Syriac,
tells
us
that the
is
of the king
title
spelt 4>(\pAa) in Greek.
is
translator from Greek into Syriac
the former
common
Semitic language, the
first
is
in a very different case.
speech of the Euphrates Valley,
is
a
Like Hebrew, many
cousin of Hebrew.
of the vowels do not appear in writing, and those that are written are given in a notation that, according to our ideas,
imperfect.
On
the other hand,
in the sibilants,
many
which disappear
is
singularly
distinctions are made, especially
and
in the Greek,
(as in
Hebrew)
there are four true guttural sounds which are not represented in
Greek at
all.
enough to transliterate true Greek Proper Names They look indeed rather clumsy, and without the insertion of vowel signs the transliterations are often ambiguous^. The real difficulty and the real interest arises when, as so often It
into
is
Syriac.
the
in
easy
New
Testament, the Proper
Name
the Greek
in
itself
is
Greek is a poor language for such a purpose, and the Semitic words lose in transliteration many of their most striking characteristics. The Patriarchs are shorn of their gutturals 'Abraham^ Yishdk, and Ydakob become ABpAAM, IcAAK, and IakcoB, and there is nothing to tell the reader a transliteration or adaption of a Semitic word.
:
that Abraham's h
while Jacob's
is
is
an English
7i,
the peculiar Semitic
Isaac's '^ain.
is
a
(or very nearly),
Teh
Moreover, without private
the retranslator from Greek into a Semitic language would not know where to put the gutturals in as a matter of fact, the h in A^paa^i comes between the second and third a, the ^ in lo-aoK comes instead of the first a, and the in IaKco/3 comes between the a and the k. These difficulties lie in the nature of the languages and confront a translator as soon as he sets about his task. When therefore we find that the older Syriac Versions, speaking generally, do not simply transliterate the New Testament Proper Names, but give the proper Semitic equivalent, we are obviously in the presence of a learned achievement, of a work of Biblical learning which demands elucidation and explanation. How did the Syriac translator come by his information,
:
*
information
A
?
few words
may
here be said on the Syriac Versions of which
account will be taken here. ^
The commemoration
The
Syriac Vulgate,
commonly
of a certain AovXt] at Nicomedia on
by Lietzmann from the ancient Syriac Martyrology as quite so bad in Syriac letters !
*
dvl's
March 25 '.
is
called given
It doesn't look
;
NEW TESTAMENT NAMES
SYRIAC FORMS OF
the Peshitta, comprises the greater part of the Old and ments.
It
New
3
Testa-
preserved with a surprising absence of variation in
is
many MSS., some of which
are as old as the fifth century.
The
Canonical Books of the Old Testament were translated originally direct from the
Hebrew, probably by Jews rather than Christians
but certain books, notably that of Isaiah, seem to have been revised from the Greek Bible. The so-called ' Apocrypha \ such as the Book The text of of Wisdom, must have been translated from the Greek.
New Testament
the Peshitta in the
is
it is now made by Rabbula, Bishop
also a revision
generally recognized that this revision was
of Edessa from 411 to 435.
No MS.
;
of the Acts or Pauline Epistles
previous to this revision survives, but two
MSS. of
the Gospels are
known, Cureton's MS. and the Sinai Palimpsest, which represent the texts current before Rabbula. Besides these MSS. we have the scanty remains of Syriac literature earlier than the the
A
fifth
century, notably
and Ephraim (d. 373 a.d.). large mass of evidence tends to shew that the form in which works
of Aphraates (345 a.d.)
the Gospel generally circulated
among
Syriac-speaking Christians
Rabbula was not the Four separate Gospels, but Tatian's Diatessaron this work survives in a late Arabic translation, but the Syriac text from which this Arabic translation was made had been assimilated wholesale to the Peshitta. In any case, the Arabic cannot be depended on for details connected with the spelling before the time of
:
of Proper Names.
Our
three chief authorities, therefore, are the Sinai Palimpsest (S),
A later Syriac and the Peshitta (P). New Testament not comprised in the Peshitta (viz. 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and the Apocalypse), made in the sixth century for Philoxenus of Mabbogh, is cited as Many of the Proper Names in the Gospels are mentioned by (p. Aphraates, whose works include a Homily on the Gospel Genealogies
the Curetonian
MS.
(C),
version of the parts of the
;
his evidence,
where necessary,
is
quoted as A.
the most part Aphraates used the Diatessaron
altered.
of 1881,
is
clear that for
^.
many ways drastic and Proper Names Avere very little
Rabbula"'s revision of the text was
thorough-going, but fortunately the
It
in
His procedure was not unlike that of the English Revisers also left the Proper Names much as they were, though
who
made alterations in the direction of conformity The proof of the above statement lies in the very
other respects they
in
to the Greek. '
The number
(1907).
after
A
is
the page in Patrologia Syriaca, vol.
i
(1894)^ vol.
ii
PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY
4
numerous agi'eements of S, C, and P, and the very few cases of actual For instance, the final h in 'Beelzebub' is attested by no Greek MS., so far as I know, but Rabbula retains it, following both 5 and C, and also A 714. The agreement between S, C, and P in the Gospels is the justifi-
difference.
P
cation for using
in the rest of the
It should, of course,
us.
fail
P
ment of
with S
C
is
New
Testament, whei'e S and
C
be remarked that the definite agree-
Names
naturally confined to those Proper
which are transmitted without variant
the Greek.
in
Naturally
may happen that there is a variant in a name, and in such cases and S C are sometimes found on opposite sides, e. g. in Joh 28 S C support Bethabara \ while P supports Bethany \ But such it
P
i
'
'
and do not seriously
cases are comparatively rare,
the general faithfulness of
P
call in
question
Old Syriac
to the nomenclature of the
Version.
A
glance at S
translator of the been, was
Names,
C and P shews that the general practice of the New Testament into Syriac, whoever he may have
to give the
Old Testament equivalent
as far as this could
for
A discussion
be done.
the Proper
of this part of
the subject will be found in Evangelion da-Mepharreshcf vol.
and
pp. 201-205,
need not repeat
I
dependence of the Syriac
ii,
do not think the this respect upon
here, as I
it
New Testament
in
the Syriac Old Testament has ever been seriously challenged.
The
evidence forces us, in fact, to regard the Old Testament Peshitta as
older
than
the
Syriac
New
Testament, and as having been
familiar to the translator of the latter.
This at once accounts for a large number of peculiar forms, the origin of which does not here concern us, as
it is sufficient
Thus
they were taken from the Old Testament.
|Vn^
literated
It is
P*i?.
but the
it
Seliijon,
difficult
though the Greek
to see
how
is 2toji'
'
to say that
Zion
'
trans-
is
and the Hebrew
the Syriac form can have arisen,
throws no direct light upon the geographical knowledge of
New Testament
translator, as
the Old Testament in Syriac
Some
no doubt
of the greater Geographical names
derived from
it
was taken direct from
^.
common knowledge and
may
very well have been
names such as D^B^'llfc^ Urishlevi for Jerusalem, or ^1(13 n*i Beth Nahrln for Mesopotamia. What needs investigation are the rarer names, names of persons that ^
n*if
(region)
'
dry land
'
:
it is,
'
is
use,
regularly rendered in the Peshitta by r<l*ct3^
therefore, probable that
or some such signification.
|Vir
'
thirsty
was underatood to mean Dry Tor,
SYRIAC FORMS OF
NEW TESTAMENT NAMES
5
do not appear to have been familiar to Syriac-speaking folk, and names of places for which v.e can hardly suppose that the natives of Edessa, or even of Antioch, could have had special appellations.
Once more we may remind ourselves of the nature of the processes gone through before a New Testament Semitic Proper Name appears in Syriac. It has been transliterated from Hebrew or Aramaic into Greek letters: the Syriac translator then takes this Greek transliteration,
and either
transliterates it into Syriac letters, or decides
on an appropriate Syriac
The
equivalent.
latter process
historical information
about the subject
is
not
may aifbrd us the New Testament, matter of
transliteration, but really a kind of translation
:
it
but should not be used as a textual 'variant'. This simple caution The name is not always remembered, as an example will make clear. Caiaphas (Katti^as- or Koi(/)a?) is transliterated XS\'^ ; Cephas (Ki](pa'i\
At first sight it seems irregular that is ^<SS^. the Syriac equivalent to K?;0as should begin with 5 instead of p. But what we have to recognize is that (<(^^ is not a transliteration on the other hand,
but the Syriac for 'stone': the translator, or possibly Syriac Church custom, recognized that S. Peter's name was Shnon Stone, and they called him, where necessary, by this appellative ^
at
all,
When *
Westcott and Hort discuss the breathings to be assigned such as AA^atos, they talk about
New Testament Proper Names
to
It is one of the chief the authority of the Syriac ' (Introd., § 408). what exactly the 'authority' of
objects of this Paper to find out in
the Syriac consists.
Is
it, Ave
ask, a real
and continuous Palestinian
merely an achievement of learning, meritorious and but not really authoritative? What had the indeed, interesting Syriac translator to go by, when the Old Testament failed him, and tradition, or
is it
when the context did not suggest (as it did in the case of S. Peter's name) a practically certain solution ? Now it is true that there are a number of excellent transliterations or identifications, whichever we like to call them, to be found in the Syriac versions. Simon the Cananaean (Kavavalo'i) is rendered J<Oip, and so is properly distinguished from the Canaanite woman (Xavarala),
who is Xn^iViD. Tabitha and Talitlia are sadly confused in Latin in the Syriac texts they are properly distinguished and MSS. Pharisees intelligently spelt. Words referring to Jewish Parties, &c. :
—
(Perishe), Sadducees (Zaddhkat/e), Osanna (Oshand), Phylacteries {Tephille), are given a Syriac dress that is near enough to the
—
^
It
is
the same in Arabic, wliere S. Peter
is
commonly called ^jj*»i
(or ^L,..)
PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY
6
current Jewish technical term to suggest some knowledge of Jewish
Of
conditions. XoT;Ca[s]
personal
the
\ i<y^^
names,
for Sapphira,
Saturday's child) for Barsabbas
(i. e.
for
ppl
X^N
i:i for
Annas,
for
11
nf)
for
are all well spelt,
^,
5^113
Barabbas % i^^^
Thaddaeus and N7'2J^ {Dalman 124) for 2tAa? are recognized as Semitic names and spelt accordingly it may be remarked in passing that the name of Simon Magus is spelt jlD^D {Simon) in Syriac, as distinguished from Simon Peter and Simon the Tanner, who are given the same name as Simeon (jlS^^tJ^ Shhndn) the Patriarch. As is well known, the Syriac New Testament translates Xptcrro's by Msh'tJia, i.e. Messiah', wherever it occurs. 'iTjo-oi;? becomes ^IJi^* (pronounced Yeshu and Isho'), which is the later Hebrew form of Joshua. The Peshitta always represents J^I^J^IH* by yit5^\ e.g. in Josh i 1, and it was no doubt the Syriac form of the name Joshua that determined :
'
name
the spelling of the It
may
for Jesus
among
Syriac-speaking Christians.
here be mentioned that the controversial works of
now being
Syrus,
edited by
my friend
Mr. C.
W.
Ephraim
Mitchell for the Text
and Translation Society from a palimpsest in the British Museum, will shew that the Syriac-speaking Marcionites were not similarly influenced by the Old Testament, and that they transliterated 'Irjo-oOiby )0\
Of the place-names
in Syriac,
Tnil
for XopaC^tv agrees with the
Talmudic spelling ; N^lS H^l {Beth Phagge) for Br]6^ayi] is at least probable; and X1*X D^l {Beth Sayyada) for hr^daaihav, though otherwise unattested, is possible. Other spellings, such as K*i'^^^ for 'Arabia', which at first sight might seem inappropriate, are to be explained from the fact that such Greek words are not representations of Semitic names at all, but new Greek appellations. The "Apa^e? of Acts ii 11 are properly rendered by X^l'lV but 'Apa/3ta is a mere geographical expression, invented by the Greeks and Romans, which is wisely transliterated by the Peshitta in Gal i 17, iv 25 without S. Paul never meant us to infer that he passed Semitic gutturals ;
:
three years
among
the Bedouins.
All these Syriac transliterations are intelligent, really striking.
At
the same time
fairly straightforward ^
Lk
vSalih
:
viii 3.
;
The name
it
will
and a few of them
be noticed that they are
the best of them, such as those for Xopa^eiV is
certified as
Nabatean by an inscription at Madaiii
see Expositor (5th Ser.) for February 1899, p. 121.
The same patronymic was borne by tlie well-known Kabbi Hlya b. Abba. The name of Mr. Sattiirday Davenant may occur to some English readers. More antique and oriental is Barhabbeshabba (i. e. Sunday's child), one of the martyrs commemorated in the ancient Syriac Kalendar of 411. '
*
NEW TESTAMENT NAMES
SYRIAC FORMS OF
7
and XovCas, simply follow the most ordinary rules of transliteration. We now have to consider one or two that I venture to characterize as strikingly bad.
The
impression
first
of the modern scholar, accustomed to the
methods of the Syro-Hexaplar and Harclean with respect
all
i.
e. all
words containing
assumes that the Syriac word
of the Greek
;
is
to regard
Syriac transliterations that contain Semitic gutturals
or Semitic sibilants, this
versions,
the case
is
is
meant
quite different
H
or
i?,
or
ISC
K'.
But
for a real transliteration
when there has been an
attempt to find a Syriac equivalent for the Greek word. The clearest instance of what I mean is to be found in the Philoxenian (and Harclean) rendering of Abaddon in
Apoc
word means 'destroying"" that the Old Testament word
Here we
ix 11.
are definitely
told that the
in Greek, so that it
is
certain
pi^X
But the
Syriac equivalent
is
11^^,
of rC'Axo.'ui^- 'servitude'.
a
translator''s
i.
e.
is
intended.
quite
the translator has used the abs. sing,
This
is
universally recognized as being
blunder and nothing more.
At
the same time
it
leads
us to infer that the translator could have had no contact with any
about the Jewish background to this Apocalypse. But what Abaddon proves about the Apocalypse, Jairus proves The name 'Ide tpos occurs in the Greek for the Gospel in Syriac.
real tradition
Bible in Esth ii 5, where we read of Maphoyjcdo^ 6 tov 'la^ipov. When we look the passage up in the original Hebrew we find that Mordecai
was the son of Jair (TK*).
This evidence
is
really sufficient to
name in the Gospel story thought appropriate name Any
establish both the original form of the
and
also its appropriateness there.
for an Israelite in
a
late
and popular book
like
Esther might be
expected to occur as the name of a personage mentioned in the Gospels ^. Jairus (Mk v 22, Lk viii 41 ) should therefore have been
But the name only occurs in the nominative, 1*X^ in the Syriac. and the translator seems to have thought that the final -os was part of the root, and so he turns 'Idetpos into K^'IXV ^, as if it were one It is a bad blunder, as of those Jewish names beginning with ATV. bad as turning Abaddon into 'servitude': the value of it for us is to make it unlikely that the Syriac translator of the Gospels was in touch with any real historical tradition about the names that occur in the course of the narrative. '
^
Jairus ^^'e
'
does not stand alone.
may also record BJ ii 19.
It
would, indeed, be unfair to lay
the existence of Eleazar
b.
Jair
('leipoii),
mentioned by
.fosephus 2
Written T.^icu Lk
viii
41 in S, a spelling also found in Gwilliam's 36 (Mk).
PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY
8
much
very
(Lk
stress
on certain Names
31 S P), where, no doubt,
iii
nni^£5
in the Genealogies, such as XfllOD S.
Luke's MaTraOd was meant for
In some of these obscure names the irregular spelling of the
.
due to a know-
Syriac, particularly as preserved in S, appears to be
ledge that the Greek spelling itself was quite irregular
JCAa and A=3a^
Lk
in
iii
82 S
for
while S has
course of Abia'' in
Lk
i
5
is
D^^N
in
agreement with the Old Latin we are dealing with trans-
In such cases as these
and at the same time the an authority for the spelling of the
rather than identifications,
literations
for the nonce
Syriac becomes Greek word from which
More
*
agreement with the Greek and with
spelt N^lIlX in the Peshitta, in 1 Chr xxiv 10, MSS. e and I*.
instances are
Boaz and Obed, corresponding,
The
no doubt, to Booc and IooBhA.
:
it
is
derived.
V'H^ for NaCv (Lk vii 11) and S (Matt), pDn:i P (Matt, Mk), for reear^fiavei xiv 32) ^ Whatever view may be held about the
significant than these are
«:ilbDn:i
S (Mk),
^iaOi:;
(Matt xxvi 36, Mk original meaning and spelling of these obscure names, it is clear that the Syriac translator had no private information, and that he guessed, and guessed badly, from the Greek letters in his exemplar. Nain ', if it be connected with the place quoted in Nenhauer 188, ought to have an ^ain in it (D*S?i), and the latter part of Gethsemane is connected with the Hebrew for oil, and should have a tJ^, not a D '
'
{see
Dalman
152).
'
Gennesaret
""
or *Gennesar', again,
'
is
"IDJJ in
theTalmudic form is *nDiyjl, and it is natural to suppose that the Syriac translator had derived his spelling of the name from
Syriac if
:
living tradition
Of
it
names
the
(2 Cor xi 32)
is
would have included a o between the n and the iu
the Acts and Epistles,
a very poor transliteration
^.
s.
Qoa.j^'ir<' for 'ApeVas
The name
of the
Ethnarch must have been nn^lH, later spelt in Syriac AxircU* (Wright, CBM 704 b), corresponding to the well-known Arabic names Haritha or el-Hdrith. In Acts ix 35 it is odd to find XJ11D put for Tov ^ap&va (instead of N311K^), side by side with 117 for 'Ptolemais' becomes "ID^ and 'Joppa' NSV, but 'Tarsus' Ai;88a. is merely transliterated D1D"lD possibly the pride of Roman citizen:
ship had
name
its
made Tarsus T'lD
on
its
it had spelt 'Gaza' (XTJ) and 'Azotus' (DItDlTX)
forget that in the Persian period
coins.
have Greek, not Semitic, forms of their names. I
have
left
interesting
out of consideration hitherto a number of the most
and controversial proper names
*
The
oldest transmitted pronuuciation
^
'Hie
Armenian of Ephraim'°° has
is
in the Syriac
New Testa-
Gadscman (see Gwilliam, p. 171, note). no sign of an initial guttural.
Aret, with
2
NEW TESTAMENT NAMES
SYRIAC FORMS OF
9
ment, because we ought to examine them with reasonable ideas of the kind of rules or information from which the Syriac translator worked.
So
far as
we have gone,
I
venture to think we have found nothing
The
pointing to a special or extraordinary knowledge.
translator
Old Testament in Syriac, and he has a good knowledge of ordinary geography, which he shews by giving the native names of the coast towns. But he does not always recognize Semitic names in their Greek dress, and there is no sign that he is specially familiar with the towns of Judaea or Galilee, or with the forms of Jewish names apart from those in the Old Testament. I begin with the name Caiaphas, about the spelling of which the 'authority of the Syriac' has frequently been invoked^. This familiar with the
is
name
spelt
is
Josephus {Ant.
KaiacJjac
in
xviii 2),
but
Syriac has ^{S^'P, and this
most Greek MSS.
D is
in
agreement with
and the Latins have
KAi(t)Ac.
The
often supposed to be a definite pro-
nouncement in favom" of the first over the second Greek reading. it is, of course, an indication of the way the Syriac I doubt this translator thought the word was spelt in Palestinian Aramaic, but I do not think it gives us any information of the way the word was spelt in the Greek MS. from which the Syriac was translated. The Syriac translator thought Bridcraibd (or Brjda-aLhdv) meant Fisherman's Town Avell and good. But if he turns Br^Ocraibd into Beth Sayyaddy :
'
'
:
as he does,
it
is
fairly obvious that
his
Kayydpha may stand
for
Kat(^as as Avell as Katd'/m?.
A somewhat
similar conclusion appears to
me
to be indicated in
the case of Bethabara and the Gergesenes, a couple of names which are very important in this connexion, as the forms found in the Old Syriac
MSS. have been supposed to demonstrate that the Old Syriac Version itself was made later than Origen and under the influence of his exegesis
name
'
^.
the people
name
been supposed that Origen himself introduced the
It has
Gergesenes
'
(for
Gadarenes or Gerasenes) as the name of the Demoniac was healed, and also the
among whom
Bethany beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing. Consequently, when we find X*D)l1i in Mk v 1 S and N"1^y n^i in Joh i 28 S C, it is a plausible inference that the Old Syriac reading is founded upon Origen's conjectures ^. '
Bethabara
^
See
*
The substance
e. g.
'
for
Ency. Bihl. 172, note 1. of the following discussion on these words
is
taken from the
present writei-'s article in the American Journal of Biblical Literature xxvii 128-133, called ' Gergesa a Reply '.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
may
be convenient to indicate here some textual facts which are assumed in the following discussion. (1) On general grounds there can be little doubt *
v
It
pâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;
PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY
10
seemed at
It
Mk
first
name
a confirmation of this theory that the
V 1 was written in Syriac with a D, not with a
in
Origen had
tJ^.
not only expressed his opinion that the name of the city near which the swine had rushed into the sea was Gergesa, rather than Gadara
he went on to identify the people with the Girgashites of Gen XV 21. Mr. Raymond Clapp, to whom is due the credit of having called attention to the great importance of these names for our estior Gerasa
:
mate of the date of the Old Syriac Version^, concludes that S^^DJIX Mk v 1, is a simple transcript of a Greek MS. which read Fepyearivm; a reading which was itself the result of A little consideration will, however, shew that Origen's conjecture.
the reading of S in
the Syriac form suggests the opposite conclusion, tells
us
is
viz.
that
that
all
it
that the translator identified 'the countr}' of the [Gerasenes]'
For, strange to say, the Old with 'the land of the Girgashites'. Testament Peshitta, in Gen xv 21 and elsewhere, represents the Hebrew ^K^i'nin by ^<^D1J^^i. The reason for this is quite obscure, just as it is quite obscure
why the
Plain of Shinar ("iV^^) should be turned in the
The
Peshitta into ^i^JD.
Sinai Palimpsest, therefore, intends us to
Mk
understand 'Girgashites' in
nounced Gargosaye
With word
is
regard to
'
Bethabara'
in
written r<'vi^ h\i:s in
not legible in
S,
v
1,
and the word should be pro-
^.
Joh
C
28 the case
i
is
similar.
with the plural points
The
they are
;
but whether they are really absent or merely C shews that the word was regarded
illegible in S their presence in
as plural,
and therefore
as a significant appellation (like
'
Overstrand')
the genuine reading of the Greek is is right, viz. Gadarenes in Matt, but ' Gerasenes in Mk and Lk. (2) In the Syriac, P has Gadarenes everywhere C has Gadarenes in Lk (the only place where it is extant) S has ' Gadarenes in Matt and Lk, but in Mk ' the district {x^i^a) of the G.' is rendered 'the land of the X''DJ"lJ'. (3) The rendering of the Diatessaron is not known from any early authority naturally Ciasca's Arabic implies ' Gadarenes', the reading of P. (4) Syriac Versions appear to have had some Abimelech of Gerar becomes tendency to introduce the name Gadarene Abimelech of i:i^^(Gen xx), and the Hagarenes of Ps Ixxxiii 6 become rtflÂťl."l^^ that Hort's conclusion
'
'
'
'
'
'
;
'
'
;
:
:
These Gadarenes also meet us in 1 Chr xxvii 28 P. (5) ' Gadarenes in Matt viii 28 S is simply a con*ect rendering of the Greek, and needs no further explanation ; ' Gadarenes in Lk viii 26, 37 S C' may be a harmonization with Matt, or (more likely) an assimilation to the Diatessaron. It is the reading in Mk vis, which has escaped harmonization, that needs explaining. '
'
* Journal See also Baethgen's Evangelienof Biblical Literature xxvi 02-83. fragmente (1885), p. 83. ' The dropping of the O in f<lÂŤ.iaa^^^^presents no difficulty in the case of
For parallels, see Evangelion da-Mepharreshe a MS. like S. Matt viii 28 in the margin of the Harclean Version.
ii
40
:
see also
NEW TESTAMENT NAMES
SYRIAC FORMS OF
11
and not as a transliteration of a Greek word. In this interpretation the Syriac differs from Origen, who thought that BrjOajSapa meant o1ko9 Karaa-Kfvijs (i.e. X'^lpH n^^, from X"!^, to create!)^, while the Syriac connects
We the
find, then,
Girgashites
'
'
it
with irepav tov ^lopbdvov.
that the Syriac agrees with Origen in thinking of
may be
spelt in
who owned the Herd
as the people
also in identifying the place
A couple
Greek BrjOa^apa.
to go on and ask whether there these
of identifications such as
made independently, but we have
these can hardly have been
view, that
of Swine, and
where John baptized with a spot which
any
is
common
justification for the
made
identifications were
further
by
for the first time
Origen. Origen*'s
are found,
partly
Commentary on is
much
S.
John, in which these identifications
a bulky work, composed partly at Alexandria, and
later at Caesarea.
In the former books, so far as they
survive, the geographical interest
absent, though there are several
is
about the Hebrew meanings of
pieces of Origen's characteristic lore
New Testament names 2.
But from Book
vi
onward,
i.e. in
the part
Mritten at Caesarea, Origen airs his knowledge of Palestine, and
is
quite ready to change the transmitted text of Scripture accordingly.
What
has happened in the interval
We could almost
?
have guessed,
even apart from our author's express statement, for we have it in
our friends and contemporaries.
all
seen
Origen has been on a Pilgrimage
through the Holy Land, and he no longer needs information about
them for himself ? as same time, I pointed out in the Paper already referred At the to, Origen does not himself claim to have discovered 'Bethabara' or Gergesa \ What he tells us is that * they say that Bethabara (ja Brjda^apa) is shewn by the gorge of the Jordan, where they declare Further on he mentions that John baptized (Orig. in Joan, vi 40). Gergesa, from which come the Girgashites (01 Fepyeo-aioi), an ancient city by what is now called the Lake of Tiberias, by which is a steep place close to the Lake, from which it is shewn that the Swine were the
sites,
for has he not seen
'
'
'
cast
down by the demons
'
(Ibid, vi 41).
This
is
what he learnt when
he went on his pilgrimage, and in accordance with his geographical information he points out that Bethany is not beyond Jordan, and that neither Gerasa nor Gadara
The
is
situated on the Sea of Galilee.
step that Origen took was to
emend the Greek
Gospels in accordance with the local identifications. '
2
See Isaiah xl 28, xliii 7 E.g. ii ^^ {Brooke 99). I
;
text of the
This
also Bij^e/Stppa olnos KaraaKtvqi
OS
is
2OI55.
some-
PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY
12
thing more than the translator of the Syriac Version can be proved His general aim was to find the proper Aramaic to have done. equivalent of the names, not to
tell
represented the Aramaic names.
Evangelist wrote 'Upoa-oXvixa or
us with what letters the Greeks
He
does not care whether the
'Upova-aXrifi
:
the place meant
No
is
what
countrymen called Urishlem, and is implied in Acts xxi 7, where for KarrjvTria-aixev eh nroAe/xat8a the Syriac has we came to Acre \ And if our translator was persuaded that the x^P" ^wy Tepaarfvwv was the land of the Girgashites he writes
his
it
so.
various
reading
'
do not think he would scruple to write it so. The view I am here advancing is that the agreement of the Old Syriac with Origen about the place-names Bethabara and Girgashites or Gergesenes comes not from the Old Syriac following Origen, but
I
from both the Old Syriac and Origen following local identifications. I venture to think I have proved this conclusion not to be excluded I have now to try and shew that it is not too by the evidence.
and improbable a theory to be
artificial
In the
first place, it
seems to
me
fair to
believed.
urge that any theory which
makes the Old Syriac Version dependent upon Origen is in itself Apart from the evidence afforded, or seemed to be improbable.
by these few place-names, the latest date assigned to the Old Syriac Version, as it stands in the Sinai Palimpsest, is about A. D. 200, more than a generation before Origen's commentary was
afforded,
In style, in manner, in tone,
written.
it
is
idiomatically Semitic,
removed both from Origen's textual accuracy and his fanciful Further, the agreement with Origen is confined to allegorizing. geographical identifications; when it comes to the etymology of and
far
Semitic names there
is
a great difference.
and
Origen was not really
his ear for Semitic sounds seems to have
a profound linguist, been no better than that of most European tourists. The Syriac translator on the other hand was thoroughly skilled in Aramaic, his native language, and he discriminated between sounds which Origen confused. Palestinian Aramaic is, of course, different from the Syriac of Edessa, and the transcription of sounds in any language is a delicate matter, but the two dialects have the same gutturals and the same
and to a Semite they are not easily interchanged. of Origen and the Syriac is best represented by a Table the right-hand column gives the transmitted Syriac text, while the middle column gives Origen's etymologies together with a conjectural restoration of the Semitic words intended by him.
sibilants,
The independence :
NEW TESTAMENT NAMES
SYRIAC FORMS OF Bethabara
Origen.
St/riac.
oIkos KaTaaKevijs (vi 40)
Nlli? D^i
Bethania
oIkos viraKoris (vi 40)
Bethpliage
N^^i? Jl^^
(nayovojv (x 30)
oIko!,'
Jordan
Kard^aaL's avrutv
(vi
t^^S
{Brooke, Fr. 76)
6<^0aA)ix6s ^ao-dvoi;
pÂŤ Salim
no
pj;
suffix)
[1i ]^V
(S)
j^i?
(C)
JV
avTos 6 ava^aivoiv (Ibid.)
rhv
H^^
pi*lV
42) (i.e.
Acnon
13
DvtJ^
^ (?)
are themselves in sad need of elucidation.
Origen''s explanations
Either he misheard certain Aramaic names, or he only heard them
from Greek-speaking persons, and himself gave them his fantastic
But
meanings.
if
Origen were an authority at
translator, 1 cannot see
why he should be
all
for the Syriac
trusted for place-identifi-
cations and deserted for derivations. Origen''s derivation for is
especially interesting, for it
is
definitely
Aramaic, yet
Bethphage
it is
different
from that adopted by the Syriac Version.
The
general
to
some
excite
inference
draw
I
of place-names in
identification
among
interest
mainly a Greek-speaking
body,
is
the
that by
time
Origen''s
the
had already begun
Gospels
Palestinian Christians, themselves
not scientifically trained in the
At any rate, I Aramaic pronunciation or grammar. venture to claim that the theory which makes the Syriac Versions depend upon Origen breaks down under investigation, and with it the theory that these Versions in any surviving form are later than niceties of
Origen breaks down
The name
also.
of Bethpliage, as already remarked,
rd^^ ^xs
the same as in the Talmud,
of Unripe Figs', and this aiayovoyv
us
it
(i.e.
r<^^ iuia
in the
in Greek, so
Onomastka)
Semitic sounds. little dispute,
a known
is
in
spelt in the Syriac
Aramaic the Place '
a far more likely derivation than oikos
'Place of Cheeks'), which
is
what Origen
But Origen does not propose to change the
means.
B-qd(t)ayi'i
is
means
most
upon a mere error of the ear for Bethphage there can be may be difficult to locate. It was
identification of
though the exact site and Origen tells us it was a
place,
spelling of
likely his fantastic explanation (repeated
rests ultimately
About the
tells
t6t:o's te,vart/<os,
which looks
.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY
14 as
if
he was really indebted to Jewish lore for his information, as the Bethphage in the Talmud are connected with the virtual
notices of
inclusion of the place in the
The
identification of
Holy City
Bethany
is
for certain purposes
less certain,
^.
and therefore there
is
more doubt about the right pronunciation of the word. The Syriac has X*jy n^i, and this spelling also appears to underlie Origen's oTko? vTTaKorjs. On the other hand, no place of this name is mentioned by is mention of a place called ^^n H^i Bethany \ The question is complicated which may be near the site of by the gloss ^^^avla' oikoj So'^tj? {OS ITS-^, 182^4, I887J, which
Jewish authorities, while there '
seems to indicate that a Christian tradition once existed that equated
Bethany with [Dj'ilK H^l, another spelling of ^^n H^l
'โ ข
do not think we are in a position to solve the question. Bethany if it really was was, no doubt, a small and unimportant hamlet was destroyed three is that it about it Beth Hini, then what we know likely all local most years before Jerusalem was taken by Titus ^ and I
:
knowledge of the place disappeared. When in the fourth century the victorious Christians built a great church over the reputed grave of
name Bethany, having no real root in the soil, withered The Lady Etheria, in the fifth century, knows of Bethania
Lazarus, the
away.
from her Bible, but on the spot she
and El-'Azarlyeh that the
it is
finds the place called
called to this day.
I
Lazarium,
venture to think, therefore,
Christian archaeologists had nothing to go on but the
first
letters of BhS-ania.
It
is
hardly surprising that, with the analogy of
Anathoth to help them, they should have thought that an represented yi rather than ^n. And, after all, they may be right in not connecting the New Testament Br]davia with the Talmudic Beth-Hini. If the writer of the Second Gospel was really a Jerusalemite he must have known the true pronunciation of the name. not explain to us the initial consonant of ania be
X
or
n
or
n
or
5?.
following vowel really
have been
if
*i^n
But the Gospel was a and not '
H^l was
'
is ' i '
Greek writing does :
it
may
equally well
good evidence that the or ai ', as it ought to '
In short, the evidence suggests
intended.
that the Syriac translator and the earliest Christian identificators (represented by the Onomustka) had no real traditional evidence to go
upon
;
at the
same time
it is
pronunciation they suggest ^
^
'
is
equally insufficient to prove that the
wrong ^.
See the discussion iu Neubauer 147
ft'.
For ""ilK nn see Tosifta, Shebiith ยง 7 Baba Mezia 88 a. Dalman 143 suggests that the name of ;
for B6^a
=
^3NT IT'a
was originally nj3n n'3
D^JIN see Isaiah xl 20.
SYRIAC FORMS OF The
NEW TESTAMENT NAMES
spelling of four other place-names in the Syriac Gospels raise
These are Gennesareth, Nazarethy
considerations of general interest.
Cana of
Galilee
Gennesareth
name
15
is
and Bethesda. a fertile district in Galilee that sometimes gives
to the Sea of Tiberias.
and
vTqaapiO,
It
but our Syriac
Tivvr]ijap,
has -eth or
-et
Our Jewish
at the end of the word
have *lDii without true Old Latin MS.
texts
No
variation, vocalized Genesar in the Peshitta.
its
Yn-
variously spelt revvqaapir^
is
^.
authorities give us "iDl^i in the
Talmud, "iDOi
the
in
Targums^, while Josephus and
1
The
vindicated as correct for an Aramaic
Syriac spelling, therefore,
is
Maccabees
But when we ask what
document.
(xi
67) have
Tevvrjcrdp.
the genuine spelling in the
is
Gennesaret is so familiar Greek Gospels, the answer is not so easy. a word to us, that we realize with difficulty that it is confined to the non-western text of the Synoptic Gospels. For that very reason it is probably genuine there. The odd thing about the matter is that it is the Western authorities, including the Old Latin, that present the spelling which seems to be influenced either by local knowledge It looks as if the longer form had or knowledge of Josephus. altogether disappeared for a time from the text of the Gospels and '
'
then been reintroduced, possibly by Origen.
would
It
satisfy
the general literary conditions
Mark
that Gennesar^^ belonged originally to
belonging to the Evangelist
who owes
alone
if
we supposed
— a peculiar
form
On
least to literary tradition.
Gennesar
by Harmonistic the more literary Evangelists Luke and Matthew. corruption would then cause the rarer form Gennesaret to drop out of Mark, while at a later date it was re-introduced into the Greek But I cannot say that the textual evidence text of all three Gospels. at all points directly to the longer form being more characteristic of Dalmanutha"* (Mk viii 10) is Mark than of the other Evangelists. not a real parallel, for that word never found any acceptance in the other Gospels. A nearer parallel may possibly be found in Nazareth \ this hypothesis Mark''s
'
Gennesaret
'
was changed to
'
'
"*
'
'
'
The name Nazareth problem.
is
connected with more than one insoluble
In the Greek Gospels the name
sometimes Na^apeV, while in Matt *
Mkvi53«
The et »* e< ^
.
.
is
is
not really an exception
wanted to begin
iv 13,
:
it lias
ver. 54, so that the
is
spelt sometimes Na^ape'^,
Lk
iv
6 we find Na^apd in
gennezalretcumexis|sentdenaiiii.
archetype must have read Gennezur
.
Corresponding to the Biblical n"l33, e.g.
Num
xxxiv 11, Jos
xiii 27.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY
16
the best authorities, both Greek and Latin.
Neither of these verses
taken from Mark, while they are historically parallel to one another. It is, therefore, a legitimate inference that the statement of our is
Lord's settlement at this town was taken by Matthew and by Luke from Q, the non-Markan source, that the name of the town Avas given in Q,
and that
(or Nazareth)
The
it w^as
We
there spelt NaCapd.
Mark and Nazara
for
Syriac texts, without exception, have
The
in the Peshitta.
have, then, Nazaret
for Q.
adjectives, ^aCapi]v6i
H^XJ, vocalized Ndsrath and NaCwpatos, are ren-
dered by S^l^i. In accordance with this identification, the accepted site of 'Nazareth' is called y=LJl to-day, and the Moslems call a Christian Nasraru
(pi.
Nasara).
Nevertheless, there are difficulties in this identification.
and gravest
is
the z in
'
Nazarene
'.
The
fact
is,
The
first
that in hardly any
We
other instance does Greek C stand for Semitic ^ ^ tomed to the representation of If by z in English, because
are accus-
it is
done
in
But this z is really the Authorized Version of the Old Testament. * made in Germany"': it is the German j, to be pronounced like ts, and
it
was
first
used by the
German Reuchlin,
the friend of Erasmus,
to imitate the sound which his Jewish teachers used. Before Reuchlin's time the universal transliteration of IC was simple -y, both in Greek a,nd in Latin.
The
difference between the ancient
and the Renaissance
system is best illustrated to English people by the name of the city of David, which is ' Zion in the Old Testament, but ' Sion in the New Testament and in the Prayer Book. Now whether we accept the '
'
form Na(a/jeT or Na^apa, the second consonant of the Semitic equivalent ought to be zain (T) not mde (^f). Or putting it the other way, if the name of the town were ni2fi, or if the Jews were right in calling Christians DHVi^ (Taan. 276), then the name of the town should have been written
ISlaaapeT or Nao-o/oa.
It should not
be forgotten that
our Greek Gospels are some two generations earlier than any surviving monument of Semitic Christianity. According to the Acts, Christians Avere once called
and we know was called by
members of the sect of the Nazoraeans {to)v
NaC^paLoov),
that in later times a Semitic-sj)eaking sect of Christians this
name.
Unfortunately we do not know
how
these
persons wrote their name in their own Aramaic vernacular. The Talmudic passage quoted above (Gemara of R. Johanan) is later than Tertullian's reference to Jews calling the Old Syriac Version. Christians Nazaraei or Nazareni is coimected by that Father with
Lam
iv
7 and the Nazirites, '
i.e.
with the D^'l^W.
See Appendix III for details.
^
NEW TESTAMENT NAMES
SYRIAC FORMS OF But,
may be
it
said, at
any rate there
Here comes ment that 'no such town is
that spelt
?
in the
The
fact
is,
;
how
importance of Dr. Cheyne's state-
as Nazareth
Testament, in Josephus, or in
the town Nazareth
is
IT
is
Talmud' {Ency.
the
in
the Old
Bibl.
3360)
mentioned
that the identification of the Gospel '^a^apir or ^aCapa
HIVJ
with a place spelt
stands on the same footing as the equation
of Bethany with Bethabara, or Gerasenes with Girgashites.
It
is
a piece of early Christian archaeology, rather than of primitive tradition.
An
attempt has been made to regard Nazara or Nazareth as
a name for Galilee, but evidence,
and
Nazareth as a town (Matt told us
is
that
seems to be destitute of any ancient
it
certainly contradicts the Gospels, which speak of
it
it
23,
ii
Lk
iv 29).
was situated on a
hill
The one thing
(Lk
iv 29),
which
that is
is
true
you leave out of consideration the narrative of the address at the opening of the Ministry in the Synagogue at 'Nazara', a narrative peculiar to S. Luke, and apparently composed by him out of Mk vi 1-5 together with some very probably genuine sayings of our Lord which he took from another source, there is nothing whatever in the New Testament to of 'half the villages of Palestine.
If
beyond the mere letters of its name. There are, it must be noticed, two passages where the name of Nazareth might have been expected, where nevertheless it does not occur. The first is Mk vi 1-6, which relates the unsuccessful ministry of Jesus in His own country {ds ti]v TraTpCba avrov). No further name is mentioned, though we hear of the Synagogue, and of the villages round about. The other is Lk x 13-15 = Matt xi 20-24, i.e. the 'woes' on Chorazin, Bethsaidan and Kapharnaum. Of these
individualize Nazareth at all
""
'
Kapharnaum
places,
is
the actual centre of the Galilean preaching,
Bethsaidan (said in the Fourth Gospel to be the town of Andrew and Peter)
is
the place of refuge just outside the domains of Herod
Antipas, and wonderful deeds are actually recorded that took place in its
immediate neighbourhood.
But nothing
is
recorded in the
Gospels about work or preaching in Chorazin, while the Jesus by His fellow-townsmen would have
No
appropriate in this passage.
i*ejection
made 'Nazareth'
of
quite
place in Galilee, indeed, would be so
appropriate.
With some ^
Nazareth ', *
The
Josh xix
misgivings,
like that
nearest thing 15.
is
of
'
I
venture
Dalmanutha
to '
and 'Boanerges',
Beth Lehem Serieh (n*nir Dnb n'n)
See Xeuhauer 190
f.
name may have
that the
suggest
iu Meyil/a
i
1,
on
,
PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMV
18
arisen from a literary error.
I
mean
that we ought to consider
this,
the possibility that the city of Joseph and Mary, the iraTpis of Jesus,
was Chorazin.
do not suppose the adjective Nazarene to have been originally This adjective, in the two forms NaCapTjzdy derived from Chorazin, (Mk) and NaCwpaios (Matt, Joh, Acts Lk having both), is better '
I
'
;
name of the town from which
attested than the derived.
It
Nazarene \ or
'
the term.
is
case,
It
but the
it
commonly
is
not to think that Jesus was called 'the
difficult
is
the Nazoraean
what
' :
is
doubtful
the meaning of
is
not easy to understand the form Na^copaios in any
difficulty
is
greater
we have to make
if
an adjective
it
denoting an inhabitant of Nazara or Nazareth, After considering the matter from various points of view, to me most probable that the word
the
vow of the
Of
Nazirites,
is
really connected with
it
seems
"I^T^
and
course Jesus was not a legal Nazirite,
whatever John the Baptist may have been, for He drank wine. That He did not scruple to touch an apparently dead body proves nothing, for the daughter of Jairus came to life again. Moreover the saying
'
Let the dead bury their dead
'
actually expresses
an
integral part of the Nazirite's enforced freedom from certain social Is it not possible that 'Nazoraean' was a nickname.^ might conceivably mean 'this odd sort of Nazarite' one who calls for I'epentance, and yet eats and drinks like other folk (Matt xi 19, Lk vii 34). The true origin of nicknames is easily lost, and it may have been supposed that the name referred to some place in
obligations.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
It
Galilee,
It
should
noticed that
be
most of the consonants of
XopAzeiN i-eappear in reverse order in NAZApeG. It is
a desperate conjecture, and
I
would not make
that the ordinary view of Nazareth seems to
And
unsatisfactory.
of the ordinary view Versions,
is
Galilee
that part of is
made
There
is
not
it
which
is
attested by the Syriac
to represent a Semitic X.
But
no variation
treated by the Evangelist 1
it
in the Syriac it
becomes fr^iVn
this in the constant tradition of the Syriac Vulgate is vocalized
Kdtne^.
'^
were
mentioned four times in the Fourth GospeP, and
is
has been variously identified.
and
it,
wholly unproved and
the most unproved and least satisfactory part
whereby the z
Cana of
me
Joh This
ii
1, 11
is
;
iv
46; xxi
in the
Greek, which
fem. sing,
(ets
tt]v
is,
moreover,
Kaya, Joh iv 46).
2.
would have if it were the emphatic plural of a and accordingly some MSS. of the Peshitta spell it kIJlj^
the vocalization
participle active,
as
with the plural points.
it
:
SYRIAC FORMS OF
NEW TESTAMENT NAMES
19
This change ofKava into Kdfne cannot be explained on palaeographical or linguistic grounds
and Acre, and
:
the words are really as distinct as Ptolemais
think we must infer that the Syriac word represents
I
a deliberate geographical identification.
Unfortunately, neither this identification nor the ordinary one can
be made out with certainty.
bridegroom at \
*
The marriage-throne
of the bride and
Cana \ three miles from Diocaesarea, on which
in
the
ear 570 or thereabouts Antoninus of Placentia scratched his family
disappeared, and the Syriac Kdfnc is almost equally hard Katana near Damascus is too far away, and possibly the place meant is H^^HtOpj the Biblical Kattath {Neubmier 189). But
name ^, has
to find.
this hardly explains the
We
vocalization.
are not, however, directly concerned with the actual
important thing the
odd
our investigation
in
name of Cana '
Such an
in Syriac suggests a geographical identification.
and we must
in Edessa,
The
of Galilee ^ as wTitten in Greek and as represented
tion could hardly have been
home
site.
that the variation between
is
made by a
identifica-
Christian scholar staying at
infer that the translator himself, or the
source from which he derived his geographical theories, must have
been a Palestine Pilgrim.
Round
the
name
many controversies have raged, both The latest and certainly one of the
of Bethesda
topographical and textual.
most interesting studies of the questions regarding
it
Dr. Rendel Harris in his book called Side-Lights on
ment Research, pp. 36-51 and 70-76 ^. touch upon all the points raised, except
in so far as they relate to
the subject immediately before us, which Syriac Biblical
there
is
name.
The
tradition.
a doubt concerning the
As
the
for
site,
'
Testa-
not attempt to
shall
I
that bv
is
New
the
is
Bethesda
'
'
authority
question
is
'
of the
twofold
and a doubt concerning the
site,
excavations near the church of S.
Anne
the north-east corner of Jerusalem, not far from where our topo-
in
graphical authorities place the Sheep-gate mentioned by Nehemiah,
have brought to light the Pool which
in
the early days of Christian
archaeology was identified with the Trpo/iartK^
Joh V 2 and
in
in the Onomast'ica.
by the Bordeaux Pilgrim satisfies
It
in a. d. 333,
the data very well.
But
KoAv/i/3?/^pa
mentioned
was this Pool that was seen
and
in certain other
this Pool
is
in
ways
it
the quarter of
Jerusalem called Bezetha by Josephus, and as several very ancient ^
Itinera Sancta IGl
meorum ^
:
in ipso accubitu,
scripsi.
Angus Lectures
for 1908.
ubi ego indiguus iioniina
parentum
PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY
20
name
authorities spell the it is
almost an
the true reading.
is
Bezetha
Josephus
in
in the
Gospel Bi](a9d instead of Bethesda,
that B)](a6d (or something like it) There is some doubt about the spelling of a more accurate expression, therefore, for our
irresistible inference
:
conclusion will be that Josephus and the Evangelist intend to give
the same name.
The most
puzzling part of the evidence
is
that Josephus seems
to tell us that Bezetha
means Kainopolis or New Town
really quite impossible.
The
best attested spelling
is
This
^.
is
Now
BeC^dd.
C between two vowels must stand for Semitic ^am, and there
is no z we try Hebrew or Aramaic. Beth Ha{d)tha has been suggested, but this does not mean New Town It does not even mean New House or The New House if it means anything it means 'The House of the New Man'. Beth^ literally House ', is used in the construct state before nouns to mean 'The Place of, as in Beth Phagge, i.e. 'The Place of Unripe Figs'. But it is not so used before ordinary adjectives. Neither in Aramaic nor in English is New House synonymous with New Town. And when we come to the actual words of Josephus we find that he does not quite say that the Greek for Ber:etha is Kawij ttoAi?. He says,
'New'
in
or 'Town', whether
'
'
'.
'
'
"
;
'
BJv 4, 2 {Nicse v
151):
viight translate
BJ n
In '
it so,
Kakovixeiov
{ti']v
'
B^^tdd to vf-OKTicnov av
X^yoLT
Kaivi]
ttoAis,
i.
fj-epos,
you
e.
but perhaps another phrase would be better.
between 'Bezetha' and his
19, 4 he seems to distinguish
Kainopolis
re B. npoaayop^vofj.ivqv kqI tijv
KaLvoTroXtv koI to
Aok&v dyopdv).
Professor
Mace
(KXrjdr] b' eTrtx^^ptcos
'EXkdbt yXcoaar]
b ix^OepixiiVivofxevov
Dalman {Gram.,
p.
115) connects the name with Brj^iO
Brj^^ai^, Begeth, and Bethzecha, and he supposes the name to mean 'Place of Olives' (5<n*T iV^). But it seems to me, on the whole, best to take a hint from a previous
(1
sentence
vii 19),
to
a place also spelt
T^TapTov Trji
is
hills
Xvcfiov OS
TTipioiKTjOfjvai
cnroTepivvpLivos
'AvTOivias
which
from
the above-quoted passage
Josephus says, describing the
the
by a deep moat
not possible that Be^edd or Bri(a6d stands for
But does not
'
BJ
-
There was a great
ii
19, 4
his victims.
;
5J V
4,
2
KJiyD
(=
pit or
'.
(BaOe'i, 'a fourth crest Antonia and ctit off from
it
bits cut off", or possibly
War
6pvyp.aTi
it
^.
Jewish
KaAeirat Be^edd, KeCp^evos p-lv dvTLKpv be
called Bezetha, situated opposite '
'
of Jerusalem {Ibid. = Niese v 149):
this suggest
'the bit cut off"
a derivation
NnVD,
i.e.
.'*
Is
'the
?
Niese v 151).
tank
((ppeap) iu
'
Bezeth', where Bacchides flung
NEW TESTAMENT NAMES
SYRIAC FORMS OF
21
But whether we take this, or regard Bezeth as the old name of an now become part of the town, or suppose that the name means 'Place of Olives', we do not in any case come to Bethesda. This, the most familiar form of the name to us, is with one significant exception not supported in any of the authorities by which modern critical editors are generally influenced. It is not in the Onomastica, which have Br^^aOd in Greek and Bethsaida in Latin. outlying village,
It
is
not in
B (B??^(Tat8a),
in ^{ (Bi;^^a^a), in
D (BeA^e^a), in the genuine
Old Latin (Bezatha, Betzata, Belzatha, Betzetha\ or the Vulgate {Bethsaida). The Egyptian versions, also, with the text of the Harclean and the Ethiopic, have 'Bethsaida', spelt like the 'city of Andrew and Peter The supporters of Brj^eo-ga are the vast majority of Greek MSS. (including, of course, A and C), the Gothicizing revised Latin texts y and 5', and all the Syriac versions, except the text of the Harclean. It is also in the Armenian, where the spelling {Beth Jiezda) makes it '.
pretty certain that
For Bethesda '
'
has been derived from a Syriac source.
it
and the authority of
are the Byzantine tradition
'
the Syriac'; against 'Bethesda' are the ancient Versions (except the
and the most ancient and trusted Greek MSS. Such a division of the evidence is not only unfavourable to Bethesda makes it very likely that the Old Syriac Version, which is the one
Syriac), local tradition,
;
it
really ancient authority that supports this reading,
of
it.
case
We
is
also the source
are dealing with probabilities, and by the nature of the
we cannot hope
to do
more than frame a hypothesis, which
will
cover the facts of the case and be consistent with the phenomena
of other various readings and unlikely forms of Proper Names. hypothesis,
Evangelist
then, ;
BtjSCo^a, &c.,
translator,
is
that Brj^a^a was
that this
and
the
form
Avritten
became extensively corrupted to
also widely assimilated to
'
My
by the B?j^ga0a,
The Syriac forms may have been
Bethsaida '.
on the other hand, whatever of these
House of Mercy was not far off, and The Martyr Lucian, or whoever else is the real Antiochian-Byzantine text ^, may very likely have
before his eyes, thought that
'
'
so wrote Beth Hesda. foster-father of the
had 'Bethsaida'
in the text that lay before
him
:
this
was a manifest
geographical blunder and needed correction, and the correction that
was chosen was derived from the Syriac tradition. The whole question is, in certain ways, parallel to the question of ' Nazareth In both cases we have a current tradition now in vogue '.
about the names, a tradition which *
The
is
unsatisfactory in the light
text called AT by von Sodeii.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY
22
In the case of Nazareth
of the earliest evidence.
of a
site, in
cases
by
the case of Bethesda
it is
it is
the selection
the form of a name.
In both
far the oldest witness to the unsatisfactory current tradition
I do not believe these Syriac is the ancient Syriac Version. names have any more authority than Joarash for Jairus, or Katne for Cana the only difference is that the former pair found favour at the end of the fourth century among the Greeks and the latter '
'
;
pair did not. It will be convenient to notice here certain Syriac forms of
Proper
Names that for various reasons need some elucidation. 1. The Elamites of Acts ii 9 are rendered X^J/N {Alanaye) This
is
not an irregular transliteration of
in P.
but means the 26) in connexion
'EXajmetrat,
Alans, a barbarous people mentioned by Pliny (vi
De Fato The name of
with the Kurds and by the Dialogue
(V* 3) in connexion
with the regions north of Pontus.
the Elamites was no
doubt taken by S. Luke from the Old Testament, but a Mesopotamian translator would know that they were extinct as the Druids, and so he chose a more modern name from the same sort of region an
as
In
equivalent.
exactly the
by
translates the 'Parthians' 2. Bar-Jesus,
Western
texts, so
spirit
De
Sacy''s
Arabic
Kurds.
name of the Magus
the
spelt in important
same
.sl^, i.e.
Acts
in
xiii 6,
is
variously
that the original reading
is
some-
what doubtful. In P ND"lt5^ *li {Barshuma) is given as an equivalent. The meaning of Barshuma is not known what is known is that it was an old family name in Edessa, where it appears on the pre:
(i. e. Stella, daughter of Bardo not suppose we can reconstruct the Greek word which suggested Barshuma to the Syriac translator, any more than we could recover 'EAa/^etTai from the Alans in Acts ii 9. 3. Matthias in Acts i 23, 26 is transliterated ^''T\J2 in P. So far as I know, there is no variation in the name in Greek or Latin,
Christian grave of XDIC^"!^ n^!! VS?
shuma')^.
'
I
'
except that some ancient in Syriac the case
him
*tt7in,
and
MSS. have MaOQiav
this
name
is
instead of MaTdiav.
Aphraates 150 {Demonstr.
different.
is
'
substituted for
'
Matthias' w^herever
occurs in the Syriac Version of Eusebius's History. ^
ZDMG
word
xxxvi 1G4.
in line 3, read
I
take
tliis
r^^Tur^by
It
is
may
it
evident that
opportuuity of suggesting that the
Sachau,
But
iv 6) calls
difficult
be an ill-cut r^laTut^*.
The
bath Barshuma, (2) have made for myself this tomb. (3) I beg of thee, whoever else enters (4) here, not to move my bones and the sarcophagus.' I assume tliat VJ? is the abs. state of NnVV (Job ix 9), the name of a certain Star or Constellation. first
four lines will then run
:
(1)
'
I, 'lu
NEW TESTAMENT NAMES
SYRIAC FORMS OF this
no mere palaeographical
is
error,
but that the Old Syriac Version
of the Acts must have had */b7in also. This in Josephus (Ant.
xx
Bartholomew'.
An
Samuel, but
1),
and
name
occurs as ©oAo/xatoy
of course, the second part of the
is,
name ^O^D does occur
obscure
23
name
Judges and
in
nothing more than Ptolemy in a Semitic disguise
*tt7'in is
Levy, Neti-Hebr. Diet., s. v.). Why the Old Syriac of Acts should have represented Matthias by this name cannot now be ascertained. (see
Malchus
4.
Malekti) in
(?
in
Joh
10
xviii
The word
S.
not quite certain that an
it is
rendered
is
\7^ (MdleJc)
in P,
but )j?J2
occurs in S at the end of a line, so that
D may not be
lost in the
margin
:
in
that case S would present a mere commonplace transliteration of
But
MaAxos. in P, it
more
is
name appears
as the
likely that
1^7^
is
to be treated as a Semitic one
the true reading, in which ease we
have an interesting parallel to 'Gashmu the Arabian', mentioned
Neh
in
6
vi
^.
)^/J2
(i. e.
dJL)
common Palmyrene name
a very
is
(Cook, Aramaic Glossary, p. 73, where, however, for
'
vol.
6 \ and 1^7^
Finally, as bearing
5.
vol.
7
'
a misprint
is
a woman's name).
is
of the Syriac translator,
'
it
upon the general
equipment
sociological
should be noticed that the technical Jewish
term |^*TinjD (Sanhedrm) is never used to render avvihpiov, even when In Matt x 17 S P the technical it might have been not inappropriate. Jewish term for the
foc«Z
but even
Beth-din)
^,
pn^EJ^nn
^m:^ nS^,
in
Jewish Court
Acts xxii 30 i.e.
'all
is
correctly given
the
assembly
of
(X^l
T\^^,
only rendered
-nav ro a-vvihpiov is
Heads'.
their
imagine the translator was only acquainted with the provincial
I
Phylacteries and Beth-dins he Judaism of Upper Mesopotamia. knew, but the parts of the Jewish organization that came to an end with the Destruction of Jerusalem were as unfamiliar to him as to '
'
'
'
the rest of the Gentile world. It
is
now time
observations. (1)
The
to
I shall
translator
sum up the main
results of these
attempt to do so in a
series
scattered
of propositions.
of the Syriac Version aimed at giving the
vernacular equivalent of the
New Testament Proper Names,
rather
than a transliteration of the Greek.
Examples ^
In Matt
'
No
whence '
The
dayydni
viii
doubt
:
Acre for Ptolemais, Alans for Elamites.
3 tholomeus occurs in « for Bartholomew. IDti'3
corresponds to
*-i-3-
:
it
would be interesting to know
King derived the spelling tocem'.
Syriac should be vocalized Beth dim', with Gwilliani's Mas. 3, not Beth (i. e.
'
Place of the judges
').
PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY
24
(2) Wherever possible, the forms of the Names in the Syriac New Testament are assimilated to those in the Syriac Old Testament (Peshitta), which is earlier and normative for the Syriac New
Testament.
Examples
Sehyon for Sion, Yesim for Jesus. the Old Testament failed, the Syriac
When
(3)
:
is
sometimes
demonstrably wrong.
Example
Yoarash for Jairus.
:
A connexion between
(4)
noted, but
the Syriac translator and Origen
by way of agreement
it is
in identification
to be
is
combined with
disagreement in etymology.
Examples (5)
:
Bethabara and BetJiphage.
The connexion
is
to be explained by the rise of local Palestinian
Christian traditions, fostered by the rise of Christian pilgrimage.
Examples (6)
:
'
Some Syriac
Gergesenes ' and again Bethabara. identifications never influenced non-Syriac Christian
This demonstrates the existence of a certain independence
tradition.
in the Syriac identifications.
Example
Kafne
:
for Cana.
(7) In other cases the Syriac identification
for the
modern and incorrect
and
theory,
the oldest evidence
is
some
in
cases
may have
been the parent of that theory.
Examples (8)
Now
upon Origen with
all
:
Ndsrath for Nazareth, BethJiesda for Bezatha. New Testament
that a direct dependence of the Syriac is
excluded we are free to date the work in conformity
the other indications,
century a.d.
It
is
i.
e.
in the last quarter of the
monument
thus the earliest surviving
second of the
reviving interest which Christians were beginning to take in the Places.
This lessens
its
becomes, to a certain extent, a
critic
rather than a witness.
minutely examined, the Syriac Version, even in like
all
Holy
value for textual criticism, as the translator
its
When
oldest form, shews,
other monuments of Christianity, the great chasm that
separates the second- century Christian
Church from Palestinian
before the Destruction of Jerusalem.
The only bridge
life
across this
is the Greek text of the New Testament itself. Naturally do not wish to deny the continuity of Catholicism with the first preaching of the Christian Gospel, but the continuity with the Fathers of old time to which the Catholic Church of the second century justly attached so much weight was connected with ideas
great chasm I
and not with tangible
antiquities.
to have very different notions of the
It is '
possible for theologians
deposit
"*
which Timothy was
charged so carefully to guard, but quite certainly
it
did not include
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
:
NEW TESTAMENT NAMES
SYRIAC FORMS OF
25
any theory as to the site of Nazareth. For such things we are driven back to the words of the Greek Testament, and the Semitic consonants of the Syriac Version bear witness to no geographical or linguistic tradition that goes behind this.
BURKITT.
F. C.
APPENDICES I.
The
Alphaeus, Agabus, Hebrew.
three names Alphaeus, Agabus, and Hebrew, are best treated
together in the form of a Note to Westcott and Hort's well-known Introduction § 408, a paragraph explaining and defending the smooth and rough breathings adopted by them in their edition of the Greek text of the '
They
Testament.
say
:
Hebrew
or Aramaic we
Hebrew
or Aramaic spelling, expressing
and y by the smooth breathing, and
H and Pi by the rough breathing.
have
K
New
In proper names transliterated from the .
.
.
exactly followed the
... In AAc^aros we follow the Vulgate Syriac (the Old Syriac is lost in the four places where the name occurs), which agrees with what '
the best modern authorities consider to be the Aramaic original.
We
have also in the text accepted the authority of the Syriac for
"kya^a (from ^^V): but
Hagab
existence of a 'E/3ep, 'E/3patos^
in
"Aya/3os (from
Ezr
ii
45
f.
;
^iH)
Neh
vii
is
supported by the
48.
In like manner
'E^paU, 'E^pdiari have every claim to be
indeed, the complete displacement oi Ebraeus
receive<l
and Ebrew by Hebraeus
and Hebrew is comparatively modern.' The fame of Horfs Introduction is assured, but some evil genius It must have possessed him when he compiled this paragraph. contains highly doubtful opinions stated as if they were axioms, and one or two downright blunders. As however it quite accurately represents the actual practice followed in all editions of
seems worth while to point out the I
never could understand
breathing, while
the 'rough'.
any Semitic
H and
T\
The Greek letter,
'
W.-H.",
it
facts.
why y should have
a Greek 'smooth'
are to be indiscriminately represented
by
breathings do not exactly correspond to
but they do exactly correspond
to
the. rules
PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY
^6
observed about aspirating or not aspirating the preceding consonant,
and these rules are our only
To
safe guide.
take the case of Hebrew
Here mediaeval Latin and and unfortunately there is no instance either in the Old or New Testament where E/3patos stands immediately after a mutable consonant. But Westcott and Hort appear to have forgotten all about the Gospel according to the Hebrews', to KaO' 'EfSpatovs EvayyeXiov. So far as I know, Kar English spellings
first.
us nothing at
tell
all,
'
E^paiovs never occurs: certainly Ka$' *E/3patous
MSS.
in
HE
Eusebius
This, surely,
25, 27, iv 22,
iii
and
in
the spelling of the
is
Origen in Joan,
ii
12.
decisive evidence in favour of the rough breathing^.
is
Agabus has been equally unlucky. I do not know how Westcott this name began in Syriac with y, or
and Hort came to think that
why
the statement has been so often repeated,
edition of the Acts, the fact being that the
e.
name
g.
by Blass
in Syriac
in his
written
is
aÂťa=i^r<' (D1UX) both in Acts xi 28 and in xxi 10. Since the
name ends
in
did not regard the gives us
name
ought to
may prefix a rough
i.
e.
since the
Greek termination
and
tells
ll)in,
;
in other words,
<v?<\ -y\ f<^ is
he
simply a trans-
us nothing as to the breathing If
is
infer that the Syriac translator
derivation.
its
prefix to the word.
ArABoc corresponds to
,
as recognizably Semitic
no opinion as to
literation of AfABoc,
D*l
we must
transliterated into Syriac,
we
on quite other grounds we think
just as ApexAc corresponds to Hdritha, Ave
breathing, but the Syriac evidence tells us nothing
except that our proposed derivation was not obvious in ancient times.
The
decision between Alphaeus
the Syriac versions,
Halpai
now
and Halphaeus is less clear. Here by the Sinai Palimpsest, have
reinforced
This really does imply that the word is recognized initial guttural, but also because
(^s7T\).
as Semitic, not only because of the
the Greek termination the Greek Palest,
name
dropped.
is
'AA(|)6toj
It
may
further be remarked that
becomes in Syriac Qoa.xa\r^ (Eus. Mart.
i).
The name Halpai does not certainly occur in Jewish sources. Dalman (p. 142) cites ^*S7*n from j. Kidd. 58 d, but this is not the name of a Rabbi. The word seems to mean conti'oversialist (j"^). *
'
However, as there is no sign of a various reading 'AA(^etos in the New Testament, the ' authority of the Syriac may in this case stand, quantum valeat, and
Moreover,
in b.
Taan. 21 a
it
appears as K37*J<.
'
we may continue to write 'AA0atos. ^ Under the influence of \V'estcott and Hort the smooth breathing lias been used for 'E^paios in the Cambridge LXX and the Oxford Concordance to tlie LXX !
NEW TESTAMENT NAMES
SYRIAC FORMS OF
II.
It
well
is
27
Capernaum, Caphauxaum.
known that the Tcxtus Receptus of the New Testament all critical editions spell the word Kaipap-
has KaTrepraov/i, while
like all
These names are the subject of a study by Professor E. Nestle Theodor Zahn (Leipzig, 1908, pp. 251-270), which Nestle's work is packed full of curious and recondite informa-
tion.
Nestle points out that Kairepvaovix
vaovfjL.
in a Festschrift for
mass of Greek MSS.,
The
the Versions.
Kacfiapvaovjji.
by the great by practically all
attested
is
by {<BD, and
also
Syriac has ^<XÂŤxli2k.^, and Nestle conjectures
that the two forms arose from different pronunciations of well
known that the East Syrians pronounced S hard
Semites)
if
:
then
*1M was
really a monosyllabic form,
this.
(i. e.
and
if
It
is
hard for the East
Syrians pronounced the word Kapr, then Kairepvaovix might have arisen from the East Syrian form.
Nestle
is
quite right in saying that the ancient Syriac Versions
cannot be claimed as witnesses to decide between
A
indifferently for both.
But the other
tt
and 0, as they use
part, equally essential,
down on investigation. The East Svrian pronunciation of the name is yiOM^i %^, i.e. Kpar Ndhuvi This is not only the reading of or Kpliar Nahum^ not Kapr N. the Urmi editions and those founded upon them I have ascertained that ^<\3Ju& iSA is the reading of the Nestorian jVIasora', i. e. B.M. Add. 12138, one of the most careful and accurate MSS. ever written. of his ingenious theory breaks
:
'
Further, the place called nj'l^yn
the
Urmi Bible Kla-Saa^-
"11)3 in
\S>A.'
It
is,
Josh
xviii
24
is
called in
therefore, evident that the
by the East Syrian tradition. This brings the matter back where it was. But on general grounds it was not likely that the solution of this curious problem would come from beyond the Euphrates. The main facts are that KoTrepis attested by what Dr. Hort calls the Antiochian text, while Kacpapis attested by all others. It is a natural inference that the proe
in KaTTepvaovjx is definitely rejected
nunciation district
of the
Greek-speaking
may have something
of the Antiochian
population
to do with the matter.
quotes Theodore t for Kairepa-ava, and Theodoret
is
Dr. Nestle
certainly a witness
century Antiochian fashions, which is exactly Using then Syrian in the sense used by Hort, i. e. not for that which is Aramaic, but for what is characteristic of the Greek-speaking district of which Antioch was the capital, we may
for fourth
what
is
V,
to
fifth
anted.
'
""
after all agree with Nestle, that in the
prevalence of the spelling
PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY
28
MSS. of the Gospels we may
Kanepvaovfx in Greek
Textus receptu3 die Frucht einer syrischen Rezension
Greek Z for Hebrew
III.
The words
Greeks habitually represented Semitic
which
like ^i.m> for ?VX,
however,
is
If
ist
'.
>f.
by simple
Besides
a.
after all an exclusively Biblical
and
n3*)V. No without apparent exceptions, and in view of the
Jewish name, we have rule,
see 'eine der
der Theorie von Westcott-Hort, dass der
starksten Bestiitigungen
is
and
for jll^^f
'E^ihwv
importance of the statement made above
'lap^irTa for
(p.
16) that in hardly any
instance Greek C stands for Semitic X, it is worth while to examine the names in the Greek Bible (besides * Nazareth') in which ( is
apparently so used. In
all
pIX
Here
''yi^.
tlie
'ASwrt^eSe'/c
1).
LXX
reads pT2 *i*lX, as in Judges
Greek with C either 2. Arzai-eth (4 Ezra
Ten Tribes
most familiar
i
5
Symm., Theod.) = the Greek Bible
(Aq.,
a8a)i;t/3eCe'<, i.e.
This reading seems to have been
ft'.
in Origen's
Hexapla, with the
change of the traditional consonants. It should be noticed that ' Melchizedek
aooivi^iC^Kos.
the
has
Hebrew
corrected to agree with the least possible
in
in their
the order of the English alphabet, we have
in
Adonizedelc (Josh x
1.
Taking them
there appear to be ten.
English form and
Josephus has '
is
never spelt
Old or the New Testament. This is the name of the land where 45).
in the xiii
went, according to the Latin text of 4 Ezra.
It
appears to denote some region beyond the sources of the Euphrates,
and against
all
probability
agree with Deut xxix 28. highly contentious
word
do very 3.
in
B
i.
Bozez
and
besides that, it
:
is
is
niHX
the equation of
V*^^5, to ;:-
and
'^
very doubtful whether the
co^^Q? .Ai^rc*
of the eaiih. Certainly this word can to prove that the Cin NaCap4d corresponds to !!f.
e.
little
has been explained as
Not only
in -areth at all, as the Syriac has
ended
really
rtl^-ipC.l,
it
(1
Arzaph,
Regn
xiv 4).
in
jSa^ed
the ejid
The rock Bozez
'Lucian\
(|*X11)
is
spelt B^zec
Presumably the Greek read VT^
for pi:i. 4.
Hezron (Ruth
'E(r/3w/x in 'Ao-pwjui,
the
NT
'Acrrpdiv,
iv 18).
The grandson
Genealogies.
and
in
In the
Josephus
occurs in the Lucianic text of
'
of Judah (p^lXH)
OT
we
Aaaapdiv.
Ruth
iv 18,
is
spelt
find 'Eo-pw/x, 'Eaptav,
Besides these, 'Egxoj^
a text which here rests
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; NEW TESTAMENT NAMES
SYRIAC FORMS OF
29
Lk iii 33 E, i.e. in an There can be little doubt that these spellings have nothing whatever to do with the writers of the upon two minuscules, and
occurs in
'E(pa>/i
8th century.
inferior Uncial of the
1st century a.d. 5. Hnz (Gen xxii 21, I Chr 17), the brother of Buz, is spelt in Hebrew T*"iy, the same name as the land of Uz, where Job lived. The land of Uz in the Greek Bible is the x(apa ava-ln's, while in i
Genesis we find 'HI and in Chronicles
But the Lucianic text has This again unfamiliar
is '
Duke
6.
Ma(ap
Mib::ar of
in the Greek,
A
7.
name
Hebrew has
'
for Chronicles.
an
in
word.
Edom (Gen
xxxvi 42,
but Ma^'^ap also occurs.
Here
A has
1
Chr
i
53)
The Hebrew
spelt
is
is
"1^^.
Chr xxvi 14 B, where the
coj^z seems to occur in 1
T*i}V.
and OvC
more than a mediaeval variant
surely nothing
barbarous
Josephus has Ov^os.
"ils.
"-Q^ for Genesis
icoiac.
Psalm Ixxxiii 11), Zalmunna, King of Midian (Judges viii 5 Bible as SfAjmaz-a. But Zeba and appears in the Greek laXfiavd or 8.
ft*.,
'
Zalmunna' (y])D7V^ H^T) are {Antiq. v 228).
Is
called
by Josephus Ze^j)^
Josephus modified the name for the sake of alliteration Zaraces (Ezra
9.
It
is
A
i
38) corresponds to the
conceivable that there
may have been
THXV
?
of 2 Clir xxxvi
4.
in the Semitic original
a mention of Zedekiah (n*p*lV), but the text ZApiON
kql Zapixovvr.v
too fanciful to suppose that in this instance
it
is
doubtful as
B
has
and the Latin Zaracelem and Zachariam.
These nine instances appear to me to be of no importance at all. The case is different with respect to the remaining one 10. Zoar, the city near the Dead Sea, where Lot took refuge, in Hebrew "IJ?^. It is mentioned eleven times in all. In eight of :
(Gen xiv 2, 8 xix 22, 23, 30 his Deut xxxiv 3 Isai xv 5) the Greek Bible has 2^ycop, a transliteration which points to a vocalization Further, the different from the Massoretic (? cf. I^^f Josh xv 54). these
;
;
;
use of y for y is characteristic of the earlier Greek transliterations. But besides 27p/ajp we find in Gen xiii 10, Jerem xxxi (xlviii) 4, This is something y.oyopa and in Jerem xxxi (xlviii) 34 Zo'yop. more than a transcriber's mistake. It is clear that there must have been a definite reason for spelling the name of this town with Z. No doubt the reason was that Zoar was a known place, spelt Zoapa or Zcoapa by Ptolemy (v 16). Eusebius {OS 231) says, '
referring to .
.
.
this
T]
Gen
xiv 2, BaAa,
Koi CIS â&#x201A;ŹTL vvv oLKelTat.
town should be
f;
'
eort 2iywp,
?/
vvv Z(t)opa K-oAovfcerrj
Further, there was a special reason
spelt with Z.
We
know from Gen
why
xix that
PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY
30
name was supposed
the
and Josephus says of
mean Zojo)/) en to
it
Now though
'EjSpalot 70 okCyov.
'
Littleham
/cat
and
T
'
or
'
Littleborough \
vvv Ae'yerat" xaAoSo-t yap ovnos If
do not indiscriminately or
regularly interchange, yet one or two roots containing these letters
— ^l^T
do interchange, and "l^^f in Hebrew, while little '
'
When
"niyi.
in
is
one.
"I^^X
Jewish Aramaic
is
one of the words for
it is "H^S?!
and
in Syriac
therefore Josephus says that Ziootp )neans to oXiyov,
it
Aramaic rather than Biblical Hebrew that he has in mind, and very likely he knew of the town of Zuiopa as ^VT, the form found in is
the '
'
Jerusalem
Jerusalem
(i. e.
Somewhat tinian
'
**
Targum
Gen
to
Palestinian)
xiv
and
xix,
and
also
in
the
Talmud.
similarly the root
pIT
is
used in Syriac (not in Pales-
Aramaic) instead of pHX, so that
regularly in the Syriac versions as X^plHT.
e,
g.
the ^abhovKoioL appear
But
this
is
an exclusively
Syriac form and does not occur even in the Christian Palestinian dialect.
an
Thus the names of Zoar
— IVX — Zooapa do
isolated exception to the rule that
to Semitic X.
The
not really form Greek Z does not correspond
evidence rather suggests that in historical times
town was known by an Aramaic name ("IS?!), rather than by the old Hebraeo-Canaanite one ("iV^) by which it is called in the Old Testament. It is possible that the more modern Aramaic name had once a footing in the Old Testament itself, and that this stage is reflected by the Greek Bible, in which possibly 2?jyco/3 corresponds
this
to
^\^)i
while Zoyopa represents 1^1.
slender foundation for supporting
This peculiar case
is
a very
the theory that in 'Na^apiO or
Nafapa the second consonant corresponds to a mde and not to a zain.
.
INDEX Abaddon 7 AbiaS Abrabam 2
Dalraauutha 15, 17
Acre, see Ptolemais Adonizedek 28
Elamites 22, 23
Aenon 13
Gadarenes 10 n Gaza 8 Gennesaret 8, 15 Gerar 10 n. Geraseues 10 n.
Dule 2
Agabus 25, 26 Alans, see Elamites Alphaeus Annas 6
5, 25,
26
n.
Arabia 6
Gergeseues, Girgashites
Arabs 6
Gethsemane 8
Aretas 8
Gushani,
Gashmu 23
9f.
n.
Arzareth 28
Hagarenes 10 n. Hebrew, Heber 25
Azotus 8
f.
Hezron 28 Hosanna 5
Barabbas 6 Bar-Jesus, Barshuma 22
Huz29
Barsabbas 6
Bartbolomew 23
Isaac 2
Beelzebub 4
'In, see
Bethabara4, 9f.,13, 24 Bethany 4, 13, 14 Bethesda 19f., 24 Bethlehem Serieh 17 n. Bethphage 6, 13, 24 Bethsaida 6, 9, 17
Jacob 2 Jairus, Jair 7, 22, 24
Jerusalem 4, 12 Jesus, Jesu 6 Jobel, see
Bezatha, see Bethesda
Obed
Joppa 8 Jordan 13 Joshua 6
Bezeth 20 Boanerges 17
Boaz 8 Bozez 28
Lydda 8 Malchus 23 Mattatha 8
Caiaphas 6, 9
Caual8f.,22 Canaanite, Cananaeau Capernaum 17, 27 f.
Barshuma
6
Matthias, see Tholomaeus
Melchizedek 28
Cephas 6
Mesopotamia 4
Chorazin 6, 17f.
Messiah 6 Mibzar 29
Chuza 6
,
24
INDEX
32 Xaiii 8
Sapphira
Naziira 10
Sarepta 28
Xazarene, Nazoraean 16, 18 Nazareth 15 f., 21, 24
Saron, Sharon 8
Nazirites 16, 18
(5
Segor, see Zoar
Shinar 10
Sidou 28
Obed
Silas 6
8
Simon, Simeou 6 Sion 4, 10
Parthiaus 22 Peter 5 n.
Tabitha 5
Pharaoh 2
Talitha 5
Pharisees 5
Tarsus 8
Phylacteries 5, 23
Ptolemais 8, 12, 23
Sadducees Salim 13
5,
Sanhedrin 23
30
Tliaddaeus
Tliolomaeus 23
Zalrauuua 20 Zaraces 29 Zoar, Zoara 2i>,^S0
Date Due
^
^
Oxford Printed
by Eiorace
Hart^ at
tlie
Ihiiversity
Press
Syrocuse, N. Y Stockton, Colif.
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New Testament
proper
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