An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts

[John Reece]

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Continuation of "The Distribution of Asyndeton in the Gospels and Acts" section of the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

The frequent use of asyndeton in John is best explained as the result of Aramaic influence. But it is not necessary to seek the source of the Johannine asyndeton in an Aramaic original. The construction is one which would tend to predominate in Jewish or Syrian Greek. Unfortunately our materials for comparison are limited: most Jewish Greek of the period which may be compared with the Gospels is translation from Hebrew or Aramaic. The asyndeton construction is notably absent from Josephus, whose native language was Aramaic, but who shows considerable skill in his employment of Greek connecting particles. In the Shepherd of Hermas, however, which, if it is not influenced by Semitic idiom, there are parallels to the Johannine over-use of asyndeton, especially in speeches and in those formulae of narrated dialogue where so many of John's instances are found. .... The construction is more frequent in the Fourth Gospel than in Hermas. Noteworthy is the occurrence in the latter of the asyndeton formulae in narration as in John, all of them Aramaic in origin.

Asyndeton: The absence of conjunctions linking coordinate words or phrases (ἀσύνδετον, "not bound together").
Casus Pendens: Latin "hanging case". Term used most often of the nominative absolute, especially the pendent nominative, which is thought of as suspended or "hanging" apart from its clause.
Hyperbaton: The separation of words that naturally belong together, for emphasis or the movement of a word or clause from its normal and expected place (ὑπερβατόν, "transposed"). For instance, in Matthew 3:10 ἤδη is separated from its verb.

Definitions above are taken from Pocket Dictionary for the Study of New Testament Greek ― Defines over 1700 terms of Grammar, Word Study, Textual Criticism, Exegetical Method, and New Testament Criticism (InterVarsity Press, 2001), by Matthew S. DeMoss.

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[John Reece]

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Continuation of "The Distribution of Asyndeton in the Gospels and Acts" section of the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

Asyndeton is highly characteristic of Aramaic, and C. F. Burney attributed the excessive use of the construction in John to the influence of an Aramaic original, illustrating from Biblical Aramaic. In the long Aramaic passage in the Palestinian Talmud, Kilʾaim, ix. 4, f. 32b, lines 38-48, there is one connecting particle only, (line 40). Especially prominent in this passage, and frequent in the Aramaic portions of the Palestinian Talmud generally, is the asyndeton opening ʾamar (participle) and ʾamᵉrin, 'he says, was saying', 'they say, were saying'; e.g. ʾamar, f. 32 lines 38, 39 (bis), 41, 44, 45, 46, 47; ʾamᵉrin f. 32b, line 71, and earlier at lines 11, 17, 23. It is one of the most characteristic of Aramaic asyndeton openings; it is not found, however, in Biblical Aramaic, which prefers the formula ענה ואמר, 'speaks up and says' or 'spoke up and said', and Burney illustrates from Syriac.

Asyndeton: The absence of conjunctions linking coordinate words or phrases (ἀσύνδετον, "not bound together").
Casus Pendens: Latin "hanging case". Term used most often of the nominative absolute, especially the pendent nominative, which is thought of as suspended or "hanging" apart from its clause.
Hyperbaton: The separation of words that naturally belong together, for emphasis or the movement of a word or clause from its normal and expected place (ὑπερβατόν, "transposed"). For instance, in Matthew 3:10 ἤδη is separated from its verb.

Definitions above are taken from Pocket Dictionary for the Study of New Testament Greek ― Defines over 1700 terms of Grammar, Word Study, Textual Criticism, Exegetical Method, and New Testament Criticism (InterVarsity Press, 2001), by Matthew S. DeMoss.

To be continued...

[John Reece]

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Continuation of "The Distribution of Asyndeton in the Gospels and Acts" section of the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

The high proportion of sentences in connected narrative and speeches set down ασυνδέτως is one of the striking features of the style of the Fourth Gospel. Occasionally this preponderance of asyndeton gives weight and solemnity to the discourse and appears to be nothing more that a feature of the author's style. But in the majority of cases there does not appear to be any rhetorical justification for the construction.

Asyndeton: The absence of conjunctions linking coordinate words or phrases (ἀσύνδετον, "not bound together").
Casus Pendens: Latin "hanging case". Term used most often of the nominative absolute, especially the pendent nominative, which is thought of as suspended or "hanging" apart from its clause.
Hyperbaton: The separation of words that naturally belong together, for emphasis or the movement of a word or clause from its normal and expected place (ὑπερβατόν, "transposed"). For instance, in Matthew 3:10 ἤδη is separated from its verb.

Definitions above are taken from Pocket Dictionary for the Study of New Testament Greek ― Defines over 1700 terms of Grammar, Word Study, Textual Criticism, Exegetical Method, and New Testament Criticism (InterVarsity Press, 2001), by Matthew S. DeMoss.

To be continued...

[John Reece]

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Beginning of "The Distribution of Asyndeton in the Gospels and Acts" section of the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

Asyndeton is, on the whole, contrary to the spirit of the Greek language. Most Greek sentences are linked by a connecting particle, and, where asyndeton is found, it is generally employed with rhetorical effect.

Asyndeton: The absence of conjunctions linking coordinate words or phrases (ἀσύνδετον, "not bound together").
Casus Pendens: Latin "hanging case". Term used most often of the nominative absolute, especially the pendent nominative, which is thought of as suspended or "hanging" apart from its clause.
Hyperbaton: The separation of words that naturally belong together, for emphasis or the movement of a word or clause from its normal and expected place (ὑπερβατόν, "transposed"). For instance, in Matthew 3:10 ἤδη is separated from its verb.

Definitions above are taken from Pocket Dictionary for the Study of New Testament Greek ― Defines over 1700 terms of Grammar, Word Study, Textual Criticism, Exegetical Method, and New Testament Criticism (InterVarsity Press, 2001), by Matthew S. DeMoss.

To be continued...

[John Reece]

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General conclusion of the "Casus Pendens and Hyperbaton" section of the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

The general conclusion to which the evidence of casus pendens and related hyperbaton points is that, while such constructions cannot be described as specifically Semitic, though in much more frequent use in Aramaic than in Greek, their preponderance in the sayings of Jesus supports the view that a translation Greek tradition is to be found there. No Greek writer would have included in one part only of his work what is, compared with instances in the surrounding narrative, a very high proportion of examples, unless he was reproducing an Aramaic tradition. Outside of the sayings, hyperbata are most frequent in dialogue and direct speech, and in Mark's Gospel. In Acts, casus pendens appears to be confined to speeches, and for the most part those of Peter and Stephen in the early chapters.

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[John Reece]

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Continuation of the "Casus Pendens and Hyperbaton" section of the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

Mark vii. 4 contains an example of an emphasizing hyperbaton along with a characteristic Semitic use of the preposition ἀπό (= min), namely, in a partitive sense: ἀπ᾿ ἀγορᾶς means '(anything) from the marketplace'; 'And (anything) from the marketplace, unless they sprinkle, they do not eat'. The Arabic Diatessaron has so understood the words (xx. 20), 'They used not to eat what was sold from the market, except they washed it.' The Arabic does not, of course, imply any variant text, but the Semitic idiom has been recognized and correctly rendered.

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[John Reece]

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Continuation of the "Casus Pendens and Hyperbaton" section of the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

This simple statement would be expressed idiomatically in Aramaic with emphatic hyperbaton, 'I see men that like trees they are walking'. A translator who failed to recognize the idiom appears to have taken the participial present '(are) walking' as a true participle and made it agree with the accusative 'men'―βλέπω τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ὅτι ὡς δένδρα ὁρῶ περιπατοῦντας. An additional verb in the subordinate clause would be necessary in Greek to make sense.

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[John Reece]

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Continuation of the "Casus Pendens and Hyperbaton" section of the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

This idiom can account for the difficult and confused construction of Mark viii. 24, βλέπω τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ὅτι ὡς δένδρα ὁρῶ περιπατοῦντας. The only legitimate rendering of the Greek as it stands is that of the R.V.: 'I see men; for I see them as trees walking' . . . Codex Bezae, with a number of other authorities reads βλέπω τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ὡς δένδρα περιπατοῦντας, which gives, in a straightforward text, the kind of answer we would expect. But the more difficult text of Bא is probably original, and has led to corruption in D. W. C. Allen sought to explain the ὅτι as a mistranslated dᵉ which should have been represented by the relative οὕς, 'I see men whom I see as trees walking', the accusative participle περιπατοῦντας having then an accusative relative in its own clause with which to agree. But 'I see men whom I see as trees walking' is still an unusually complicated way of saying, 'I see men like trees walking', which seems clearly what is intended.

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[John Reece]

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Continuation of the "Casus Pendens and Hyperbaton" section of the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

An extension of this hyperbaton consists of the displacement of the subject or object of a subordinate clause to become subject or object of another clause, usually the main clause of the sentence, thus giving special emphasis to it. An example from Aramaic occurs in Midrash Echa, i. 51, 'I am not going until I see that Menahem how he is faring.' Wellhausen noted the following instances of this hyperbaton in the Gospels: Mt. x. 25; Mk. vii. 2, xi. 32, xii. 34; Lk. ix. 31, xxiv. 7. Mk. vii. 2 reads καὶ ἰδόντες τινὰς τῶν μαθητῶν αὐτοῦ ὅτι κοιναῖς χερσίν ἐσθίουσιν '. . . and having seen that some of his disciples ate with defiled hands'; Lk. xxiv. 7 is, λέγων τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ὅτι δεῖ παραδοθῆναι. Wellhausen gives Lk. iv. 3 (D) εἰπὲ οἱ λίθοι οὗτοι ἵνα γένωνται ἄρτοι, but no such reading appears to exist.

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[John Reece]

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Continuation of the "Casus Pendens and Hyperbaton" section of the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

The construction appears most frequently in the Bezan Uncial (...). In this respect D has preserved the primitive text more faithfully than Bא; a typical instance is Mt. vi. 4, καὶ ὁ πατήρ σου ὁ βλέπων ἐν τῷ κρυπτῷ ἀποδώσει σοι.

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[John Reece]

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Continuation of the "Casus Pendens and Hyperbaton" section of the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

The distribution of the construction is even more significant in the Synoptics and Acts. In the Fourth Gospel the sayings and speeches of Jesus make up the larger part of the book. But in the Synoptics, narrative outweighs dialogue, yet there too the same high proportion of examples of this construction occurs in the Words of Jesus. It is true that a vigorous idiom of this kind is more natural in direct speech than in narrative, but the almost total absence of the idiom outside of direct speech in the Gospels and Acts cannot be due entirely to this fact. [....].

To be continued...

[John Reece]

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Continuation of the "Casus Pendens and Hyperbaton" section of the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

Burney accounted for the frequency of the construction in John as due to translation of an Aramaic original. Lagrange thought that we had to do less with translation Greek than with a Semitic locution which would come naturally to those accustomed to this vigorous Semitic idiom. The distribution of the construction in John is interesting, and may be held to support the translation Greek hypothesis: in 22 cases out of all we have to do with examples from the sayings and speeches of Jesus; two of the six exceptions are from the Prologue (i. 12, 18), two from sayings of the Baptist, one in the Prologue (i. 33, iii. 32), one from a conversation of the disciples of John (iii. 26), and the sixth is spoken by a man healed at the pool of Bethesda (x. 11). All examples are from direct speech.

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[John Reece]

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Continuation of the "Casus Pendens and Hyperbaton" section of the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

Burney rests his case for the Aramaic origin of the Johannine casus pendens on the over-use of the construction in the Fourth Gospel, as compared especially with the Synoptics. He found 27 instances in the former (another example from a saying of Jesus occurs in x. 25) and 21 in the latter; in Matthew 11, in Mark 4, and in Luke 6. This is certainly a remarkable proportion for John alone. (it is not, however, as Burney calculates, six times that of Luke). In a number of John's instances Lagrange believed that there was an emphasis intended which accorded with classical usage, but he recognized the resumptive pronoun after πᾶς as a Semitic locution.

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[John Reece]

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This is the first paragraph of the "Casus Pendens and Hyperbaton" section of the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

Casus Pendens and Hyperbaton

Casus pendens is not specifically a Semitism. It is used with effect in classical Greek, and parallels to instances in the Gospels have been cited from the papyri and elsewhere. But the construction is much more frequent in Hebrew or Aramaic than in the Koine. Especially characteristic of Hebrew and Aramaic is the resumption of the subject or object by the personal pronoun; Burney illustrates from Daniel ii. 37, 38, iii. 22, iv. 17-19, Ezra v. 14. A typical example occurs in the Elephantine Papyri, 28, 15, 'My sons―they shall pay thee this money'; for an instance from the Palestine Talmud we may compare Kilʾaim ix. 4, f. 32b, line 47.

To be continued...

[John Reece]

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This is the last paragraph of the "Order of Words" section of the out-of-print third edition of An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1967), by Matthew Black:

No doubt a large number of the instances of the verb in the initial position come from translation Greek sources, but no inference as to translation of Aramaic sources can be made from this Gospel Semitism. The main reason, I would suggest, is, not that we do not have here a genuine and important Semitism, nor that, to prove translation, more evidence of irregular Greek word-order would be required, but the difficulty of determining what order is un-Greek. It is only because the verb so frequently comes first that the Greek style, not the Greek word-order becomes such that no native Greek writer, uninfluenced by Semitic sources or a Semitic language, would have written it.

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