Gegraptai

Luke 24:1-9:

τῇ δὲ μιᾷ τῶν σαββάτων ὄρθρου βαθέως ἐπὶ τὸ μνῆμα ἦλθον φέρουσαι ἃ ἡτοίμασαν ἀρώματα. εὗρον δὲ τὸν λίθον ἀποκεκυλισμένον ἀπὸ τοῦ μνημείου, εἰσελθοῦσαι δὲ οὐχ εὗρον τὸ σῶμα τοῦ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ. 4καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ ἀπορεῖσθαι αὐτὰς περὶ τούτου καὶ ἰδοὺ ἄνδρες δύο ἐπέστησαν αὐταῖς ἐν ἐσθῆτι ἀστραπτούσῃ. ἐμφόβων δὲ γενομένων αὐτῶν καὶ κλινουσῶν τὰ πρόσωπα εἰς τὴν γῆν εἶπαν πρὸς αὐτάς, Τί ζητεῖτε τὸν ζῶντα μετὰ τῶν νεκρῶν; οὐκ ἔστιν ὧδε, ἀλλὰ ἠγέρθη. μνήσθητε ὡς ἐλάλησεν ὑμῖν ἔτι ὢν ἐν τῇ Γαλιλαίᾳ, λέγων τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ὅτι δεῖ παραδοθῆναι εἰς χεῖρας ἀνθρώπων ἁμαρτωλῶν καὶ σταυρωθῆναι καὶ τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ ἀναστῆναι. καὶ ἐμνήσθησαν τῶν ῥημάτων αὐτοῦ, καὶ ὑποστρέψασαι ἀπὸ τοῦ μνημείου ἀπήγγειλαν ταῦτα πάντα τοῖς ἕνδεκα καὶ πᾶσιν τοῖς λοιποῖς.

Check out the current Biblical Studies carnival here.

Also, over at Evangelical Textual Criticism, Michael Bird discusses what role text criticism has for the study of the historical Jesus. He argues, for one thing, that it is necessary to establish that the textual tradition is just as reliable as the oral tradition which has transmitted the gospels to modern readers. This is a good point, especially with the stir that Bauckham’s book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses has caused as of late, in which he argues that the four gospels are closely based on a reliable stream of eyewitness testimony.

Go check it out!

Ben Witherington, a professor of mine at Asbury, has written an article in Christianity Today concerning the mistranslation of katalumati (which most English Bibles render “inn”) in Luke 2:7.  I just wrote on this issue a couple of days ago.

Thanks to Dr. Martin LaBar for bringing this article to my attention in his blog.

When Luke says that Jesus was born in a manger because “there was no room for them in the inn” (2:7), he probably wasn’t speaking of an “inn” as we think of it.  In fact, “inn” is probably a bad translation of the Greek word here, katalumati.  In other places where the word is used, even in Luke, it is used with the sense of “guest room” (cf. e.g. Luke 22:11; Mark 14:14).  This is probably what is meant here.

The typical ancient Israelite house consisted of three or four rooms, separated by four pillars which supported the roof.  Many of these “four-pillared houses” had two floors.  The main living quarters were usually on the second floor and the roof, and the guest chamber and animal stalls were on the ground floor.  Below is an illustration.

The “inn” of which most English translations of Luke 1:7 speak was probably the guest chamber.  Since it was already occupied, Mary and Joseph were offered to stay in the animal stalls.  It would have been a warm place to stay, probably relatively clean since it was inside the house, the women of the house would have been nearby to help as midwives, and the animals may not even have been in the stalls at the time.  Really, it was probably not such a bad place to stay—certainly no place for a King to be born, though!

No devotional insight here, just something to ponder.  Maybe someone can offer some.

After translating Matt 1:22-23 this morning for my daily Greek reading, I thought it might be good to post a blurb about the concept of the virginal conception (mainly for my own benefit), particularly the First Evangelist’s interpretation and (mis?)use of Is 7:14 here.

The apparent problem with the evangelist’s quotation of Is 7:14 is at least twofold: (1) he draws his quotation from the LXX, a Greek translation of the original Hebrew text which renders the Hebrew word ‘almah (”young woman of marriable age”) into Greek as parthenos (”virgin”); and (2) Isaiah’s prophecy takes place in a historically specific context, that is, Isaiah is talking about an event in his own time.

With all of the interest in the historical Jesus and early Christianity as of late brought on by books like The DaVinci Code, the Discovery Channel documentary on the so-called “Jesus Tomb,” and the release of the Gospel of Judas, it has become well-known that the Greek word Matthew uses in 1:22, which we usually translate “virgin,” does not agree with the original Hebrew text of the Isaiah prophecy from which Matthew is drawing. Matthew, in fact, is quoting the LXX, in which the Greek word parthenos was chosen by translators for the Hebrew word ‘almah used in Is 7:14. The problem is, these words don’t seem to have the same meaning. Parthenos usually means “virgin.” This is whence we get our common English translation of Matt 1:22, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive.” ‘Almah, however, does not necessarily imply virginity at all; rather, it means “a young woman of marriable age.”

Moreover, this prophecy which Matthew appears to be using to support the idea of virginal conception is historically specific. In Is 7:1, we find the historical context of this prophecy:

When Ahaz son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, was king of Judah, King Rezin of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel marched up to fight against Jerusalem, but they could not overpower it.

In 7:2-9, it is predicted that their threat to Jerusalem will fail. Isaiah then challenges Ahaz, “Ask the LORD your God for a sign…” (v. 11), to which Ahaz responds, “I will not ask; I will not put the LORD to the test” (v. 12). Isaiah then rebukes Ahaz, “Will you try the patience of my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign” (vv. 13b-14a). Immediately following is the prediction that “a virgin shall conceive and bear a son” called Emmanuel (v. 14). Isaiah firmly ties Emmanuel’s birth to the threatened invasion in the verses which follow:

“… for before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste. The LORD will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah—he will bring the king of Assyria.” (vv. 16-17)

The point here is that, if Matthew interprets Is 7:14 as a text prophesying the virginal conception of Jesus, he may be grossly misinterpreting it—not forgetting, of course, that the word Isaiah originally wrote doesn’t mean “virgin” anyway. If indeed this is Matthew’s intention here, we who believe in the virginal conception have a rather serious problem.

But what if Matthew isn’t using this quotation from Is 7:14 in that way at all? That is to say, what if Matthew is quoting this text, not as a citation of an OT prophecy about a first-century A.D. virgin birth, but rather because he wants to portray the birth of Jesus, like that of Emmanuel, as a divine saving presence in the world? If this is the case, Matthew’s emphasis here is not on the word parthenos (”virgin”)—which relieves us of the translation issue—but on the the word Emmanuel, which means “God with us.”

In an article from BAR entitled “Does the Gospel of Matthew Proclaim Mary’s Virginity?”, Charles Isbell argues very compellingly for this interpretation. First, he establishes that neither ‘almah nor parthenos has the inherent meaning of “virgin.” He cites texts from both the Old and the New Testaments where both words are used of virgins and non-virgins. Since neither word alone is sufficient to express the idea of virginity, Isbell argues and provides examples that, both in Hebrew and Greek, biblical writers used standard, very specific phrases to describe a woman whose virginal status they want to leave without doubt. For example,

the narrator in Genesis 24 wished to describe Rebeccah as a virgin. And so he clearly stated the fact that “no man had known her” (Genesis 24:16). He could refer to Rebeccah as a bethulah [which normally means "virgin" in Hebrew] (Genesis 24:16), as an ’almah (Genesis 24:43), or as a na’arah (Genesis 24:14, Genesis 24:28 etc.). But her virginity could not be certified by any one of these terms; that is why he pointedly declared that “no man had known her.” Such a phrase, unlike bethulah or any other vocabulary word in Hebrew, was totally unambiguous. A similar phrase is consistently used throughout Biblical literature whenever the author wished to stipulate clearly that a certain woman was a “virgin,” and the use of such phrases can be traced back at least as early as the Code of Hammurapi. (Isabell)

In light of Isbell’s observation, we see now that if one wants to know whether or not the evangelists thought Mary to be a virgin when she conceived, one must look not to particular words, but to the phrases which they chose to describe her sexual status. Indeed, Matthew does use such phrases. For example, in 1:18, he uses specific language to make clear that Joseph did not father Jesus before his marriage to Mary (”before they came together”). Furthermore, 1:25 clearly states that Joseph abstained from having sexual intercourse with Mary until after Jesus was born.

What does all this mean? First, it means that the text of Is 7:14 has nothing to do with the idea of a virginal conception, neither in the MT nor in the LXX nor in Matthew. Second, it means that Matthew did not misinterpret Is 7:14; indeed, he is recalling the same historical event Isaiah speaks of. Rather, it is Christians who have commonly misinterpreted Matthew’s purpose for the citation of Is 7:14, which was to recall God’s hand at work bringing hope to his people who were in desperate need of salvation, and to say, especially to his Jewish readers, “Hey! Remember when this happened? God has done it again—only this time it’s through Jesus, and he has brought hope and salvation to the entire world!” Finally, it means that even though Matthew nor Isaiah did not intend for Is 7:14 to speak of a virginal conception, we still have plenty of very specific scriptural statements regarding Mary’s virginity. Thus, we can still say with confidence, “I believe in Jesus Christ … who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary…”.

For more, see Charles D. Isbell, “Does the Gospel of Matthew Proclaim Mary’s Virginity?” Biblical Archeology Review 3/2 (June 1977), 18-19.