The First Entry on Q:
A Quasi-Systematic Comparison of the Koine Greek, English Translation,
And Putative Aramaic Reconstruction(s) Per-Significant-Word
In the Essential Text.


My plans for engaging the cut-and-paste potential of my computer and Internet for the purposes of pulling information from the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon [http://cal1.cn.huc.edu] per word of Greek from Q as translated in the Kloppenborg Q Parallels: Synopsis, Critical Notes & Concordance, Polebridge Press, Sonoma, California, 1988...has failed me in design and I must resort to more-thoughtful execution-- and longer timespan of project-- in getting this immense work from the place it is now [germination] to fruition!

Accordingly, I shall try to do the following, short of being unable to list all the Aramaic words comparable to a Greek expression via an English translation. I shall instead attempt a more-pragmatic effort, still amounting to a sequel of 67 entries pertaining to Q as designated by Klopenborg, trimming out all but the cognitive essentials. I realize that what these 'essentials ' are is essentially a matter of editorial judgment, but this will not have been because I have the very 'critical notes' [see the title of the book; better still, obtain the book and observe that Kloppenborg has better critical notes in Q Parallels than we find in The Critical Edition of Q...which to my use is a real 'white elephant' speaking three languages!] I shall try to summarize the point of the logion per Q entry for Matthew and Luke after a listing of where they may be found in the respective Gospels; then I shall zero in on the essential verse(s) for analysis, with a view toward going semantically-- with no particular endorsement of Dr. Eugene Nida's 'theory of semantic domains,' cf. COMPENENTIAL ANALYSIS OF MEANING: AN INTRODUCTION TO SEMANTIC STRUCTURES, Mouton Publishers, Paris, France, 1975-- from the Koine Greek words in Q to Kloppenborg's translation (or a translation that will 'fit' the requirements of the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon's English-to-Aramaic database)--in order to derive a choice-list of Palestinian [not Syriac in the first instance!] Aramaic words from which to reconstruct a lattice decision-tree for the vocabulary in Q.

That I simply cannot cut-and-paste increases the workload by orders-of-magnitude, but in reflection I know that the amount of time I put into thought on crafting good pieces on each entry on Q will in the end 'pay' for the strain of eye and hand and brain necessary in going through all the lists of Aramaic words from CAL and determining which would be the most-opportune for inclusion in the hermneutic Gestalt.

For it is safe to say that an over-easy reliance on CAL can quickly lull the budding scholar into not thinking about the linguistics behind what she/he is studying, which after all is a configuration of lexemes put together with thought and designed for communication...How quickly we forget those things when the simple fix is to grab a print-out from a computer and be-done with 'the hard stuff!' We shall see in this first wee example how I shift even into the Old Syriac Gospels for examplar material... not without some trepidation...for these Syriac translations come a few hundred years later than Jesus and their Aramaic is Eastern, not Western [read 'Palestinian'], but good for flushing out a root which may not be reflected well in the CAL print-out(s). Ditto for using resources like the Hatch & Redpath Concordance to the Septuagint, which ever gives the Semitic translation for a Greek expression that may not-- again-- surface when one quizzes the CAL database.

I THINK I HAVE DEVOTED ENOUGH TIME TO QUALIFYING AND EXPLAINING THIS FIRST ANALYSIS OF A 'Q' ENTRY, WHICH IN KLOPPENBORG'S Q PARALLELS NUMBER 67 OF 68 COUNTING THE 'INCIPIT' HAVING NO TEXT IN EITHER MATTHEW OR LUKE: NOW I BEGIN TO EXPLICATE UPON KLOPPENBORG'S 'S2'...MATTHEW 3:1-6 & LUKE 3:1-4.



The logia that comprise Q were originally said to be exclusively the sayings of Jesus; gradually however scholars 'pushed the envelope' to include 'sayings' that were not in Luke/Matthew but wholly part of other traditions. In deference to Kloppenborg and his masterwork, I am going with the 'S2' entry, with its parallels and commentary, pp. 4-7, as well as with almost every usable part of the English translation.

But the passage is about John-Baptizer, not Jesus, who in a certian time came to preach the Gospel of Repentance, for the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand; the text is accompanied with a proof text in both Matthew and Luke from Isaiah 40:3, LXX, "...the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make the paths of our God straight," [Greek transliteration: phOnE BoOntos en tE erEmO. hetoimasate tEn hodon kuriou, eutheias poieite tas tribous tou theou EmOn.] The justification in Q Parallels for including 'S2' would seem to be mostly to Kloppenborg's liking, although he does marshall some sidelong evidence in the scholarship to support this entry. No matter! We shall use this as our reference-text!

Yet comparing Matthew 3:1-6 and Luke 3:1-4 together, we observe several things:1. Luke spends much detail on fixing the John-Baptist advent in history, while Matthew simply passes this off with, "now in those days..." 2.both Matthew and Luke cite the passage from the Septuagint (LXX) with fair accuracy and there seems little point in exegesis on that Scripture-in-duplicate as such; 3. Matthew has added embellishments to describe the ministry of John Baptist, such as his eating locusts and honey, wearing camel's hair and a leather girdle, and preaching and baptizing in the Jordan River for his proclamations in Judaea, while Luke has none of this.

We by semantic reduction are left with one key phrase, and for practical/practical purposes it is convenient: the sense in Matthew 3:2 and the corresponding verse in Luke 3:3.

Matthew 3:2b--"Repent, for the reign of heaven is [at hand; Today's English Version--'near']"

KEY GREEK WORDS:

1. Repent-- metanoeite-- verb.imper.pres.act.2 pers.pl., "to undergo a change in frame of mind and feeling, to repent; to make a change of principle and practice, to reform"
2. Reign-- basileia-- noun. nom.sing.fem., "a kingdom,realm, kingly power, authority, dominion, reign, royal dignity, the title and honor of a king, the reign or kingdom of the Messiah"
3. Heaven-- tOn ouranOn-- noun.masc.genitive. plural, "heaven, the heavens, the visible heavens and all their phenomena; the air, atmosphere, heaven-of-angels, the-abode-of-God"
4. Near ['at-hand'--Kloppenborg's translation]-- Eggiken-- from eggizo-- "to cause to approachm to draw near, to be at hand, impend"

KEY PALESTINIAN ARAMAIC WORDS PERTAINING TO THESE GREEK WORDS:

1. Repent-- t^w^b-- 1. "to go back, do again, return;" 2. "to restore;" 3."to bethink oneself, regret;" noun-form t^y^w^b^), 1. "vomit [this meaning is confirmed in Marcus Jastrow and Michael Sokoloff's Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic (1992) and R. Payne Smith's Compendious Syriac Dictionary (Eisenbrauns, 1998)];" 2. "return to God, repentance;" 3. "answer, reply, refutation, argument;" 4. plural "going to-and-fro, waywardness." The other semantics from the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon are not plausible or are not germane for Palestinian application; t^w^b is the most-productive root-- iit would seem-- of the several CAL profers us. Reading Sokoloff suggests that the notion of 'vomit' directly ties into the notion of 'repentance,' and indeed that is the best reading of this root we get in Syriac. There is in an Aramaic sense, something quite valid about calling getting-right-with-God a matter requiring sickness-unto-death, as Soren Kierkegaard suggested!

Reign-- m^l^k^w^t^)-- same as Hebrew m^l^k^w^t-- 1."kingdom, government, office;" 2. "a benediction invoking God as King;" plural "the Musaf of the New Year's Day, the Section called Malkhiyoth;" Jewish Aramaic meanings include "kingdom, rulership."There are few other viable readings of 'realm/kingdom' from the CAL, which boasts of being comprehensive. Therefore I am inclined perforce to stick with this usage in the analysis at hand.

Heaven--$^m^y^), $^m^y^y^)-- relates to Hebrew $^m^y^m-- 1. "heaven," transitively "Heaven, God;" in Jewish Aramaic semantics include 1." "heaven," transitively "God;" 2. "arch; ceiling." Michael Sokoloff, p. 557, says $^m^y^y^n is noun plural masculine meaning "sky, heaven," stands for epithet of God in Fragments of Palestinian Targumim (Sources II) Genesis 15:1[08]; Pes 33a (56); Tan 64b(60); Yev 15a(37); AmGen 7:13. I think it most-noteworthy that CAL finds that there is Old Assyrian Palestinian Aramaic and Imperial Mesopotamian Aramaic that $^m^y^n is a configuration for "a divinity." This would imply that the Kingdom of God, as the exact Heavens we know as the sky where the stars and clouds and birds are... was for ages long Biblical thought to be the very abode of God.

Near ['at-hand']-- there are several approximations to this word, and a few in Palestinian Aramaic, but the one which for pragmatic reasons I shall choose for focus is q^r^b--1. "to be near, come near, touch;" 2."to intercede, protect;" 3. "to complain, sue;" 4. "to bring near, to offer." The pael means 1. " to bring near, to offer;" 2. " near, friendly;" 3. "to intercede, lead in prayer." In the afel (causative) mode, this word means, "to bring near, to offer;" in the ithpael (reflexive-intensive) mode it means 1. "to approach, to come near;" 2. " to claim relationship." Because of the richness of association in connection with the general sense imposed by the Greek Koine, I selected this word from the rest; the choice was really not difficult.

The basic sense in Matthew 3:1-6 @ 3:2 is that one need 'turn-around' the self because the Rule of The Divine is almost-touching-now...That is the common-denominator between the Greek, English, and possible Aramaic reconstructions. Yet there are diferences between the Greek and the chosen Aramaic (which represents the best-possible fit to the Greek!) Here are some of the variations:

1. The Greek metanoeO is a matter of metamorphosis and transformation, while each dictionary of Aramaic spells out connotations that t^w^b^) is closer to sickness-unto-death or 'existential nausea.'
2. The Greek basileia lacks much of the sacerdotal implication of the m^l^k^w^t, which is a benediction invoked in the Jewish Prayer Book lifting up God as King, as well as the Kaddish, which beckons the coming of the Jewish Messiah with Jahweh as King.
3. While it is true that Ouranos was a Hellenistic god-- the Heavens to the Palestinian had layers of meaning associated with them going back many centuries, and we have evidence that Jesus read 'signs' in the skies [see Matthew 24:24;Mark 13:22; Luke 21:11,25; Matthew 16:1.] From the sound of the dictionaries, 'heaven' included everything from the ground to what we would now think of as infinities of space-time beyond earth and the atmosphere, subtending the realm of the stars, and somewhere, 'out there' Jahweh and the angels are supposed to reside and rule. What is different between the pagan Greco-Romans and the Jews (including Jesus) is a radical monotheism which also believes in signs and portents from One God Jahweh Whose Throne is Skyward. The gradual shift from a literal notion that God lives 'in Outer Space' to a God who lives 'in Spiritual Space' must have been gradual for both Semitic and Indo-European cultures and must be counted as a great humane achievement.

The Greek eggizO--'to come near' varies semantically from its closest Jewish Aramaic fit, q^r^b--as the latter has meanings including 'to intercede,' to offer [e.g. as a sacrifice!],' 'to complain, to sue.' And this is the closest expression we have that will go-the-distance toward translating this 'to come near.' All I am trying to point up is that at least on the level of speech communities, on the level of differential sociolinguistics, on the level of impinging sociology-of-language variables, we must be quite careful imputing a "correct Koine Greek Q" as long as we hold the distinct option that there MAY have been a Jesus or a John-Baptizer who spoke Jewish Aramaic (or perhaps some form of Hebrew!)


ANALYZING LUKE 3:1-4 @ 3:3 USING THE SAME CRITERIA AS ABOVE:

Greek Words Corresponding to Kloppenborg's Translation:

1. Preach-- kErussOn-- verb.participle.active.present.nominative.singular.masculine, "to publish proclaim [as a herald], to announce openly and publicly, to noise abroad, to announce [as a matter of doctrine], preach, inculate."
2. Baptism-- baptisma--"immersion; baptism, ordinance of baptism."
3. Repent[ance]-- see above at metanoeO and t^y^b^).
4. Forgive[ness]-- aphesin--noun.accusative.singular.feminine,"dismission, deliverance[from captivity]; remission, forgiveness; pardon."

Sin-- hamartiOn-- noun.genitive.plural.feminine, "error; offense, sin; a principle or cause of sin; proneness to sin; sinful propensity; guilt or imputation of sin; a guilty subject or sin-offering, expiatory victim."


Palestinian Aramic Words Corresponding to Luke 3:1-4 @ Luke 3:3 Using Criteria as Above:

1. Preach[ing]-- two words have some attractive power in this reconstructive picture. The first is d^r^$, from which the word 'midrash' is derived; it means 1. "to examine, question;" 2. "to expound, interpret;" 3. "to teach, lecture." While these are admirable qualities they do not seem to be what John Baptizer is doing in the Jordan area consistent with the Greek notion of kErussO--proclaiming openly and publicly abroad; seems to be what a Rabbi or Sage might do. But we have another Aramaic word k^r^z--which is witnessed at Syrus Sinaiticus and Syrus Curetonianus in the Old Syriac Gospels at Luke 3:3-- and in Jastrow and in Machael Sokoloff A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic (1992, 1990) as well as in Marcus Jastrow's Dictionary... at page 665, meaning "to call, to announce." A Syriac definition has "to preach," while a Samaritan Aramaic meaning [close to Galilean!] has "to proclaim" which is close to the gist of kErussO. On the balance, therefore, I am inclined for various good reasons to choose k^r^z as the first lexeme to consider in the mix here; I can only be right or wrong as linguistic reconstruction permits educated guesses!
2. Baptism--the words for 'baptism' are mostly all Christianized in Aramaic, with hardly any suggestion at all of a precursor state in Judaism. Therefore on the CAL search for the word 'baptism,' little of value was discovered. Here is what was learned: in Syriac and Christian Palestinian Aramaic, two different words for the baptismal font are identified with baptism; also-- euphemistically-- the general word for 'taking a stand'--q^b^l--in Syriac had come to mean 'consent to be baptized.' One would have to look elsewhere for a good root for 'baptize/baptism.' So I looked in the Hatch&Redpath Concordance to the Septuagint at bapteizein and with luck not only found the word but found that it translated Hebrew T^b^l-- which as I checked in Jastrow was identical! T^b^l means 1."to dip;" 2. "to immerse, to bathe for purification;" "to season;" "to take luncheon;" to be immersed, made clean." Clearly, this is the word we are looking for.
3. Repent[ance]-- see Matthew 3:2 above for metanoeO and t^y^b^).
4. Sin-- several remote expressions in Aramaic turn up in CAL for 'sin,' but the strongest one with much-witness in Palestinian Jewish Aramaic is x^T^y, "[to miss] to fail, to err, to sin" with afel [causative mode] "to cause to sin;" and ithpael [reflexive-intensive] "to be tempted;" while noun-form x^T^y^) means "sinner." Other expressions for 'to sin,' e.g. "to be lost," "to injure," "to incur debt," etc., etc. simply seem loosely-connected and this usual word for sin will just 'do.'

Comparison of the Greek and Aramaic Components of Luke 3:1-4 @ 3:3 Using Criteria Above.

1. The general sense of 'preaching' in the Koine Greek is not of homiletics or of exegesis, but of proclamation of the nearness of the Realm of God; both the words kErussO and k^r^z get at this sense of 'public announcement,' unlike d^r^$, which corresponds to the Greek hermEneuO--i.e. " to interpret, translate."
2. The Q of Matthew 3:2 and Luke 3:3 is identically cognate on the notion of 'Repent[ance].' It is the reduction-of-all-reductions into which this semantic linguistic reconstruction of 'S2' takes place.
3. The Christian baptismal practices quickly got caught up in nomenclature that forgot Jewish origins. In reading Jastrow's Dictionary... on T^b^l we quickly learn that ablution had usage for many purposes, including seasoning, food and body cleanliness, sacrament, and simply to indicate that one had 'dipped' something into a fluid. This breadth of dimension is perhaps missing by the rather myopic Christian 'glasses' we still use in examining 'John's Baptism,' which may have had many more of the connotations included in Jastrow's Rabbinical listing of meanings than we would like perchance to admit.
4. The 'Forgive[ness]-- Jewish Aramaic $^b^q to a Synagogue worshipper was a term that had currency in divorce proceedings. It was not so much that the sinning wife was unforgiven by divorce but rather the very fact of 'letting go' the wife ipso facto constituted forgiveness! It would have to be said-- from the Rabbinical perspective-- that the Christian notion of forgiveness involves 'remission' of an entirely different sort than that of Judaism. What seems to be different is the notion of 'sending away,' i.e. 'letting alone' that was consistent with forgiveness "seventy times seven times" with Rabin Jesus.
5. Sin--the essential notion of 'missing the mark ' is the same in both hamartia and x^T^y; the usual Aramaic word is a 'natural' for the somewhat-unusual [by comparison with the rest of the Greek-speaking world of the time] expression.

SUMMARY OF NOTES ON LUKE 3:1-4 @3:3...The Q of this verse is much-abbreviated, and seems to be a paraphrase of the more-accurate Matthean version. But I am not well-versed on Q scholarship, and do know for example that the terse renderings tend to be regarded as the-more-original. At any rate, there is no 'saying' in Luke 3:3, and to posit a Q logion therefore seems far-fetched. I think Kloppenborg and the host of authorities he brings to bear on 'S2' see Q not as a simple collection of sayings, but as an edited document, with extra text having zero doing with the sayings of Jesus. This simple hypothesis now explains much about the nature of this reference-text, which is nonetheless, a beautiful work, a beautiful work.

SUMMARY OF THE ENTIRE EFFORT ON 'S2':


This literary and scholastic work will take time and strain on all-systems as I try to think through each facet of Q. I cannot say I shall do better than 'take notes' on Q in the process, but what glorious notes they might promise to be! This practice-piece has taught me that it is likely better to thoughtfully pore through a pericope of Scripture than to use blind cut-and-paste techniques without thought to what one is inserting into text. Good text always requires good thought!

As far as 'S2' itself is concerned, I determined that much extraneous material fills around the essential detail(s), all of which focuses on John-the-Baptist preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, saying "Repent, for the reign of heaven is [near]!" The one key concept, the irreducible nugget, is 'repent[ance],' which has a radically different semantic shift in Jewish Aramaic than in Koine Greek. A second notion, something like a leimotif, is the Soveignty-Reflected-in-the-Sky, now imminent. Another motif is forgiveness as 'letting-go, divorce.' Anecdotes are that baptism means all kinds of things to a 1st century Jew and only one thing to a 2nd century Christian.

We are not close to the 'mind' of John Baptizer, let alone to the mind of Jesus of Nazareth in this excursus. Layers of polished hand-me-down from church-folks has left out much of John Man-of-Locusts-and-Honey and we are not even on the threshold of Jesus. Still, I would have to guess that the 'layers' are rather identifiable, and if we are--as now -- given one word ['Repent!']-- for certain, then at least with some honesty I can say that for all my deliberation that one word sounds a powerful greeting!

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