Master Plan for Studying Potential Aramaic Substrate
In the Koine Greek "Q" Using Kloppenborg's Q Parallels
As Strict Template and Critical Edition of Q for Additional Information.
In the last entry I introduced my preference for John S. Kloppenborg's Q Parallels: Synopsis, Critical Notes & Concordance, Polebridge Press, Sonoma, California, 1988 as my choice for model of all pragmatic discourse in this monograph concerning "Q" and the language of Jesus generally; do refer to the prior entry for that rationale for specifics rather than expecting me to hash-over old ground.
What I want to propose as an academic game-plan in this entry, for the sake of several economies necessary to do the work of one scholar acting alone... not doing committee work, is to operationally regard Q Parallels as a kind of reference text while using The Critical Edition of Q -- which is far less useful and more-ponderous on almost every level-- for back-up information here-and-there as gaps may derive in my contextual understanding of the 'reference' text.
I feel certain that Dr. Kloppenborg would not approve of this approach; he would-- as he has expressed to me in e-mail-- prefer that I use The Critical Edition of Q exclusively. I would do so if I were blessed with the resources of a great theological/linguistic/historical library such as he might have at the Religion Department at the University of Toronto. But I am a practical person, and for pragmatic reasons only [the fact that I keep over and over and over and over referring to Q Parallels, finding everything I want in it for quick reference and all else] Q Parallels is by far a more-workable tool than the other tome for what I want to do.
And there is the matter of the assumption that no Aramaic substrate for Q exists as found in The Critical Edition of Q, not a word of which is uttered-- as far as I can detect-- in Q Parallels. But I have already referred the reader to the prior entry for my discussion of that topic....
What I wish to do with Q in Q Parallels will be extensive; Dr. Kloppenborg counts out 68 entries in this reference work as Q, but I shall omit 'Incipit,' which has no text in either Matthew or Luke; this leaves me with a daunting 67 Q citations upon which to explicate, as I shall describe.
I shall use Q Parallels as a kind of 'Bible,' not admitting any authoritative text--for the sake of operating definition-- but the text here at hand. Certainly my choice is outdated by the later Critical Edition of Q, but as I have indicated this critical edition is not a very practical book and my choice of Q Parallels is still for a very fine book, the choice for a 'Cadillac' instead of the 'Mercedes' one actually has on one's lot.
Q Parallels has Greek entries for Matthew and Luke, as well as English translations; ditto for parallelisms from the Nag Hammadi Library, Hebrew texts, Church Fathers, etc. According to linguists like Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf, language imposes metaphysical assumptions. Therefore, I wish to examine the metaphysical assumptions of the Greek semantic and syntactic and grammatic constructions in the Q presented in the reference text vis a vis the Koine Greek.
The careful reader will observe that the English translations will also have metaphysical assumptions in semantics, syntax, and grammar; it will be jolly to note differences between the translation and the original Greek! But my sense is that the translation in Kloppenborg is clear, accurate, terse, useful for what I am about to say I wish to do with it with regard to hypothetical Aramaic reconstruction(s).
Quite early in the development of this web-log (blog), I cited the "Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon Project" at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.A. Its Website is: http://cal1.cn.huc.edu; what I wish to do is take as many words as pragmatically viable from the Kloppenborg translations per Q entries and insert the in the English-to-Aramaic translation component in order to get a sense of the Aramaic semantics corresponding to the English word, corresponding to the Koine Greek word in Q. My object is to get a great number of Aramaic words, specifically Palestinian Aramaic words, and to piece together a sense of the variance of semantics implied across the broad swath of word-meanings.
Linguistic reconstruction on this level-- where the very original language is absent and we have-- on the one hand a semantic record in one language family-- and on the other hand rich embodiment of the language from which to reconstruct the utterance(s) given the semantics--should be utterly conservative and on a word-per-word basis: cf. Linguistic Reconstruction: An Introduction to Theory and Method, by Anthony Fox, Oxford University Press, Oxford, U.K., 1995, passim. While it is true that Dr. Maurice Casey's An Aramaic Approach to Q, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K., 2002; and Dr. Matthew Black's An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts, 1967, 1946 violate this principle of linguistic reconstruction remarkably, so do The Critical Edition of Q, Q Parallels, and indeed the same criticism can be leveled against Nestle-Aland and all who would try to scientifically reconstruct the Bible without having the actual original texts before them.
My only saving grace in reconstruction will have occurred by way of "the Law of Large Numbers," for with a number of words making multiple comparisons from essentially three languages -- Koine Greek, Modern English, Aramaic and in great abundance on all language variables using Q Parallels as my template... I think I shall be able to: 1. ascertain common structures in each particular language, including metaphoric metaphysical assumptions; 2. deconstruct into component parts these metaphoric metaphysical assumptions and examine for 'narrative,' i.e. historical-projection content; 3. using known social science including psychology, sociology, biology, and esthetics, derive an assessment of the Sitz im Leben of Jesus; 4. recommendations derived from the above, more-or-less a personal note.
Use of the Syriac texts will be of more than small help in assessing the relative value of derivative offerings from the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon for a particular word. By this I mean the Old Syriac Gospels, but also the Peshitta; I lack the Harklean but I am informed in Dr. Casey's book that the Harklean Syriac N.T. is literal and useful... I simply lack it for reference purposes!
This should be a long, long 'slog.' Sixty-seven entries, carefully worked out if done well, deriving possible vocabulary in Aramaic, then metaphor, then deconstruction of metaphor, from as much of the Koine Greek in a Q Parallel Greek entry as I can force. I am up for that long, long, 'slog.' And I think a worthy, worthy reader who wanted to really derive some of the excitement of the 'slog' would not despair in this long journey!
One final detail. It is public information that two world-class scholars on Q and its relation to the language of Jesus, Dr. Maurice Casey of the University of Nottingham, and Dr. John S. Kloppenborg of the University of Toronto, both have publicly listed e-mail addresses.
In the Koine Greek "Q" Using Kloppenborg's Q Parallels
As Strict Template and Critical Edition of Q for Additional Information.
In the last entry I introduced my preference for John S. Kloppenborg's Q Parallels: Synopsis, Critical Notes & Concordance, Polebridge Press, Sonoma, California, 1988 as my choice for model of all pragmatic discourse in this monograph concerning "Q" and the language of Jesus generally; do refer to the prior entry for that rationale for specifics rather than expecting me to hash-over old ground.
What I want to propose as an academic game-plan in this entry, for the sake of several economies necessary to do the work of one scholar acting alone... not doing committee work, is to operationally regard Q Parallels as a kind of reference text while using The Critical Edition of Q -- which is far less useful and more-ponderous on almost every level-- for back-up information here-and-there as gaps may derive in my contextual understanding of the 'reference' text.
I feel certain that Dr. Kloppenborg would not approve of this approach; he would-- as he has expressed to me in e-mail-- prefer that I use The Critical Edition of Q exclusively. I would do so if I were blessed with the resources of a great theological/linguistic/historical library such as he might have at the Religion Department at the University of Toronto. But I am a practical person, and for pragmatic reasons only [the fact that I keep over and over and over and over referring to Q Parallels, finding everything I want in it for quick reference and all else] Q Parallels is by far a more-workable tool than the other tome for what I want to do.
And there is the matter of the assumption that no Aramaic substrate for Q exists as found in The Critical Edition of Q, not a word of which is uttered-- as far as I can detect-- in Q Parallels. But I have already referred the reader to the prior entry for my discussion of that topic....
What I wish to do with Q in Q Parallels will be extensive; Dr. Kloppenborg counts out 68 entries in this reference work as Q, but I shall omit 'Incipit,' which has no text in either Matthew or Luke; this leaves me with a daunting 67 Q citations upon which to explicate, as I shall describe.
I shall use Q Parallels as a kind of 'Bible,' not admitting any authoritative text--for the sake of operating definition-- but the text here at hand. Certainly my choice is outdated by the later Critical Edition of Q, but as I have indicated this critical edition is not a very practical book and my choice of Q Parallels is still for a very fine book, the choice for a 'Cadillac' instead of the 'Mercedes' one actually has on one's lot.
Q Parallels has Greek entries for Matthew and Luke, as well as English translations; ditto for parallelisms from the Nag Hammadi Library, Hebrew texts, Church Fathers, etc. According to linguists like Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf, language imposes metaphysical assumptions. Therefore, I wish to examine the metaphysical assumptions of the Greek semantic and syntactic and grammatic constructions in the Q presented in the reference text vis a vis the Koine Greek.
The careful reader will observe that the English translations will also have metaphysical assumptions in semantics, syntax, and grammar; it will be jolly to note differences between the translation and the original Greek! But my sense is that the translation in Kloppenborg is clear, accurate, terse, useful for what I am about to say I wish to do with it with regard to hypothetical Aramaic reconstruction(s).
Quite early in the development of this web-log (blog), I cited the "Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon Project" at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.A. Its Website is: http://cal1.cn.huc.edu; what I wish to do is take as many words as pragmatically viable from the Kloppenborg translations per Q entries and insert the in the English-to-Aramaic translation component in order to get a sense of the Aramaic semantics corresponding to the English word, corresponding to the Koine Greek word in Q. My object is to get a great number of Aramaic words, specifically Palestinian Aramaic words, and to piece together a sense of the variance of semantics implied across the broad swath of word-meanings.
Linguistic reconstruction on this level-- where the very original language is absent and we have-- on the one hand a semantic record in one language family-- and on the other hand rich embodiment of the language from which to reconstruct the utterance(s) given the semantics--should be utterly conservative and on a word-per-word basis: cf. Linguistic Reconstruction: An Introduction to Theory and Method, by Anthony Fox, Oxford University Press, Oxford, U.K., 1995, passim. While it is true that Dr. Maurice Casey's An Aramaic Approach to Q, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K., 2002; and Dr. Matthew Black's An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts, 1967, 1946 violate this principle of linguistic reconstruction remarkably, so do The Critical Edition of Q, Q Parallels, and indeed the same criticism can be leveled against Nestle-Aland and all who would try to scientifically reconstruct the Bible without having the actual original texts before them.
My only saving grace in reconstruction will have occurred by way of "the Law of Large Numbers," for with a number of words making multiple comparisons from essentially three languages -- Koine Greek, Modern English, Aramaic and in great abundance on all language variables using Q Parallels as my template... I think I shall be able to: 1. ascertain common structures in each particular language, including metaphoric metaphysical assumptions; 2. deconstruct into component parts these metaphoric metaphysical assumptions and examine for 'narrative,' i.e. historical-projection content; 3. using known social science including psychology, sociology, biology, and esthetics, derive an assessment of the Sitz im Leben of Jesus; 4. recommendations derived from the above, more-or-less a personal note.
Use of the Syriac texts will be of more than small help in assessing the relative value of derivative offerings from the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon for a particular word. By this I mean the Old Syriac Gospels, but also the Peshitta; I lack the Harklean but I am informed in Dr. Casey's book that the Harklean Syriac N.T. is literal and useful... I simply lack it for reference purposes!
This should be a long, long 'slog.' Sixty-seven entries, carefully worked out if done well, deriving possible vocabulary in Aramaic, then metaphor, then deconstruction of metaphor, from as much of the Koine Greek in a Q Parallel Greek entry as I can force. I am up for that long, long, 'slog.' And I think a worthy, worthy reader who wanted to really derive some of the excitement of the 'slog' would not despair in this long journey!
One final detail. It is public information that two world-class scholars on Q and its relation to the language of Jesus, Dr. Maurice Casey of the University of Nottingham, and Dr. John S. Kloppenborg of the University of Toronto, both have publicly listed e-mail addresses.
These addresses are:
- Dr. P. Maurice Casey, University of Nottingham; maurice.casey@nottingham.ac.uk
- Dr. John S. Kloppenborg, University of Toronto; john.kloppenborg@utoronto.ca
I think Dr. Casey has more to say about Jesus speaking Aramaic, but he seems to be a busy academic; on the other hand, Dr. Kloppenborg answers his e-mails within just a few hours. Do not disparage what either of these two great academics have to say!
posted by learningaramaic at 11:04 PM
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