e-homo religiosus

Sunday, April 12, 2020

Ivan Borshchevsky
on rendering Biblical theonyms
in Tatar language /

Ο Ιβάν Μπορστσέφσκι
περί της απόδοσης των βιβλικών θεωνυμιών
στην ταταρική γλώσσα

* Ivan Borshchevsky,
“The Problem of Rendering Biblical Theonyms into the Tatar Language,”
[«Το Πρόβλημα της Απόδοσης των Βιβλικών Θεωνυμιών στην Ταταρική Γλώσσα»]

Filologia i Lingvistika, Vol. 13 (2020), No. 1, pp. 1-23. [PDF]

Saturday, April 11, 2020

M. Tiwald on the historical Jesus /

Ο Μ. Τίβαλντ περί του ιστορικού Ιησού

* Markus Tiwald,
«Η Επιστημονική Ενασχόληση των Ρωμαιοκαθολικών με την περί των Δύο Πηγών Θεωρία και την Πηγή των Λογίων (Q)»,
Θεολογία, τόμ. 90, τ. 4 (Οκτ.-Δεκ) 2019,
σσ. 7-33.

Sunday, March 22, 2020

N. Gordon on Scribal Methods
of Erasing the Tetragrammaton
in Medieval Hebrew Bible Manuscripts /

Ο Ν. Γκόρντον για τις Γραφεϊκές Μεθόδους
Διαγραφής του Τετραγράμματου
στα Μεσαιωνικά Εβραϊκά Βιβλικά Χειρόγραφα

Nehemia Gordon, “Blotting Out the Name:
Scribal Methods of Erasing the Tetragrammaton
in Medieval Hebrew Bible Manuscripts, Part 1,”

Textus (2020) 29(1), 8-43.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/2589255X-02901008

Tuesday, March 10, 2020

Greek Paleography: From Antiquity to the Renaissance,
by Timothy Janz /

Ελληνική Παλαιογραφία

INTRODUCTION

Ancient Greece is often thought of as the cradle of Western civilization — an idea that is problematic not least because what we think of today as "Western civilization" in fact incorporates elements originating in many different times and places. Why then is ancient Greece so often singled out as its ultimate source? A determining factor is certainly the fact that we have very detailed knowledge about Greek civilization going all the way back to the 5th century B.C.E., while we lack such knowledge about other civilizations. For example, we know quite precisely how Athenian direct democracy functioned two and a half millennia ago, while we are quite ignorant of political arrangements in most of the rest of the world at that time; in particular, we know practically nothing of the political institutions among the inhabitants of northern and western Europe in pre-Roman times, though for all we know the institutions of representative democracy which are often considered a hallmark of Western civilization may in fact be more directly related to these than to anything that took place in ancient Greece. The main reason for this discrepancy in our knowledge about the past is the fact that the ancient Greeks, unlike their contemporaries almost everywhere else, left us detailed accounts of their institutions — as well as works of drama, science, mathematics, philosophy and much else — in writing, which have been preserved to this day. Without a written record, we would in principle still be able to observe the Parthenon, the Pnyx, the Greek theaters, etc., but the archeologists would be able to tell us relatively little about the uses these structures were put to; and obviously they would not be able to reconstruct for us the details of Greek philosophy, drama, science or political institutions.

The works of ancient Greek authors have been preserved not as autographs of the authors themselves but because they were copied over and over and over again by scribes, and because a few of these copies — mostly dating to the medieval period — are still in existence today in libraries where they are studied by scholars who produce editions of these works. If you know Greek, you can read these editions themselves; otherwise, you can read a translation made from one of them (also, if you know a little Greek, you can enjoy an edition with a facing translation). Either way, the indispensable link which grants us knowledge of the words formulated by an author who lived in the distant past is the extant, hand-written copy of the ancient work — the manuscript.

Etymologically, the discipline of Greek paleography (a word coined in the 18th century by Berard de Montfaucon, from the Greek elements παλαιο- "old, ancient" + γραφ- "writing, script"+ -ια, a suffix forming abstract nouns) should in principle encompass the study of all writing in Greek from the past. In fact, the study of scripts used on papyrus, on coins and medals, in inscriptions and in documents is generally left to the separate disciplines of papyrology, numismatics, epigraphy and diplomatics, while the discipline of paleography is defined as the study of bookhands employed on paper or parchment. In practice, this means that scripts from the period before the appearance of parchment books in the 4th century A.D. fall outside of the purview of our discipline, which also generally limits itself to the period before 1600 A.D., a date which is arbitrarily precise but which coincides roughly with the point when hand-written books were definitively eclipsed by printed ones.

If all copies produced by scribes were perfectly faithful ones, modern editors could simply print the text offered by any extant manuscript of an ancient author. The remaining copies would be of interest only to bibliophile collectors (and to historians of the period when the copies were made); and the ability to decipher scripts of the past would be the only skill required of the editor. Learning this skill is in fact the most basic aim of the study of paleography. However, in reality, it is almost impossible for a human to copy a long text without making at least occasional errors. In addition, since scribes knew this about themselves and about their colleagues, when they found an obscure or incomprehensible passage in the manuscript they were copying, they often attempted to correct it, which in many cases resulted in a compounded error or, even worse, produced situations where several different wordings are attested but it is unclear which (if any) of the attested wordings goes back to the original author. The upshot is that every extant manuscript of an ancient author is of interest not only to bibliophiles and to medieval historians, but also to editors of that author, who cannot work from a single manuscript source but must collect the available "variant readings" (ideally from all extant manuscripts) and decide, in each case, which one is most likely to be "original" (or conjecture a new one, if they all seem mistaken). Conscientious readers of editions of ancient authors will also want to take an interest in the manuscripts, because the decisions made by the editor can and should be questioned. These decisions are usually recorded in a critical apparatus. The information given there is normally accurate, and until recently the only realistic option for a reader has been to assume that it was; however, with more and more libraries making their manuscript collections available on line, it is now feasible, and occasionally desirable, for a reader to check the manuscripts themselves — provided, of course, that she is able to decipher them.

In passages where the manuscript tradition is divergent, how does an editor decide which reading is most likely to be original? Basing such decisions on the merits of the readings themselves alone is not very satisfactory, since in many cases their relative merits are unclear. The purpose of the discipline of paleography, as conceived by Bernard de Montfaucon (1655-1741) in his foundational work Palaeographia graeca (1708), was to give editors an objective criterion for their decisions by studying the chronological development of Greek script, thus allowing scholars to assign an approximate date (and, ideally, geographical location) to each manuscript based on the style of its script. On balance, older manuscripts will tend to have more genuine readings than more recent ones (though this is obviously not always true, since a very recent manuscript may be a very accurate copy of a very old exemplar, or may incorporate variants imported from a very old exemplar; of course it is also possible that a very old manuscript was copied very sloppily). Nowadays editors like to base their decisions on a broader understanding of how the text of their author was transmitted. They generally do this by attempting to construct a genealogy (or "stemma") representing the transmission of the text, in which the extant witnesses may be placed. This is achieved mainly by comparing the readings of the extant manuscripts (and especially by observing common errors); but obviously the ability to date the witnesses is still a fundamental prerequisite, and being able to read them in the first place is even more so.

Most people who study manuscripts are engaged in some aspect of the philological work we have just described. However, there are many other reasons why one might want to be able to read Greek manuscripts; and paleographers generally do not like to think of their field as a mere ancillary discipline serving the needs of textual critics or historians. Manuscripts are indeed vehicles for the transmission of texts, but they also have their own stories to tell and are worthy of study in their own right. They are also artifacts (and often works of art) which can tell us a great deal about to the times and places in which they were produced (e.g. educational practices; the circulation of ideas) and about the people and communities of people who wrote, bought, owned, sold and read them.

If you work through the pages of this pathway, reading the feature pages and practising your reading skills by transcribing the included manuscripts, you will be able to read most Greek manuscripts which are the object of the discipline of paleography, as defined above. You will make better progress if you are guided by a teacher, but the pathway is intended to function also as a tool for self-teaching. You may start with the first feature page, which deals with majuscule scripts.

Source: https://spotlight.vatlib.it/greek-paleography

John 9:38:
Worshipping living Jesus:
A translational paradox /

Ιωάννης 9:38:
Λατρεία προς τον ζωντανό Ιησού:
Ένα μεταφραστικό παράδοξο

³⁵Ἤκουσεν Ἰησοῦς ὅτι ἐξέβαλον αὐτὸν ἔξω καὶ εὑρὼν αὐτὸν εἶπεν· σὺ πιστεύεις εἰς τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου; ³⁶ἀπεκρίθη ἐκεῖνος καὶ εἶπεν· καὶ τίς ἐστιν, κύριε, ἵνα πιστεύσω εἰς αὐτόν; ³⁷εἶπεν αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς· καὶ ἑώρακας αὐτὸν καὶ ὁ λαλῶν μετὰ σοῦ ἐκεῖνός ἐστιν. ³⁸ὁ δὲ ἔφη· πιστεύω, κύριε· καὶ προσεκύνησεν αὐτῷ.—John/Ιωάννης 9:35-38.

New International Version:
Then the man said, "Lord, I believe," and he worshiped him.

New Living Translation:
“Yes, Lord, I believe!” the man said. And he worshiped Jesus.

English Standard Version:
He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.

Berean Study Bible:
“Lord, I believe,” he said. And he worshiped Jesus.

Berean Literal Bible:
And he was saying, "I believe, Lord." And he worshiped Him.

New American Standard Bible:
And he said, "Lord, I believe." And he worshiped Him.

New King James Version:
Then he said, “Lord, I believe!” And he worshiped Him.

King James Bible:
And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him.

Christian Standard Bible:
"I believe, Lord!" he said, and he worshiped him.

Contemporary English Version:
The man said, "Lord, I put my faith in you!" Then he worshiped Jesus.

Good News Translation:
"I believe, Lord!" the man said, and knelt down before Jesus.

Holman Christian Standard Bible:
I believe, Lord!" he said, and he worshiped Him.

International Standard Version:
He said, "Lord, I do believe," and worshipped him.

NET Bible:
[He said, "Lord, I believe," and he worshiped him.

New Heart English Bible:
He said, "Lord, I believe." and he worshiped him.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English:
But he said, “I believe, my Lord”, and falling down, he worshiped him.

GOD'S WORD® Translation:
The man bowed in front of Jesus and said, "I believe, Lord."

New American Standard 1977:
And he said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped Him.

King James 2000 Bible:
And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshiped him.

American King James Version:
And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him.

American Standard Version:
And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him.

Douay-Rheims Bible:
And he said: I believe, Lord. And falling down, he adored him.

Darby Bible Translation:
And he said, I believe, Lord: and he did him homage.

English Revised Version:
And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him.

Webster's Bible Translation:
And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshiped him.

Weymouth New Testament:
"I believe, Sir," he said. And he threw himself at His feet.

World English Bible:
He said, "Lord, I believe!" and he worshiped him.

Young's Literal Translation:
and he said, 'I believe, sir,' and bowed before him.

New World Translation:
He said: “I do put faith in him, Lord.” And he did obeisance to him.

Jerusalem Bible:
The man said, 'Lord, I believe,' and worshipped him.

Revised Standard Version:
He said, “Lord, I believe”; and he worshiped him.

Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Epicurus
on the fear of death /

Ο Επίκουρος
για τον φόβο του θανάτου

συνέθιζε δὲ ἐν τῷ νομίζειν μηδὲν πρὸς ἡμᾶς εἶναι τὸν θάνατον ἐπεὶ πᾶν ἀγαθὸν καὶ κακὸν ἐν αἰσθήσει· στέρησις δέ ἐστιν αἰσθήσεως ὁ θάνατος. ὅθεν γνῶσις ὀρθὴ τοῦ μηθὲν εἶναι πρὸς ἡμᾶς τὸν θάνατον ἀπολαυστὸν ποιεῖ τὸ τῆς ζωῆς θνητόν, οὐκ ἄπειρον προστιθεῖσα χρόνον, ἀλλὰ τὸν τῆς ἀθανασίας ἀφελομένη πόθον. [...] ὥστε μάταιος ὁ λέγων δεδιέναι τὸν θάνατον οὐχ ὅτι λυπήσει παρών, ἀλλ’ ὅτι λυπεῖ μέλλων. ὅ γὰρ παρὸν οὐκ ἐνοχλεῖ, προσδοκώμενον κενῶς λυπεῖ. τὸ φρικωδέστατον οὖν τῶν κακῶν ὁ θάνατος οὐθὲν πρὸς ἡμᾶς, ἐπειδήπερ ὅταν μὲν ἡμεῖς ὦμεν, ὁ θάνατος οὐ πάρεστιν, ὅταν δὲ ὁ θάνατος παρῇ, τόθ’ ἡμεῖς οὐκ ἐσμέν. οὔτε οὖν πρὸς τοὺς ζῶντάς ἐστιν οὔτε πρὸς τοὺς τετελευτηκότας, ἐπειδήπερ περὶ οὓς μὲν οὐκ ἔστιν, οἳ δ’ οὐκέτι εἰσίν. [...] μνημονευτέον δὲ ὡς τὸ μέλλον οὔτε πάντως ἡμέτερον οὔτε πάντως οὐχ ἡμέτερον, ἵνα μήτε πάντως προσμένωμεν ὡς ἐσόμενον μήτε ἀπελπίζωμεν ὡς πάντως οὐκ ἐσόμενον.

Να συνηθίσεις την ιδέα ότι ο θάνατος δεν είναι τίποτε για μας· διότι κάθε καλό και κάθε κακό βρίσκεται στην αίσθηση, ενώ ο θάνατος είναι ακριβώς η στέρηση της αίσθησης. Γι' αυτό η γνώση του γεγονότος ότι ο θάνατος δεν είναι τίποτε για μας μας κάνει ικανούς να απολαμβάνουμε την πρόσκαιρη ζωή μας, όχι γιατί προσθέτει άπειρο χρόνο σ' αυτήν, αλλά γιατί απομακρύνει τον πόθο της αθανασίας. [...] Επομένως, είναι ανόητος όποιος λέει ότι φοβάται τον θάνατο όχι επειδή θα υποφέρει όταν έρθει ο θάνατος, αλλά επειδή υποφέρει στη σκέψη ότι θα έρθει. Εκείνο που δεν φέρνει ταραχή όταν είναι παρόν, άδικα προξενεί πόνο όταν αναμένεται. Το πιο φοβερό από τα κακά, ο θάνατος, δεν είναι τίποτε για μας- στον βαθμό που όσο υπάρχουμε, δεν είναι παρών· κι όταν πάλι είναι παρών εκείνος, τότε δεν υπάρχουμε εμείς. Άρα, ο θάνατος δεν υπάρχει ούτε για μας τους ζωντανούς ούτε για τους πεθαμένους—εφόσον για τους πρώτους δεν υπάρχει ενώ οι άλλοι δεν υπάρχουν πια. [...] Πρέπει, επίσης, να θυμόμαστε ότι το μέλλον δεν είναι ούτε εντελώς δικό μας ούτε κι εντελώς ξένο μας, ώστε ούτε να περιμένουμε με βεβαιότητα ότι θα έρθει ούτε να απελπιζόμαστε ότι σίγουρα δεν θα έρθει.

Become accustomed to the belief that death is nothing to us. For all good and evil consists in sensation, but death is deprivation of sensation. And therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not because it adds to it an infinite span of time, but because it takes away the craving for immortality. [...] So that the man speaks but idly who says that he fears death not because it will be painful when it comes, but because it is painful in anticipation. For that which gives no trouble when it comes, is but an empty pain in anticipation. So death, the most terrifying of ills, is nothing to us, since so long as we exist, death is not with us; but when death comes, then we do not exist. It does not then concern either the living or the dead, since for the former it is not, and the latter are no more. [...] We must then bear in mind that the future is neither ours, nor yet wholly not ours, so that we may not altogether expect it as sure to come, nor abandon hope of it, as if it will certainly not come.

Επίκουρος, «Επιστολή προς Μενοικέα»,
Επίκουρος. Ηθική: Η Θεραπεία της Ψυχής,
μετάφρ. Γιώργος Ζωγραφίδης, Αθήνα: Ζήτρος, 2009, σσ. 253-255.

Epicurus, “Letter to Menoeceus,” transl. Cyril Bailey (1926).

*

Wednesday, February 19, 2020

New Revised Standard Version:

The reasons that the Orthodox Church in America
rejected it in 1990 /

Οι λόγοι που την απέρριψε
η Ορθόδοξη Εκκλησία της Αμερικής το 1990

Bishop's Pastoral Letter
on the New Revised Standard Version

I. Synodal Decision: At the 1990 Fall Session of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America convened at the OCA Chancery, Oyster Bay Cove, New York, October 15-18, 1990, His Grace, Bishop Dmitri, presented an oral report on the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible (NRSV). Based on this report, the Holy Synod decided not to permit the use of the NRSV in liturgical services and in bible study. I'm now communicating this decision to you all in the expectation that you will carry it out, of course, but I also wish to provide you a little "background", as I understand it, of the decision.

II. Background: The "NRSV' was produced under the auspices of the NCC. One of the participants in its production was a Greek Orthodox scholar, Father Dimitrios Constantelos. Nevertheless, the members of the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America, upon being acquainted with certain of its key passages and phraseologies, found it to be so divergent from the Holy Scriptures traditionally read aloud in the sacred services of the Church as to render it impossible of acceptance as Holy Scriptures. Here are a few examples of quotations from the NRSV:

(Genesis I: 1-2) In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. (Psalm I) Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked.
(Psalm XXII:16) My hands and feet have shriveled.
(Psalm LI:5) Indeed I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.
(Romans V:12) Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned.
(John I:3-4) All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.
(I Timothy II:5-6) For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all-- this was attested at the right time.
(I Timothy III: 1-2) The saying is sure: whoever aspires to the office of bishop desires a noble task. Now a bishop must be above reproach, married only once, temperate, sensible, respectable, hospitable, an apt teacher.

III. Comment: I'm sure that none of the venerable clergy of the Diocese of the West need be reminded that the word "Orthodox" itself implies a certain care about correct syntactics, semantics and pragmatics, the correct use of language, and therefore any member of the clergy might be justified in questioning the necessity of Synodal action in an area where all clergy would come to the same conclusion as have the right revered bishops. Here, frankly, the media come into the picture, as it were; to wit, the "New York Times," which carried an article on the "dedication" of the NRSV in Manhattan. This article made it very easy to infer, from its text alone, that the NRSV had been accepted by the Orthodox in general and the OCA in particular, an inference made even more probable by the accompanying photo of one of our Protodeacons carrying the NRSV aloft in solemn procession at the dedication. I do not myself subscribe to or regularly read that paper, but the article was brought to my attention by some phone calls from around the area of the Diocese of the West. Moreover, I believe the OCA Chancery received a very large number of calls from persons who expressed surprise at our "adoption" of a patently questionable version of a Bible. However, the New York Times article did occasion the bringing to the attention of the Holy Synod of already existing criticism of the NRSV by Orthodox scholars. You may recall that I also mentioned the problems of the NRSV during a plenary session of our Diocesan Assembly.

The prohibition of the use of the NRSV for bible study refers to Orthodox bible study, an activity where the Holy Truths of our Faith as they are revealed in the Holy Scriptures are studied by the Faithful with the guidance of a teacher ordained to the task. So-called critical studies, where various bibles may be subjected to objective examination and scholarly evaluations are, of course, not included in the Synod's prohibition. Indeed, I will be studying this NRSV myself, and comparing it with our Orthodox Septuagint and our Orthodox Gospel Books in Greek and Slavonic and our Orthodox Books of Apostolic Readings ("Apostols") in Greek and Slavonic.

This matter in general heightens my sense of urgency about our lack of Orthodox Holy Scriptures in English. Scripture used and quoted by the Apostles was the Greek Septuagint, and it was from the Greek Septuagint that the Old Testamental texts used in the other Holy Orthodox Churches have been translated. The Old Testament texts in all the English Bibles in use today, including the venerable King James version, are based primarily on Hebrew texts which are frequently less ancient than existing Greek texts. The New Testament, i.e. the Gospel Scriptures and the Scriptures of Apostolic origin read aloud in our Churches, were written in Greek. I ask you all to pray that our Department of Worship, of which I am Moderator, will be able to take productive steps toward providing canonical texts in English for all the readings in the sacred services of our Church. In the meantime, I encourage the use of the King James Version and the New King James Version, acknowledging that neither of these versions is fully accurate and free of mistakes, hence, completely acceptable. I am fully aware that the RSV, which will now be going out of print, is widely used, especially among those trained as clergy after its appearance. When we were trained we learned how to approach the RSV's divergences from our Tradition. Now it seems that that version was only the first step down a road which has, now, stopped at the NRSV, but which may continue in the direction of producing versions which do not reproduce so much the original texts as they reproduce the current theological opinings of their sponsors and publishers. I would like to assure the very many qualified scholars, biblical and otherwise, of our Diocese of the West that I make no pretensions at all to being a critical scholar or to having scholarly credentials in the area of biblical criticism, but I am speaking as I am sure are all my brother bishops, as one charged preeminently with responsibility before God both for Orthodox bible study in the first sense, above, and for insuring the purity of the Gospel proclaimed in our Churches.

I ask for your continued prayers and support (which I feel almost physically, at times) in all our common work. I assure you of my own appreciation of all your work, of my constancy in prayer for you all individually, and I send you as much of a fatherly blessing as I am capable of as a bishop.

In Christ,

Bishop Tikhon

[His Grace Bishop Tikhon is the ruling hierarch of the Diocese of the West of the Orthodox Church in America. This article was originally published in The Orthodox West, Winter 1990 issue.]