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Buth Reply Seth Sanders June 2014 Ga-Rb Response to: Ἑβραϊστί means Hebrew Lack of comprehensive Aramaic Targums pre-100 CE Hebrew Story Parables I appreciated the title of a recent essay (June 9, 2014) by Seth Sanders, “Why the Argument Over Jesus’ Language is More Complicated and More Interesting Than Media Experts Have Claimed.” In fact, many of Sanders’ points that elucidated the complexity of the language situation in the first century resonated with me. He even bothered to cite the article that I had written for the Israeli newspaper Ha-Aretz (http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.596687). However, within his essay there were some erroneous or misleading “facts” that need further clarification if the public is going to learn more of what went on in the linguistic landscape of first-century Galilee and Judea. When turning to the data on rabbouni, Sanders seems out-of-touch and somewhat prejudicial when he says: In John 20, Mary Magdalene is described as calling the resurrected Jesus “rabbuni,” which, every standard translation tells us, is Hebrew and means “teacher.” This is fascinatingly wrong. It’s actually the only time in the New Testament that an Aramaic form of the word is used; every other time Jesus is addressed with a similar term it’s the Hebrew “Rabbi.” Indeed, all the comprehensible words in John labeled “hebraisti” (translated “Hebrew”), like Golgotha, are Aramaic... For starters, rabbouni occurs not once but twice in the New Testament—once in Mark 10:51 and once in John 20:16. In John, rabbouni is called “Hebrew,” while in Mark, there is no language appellation. Ironically, in some translations (e.g., NIV and footnote of NRSV) rabbouni has now been called “Aramaic,” prejudicially, as will be seen below. Sanders also calls the word Aramaic, and later in his essay, he refers to the word as “obviously Aramaic.” Sanders seems to be unaware of the clarifying study done by E.Y. Kutscher fifty years ago. Since I had to cut my original offering to Haaretz down from 3300 words to 1200 words, I was not able to fully describe the complexity of rabbouni. From the recently published article “Hebraisti in Ancient Texts: Does Ἑβραϊστί Ever Mean ‘Aramaic’?”: rather than רִבוֹנִי Traditionally, it has been argued that the Greek ραββουνεί1 comes from Aramaic a word more widely known among commentators. Yet, this understanding is too simplistic ,רַבִּי Hebrew and probably shows a tendency in the eyes of New Testament scholarship to attribute anything different from a basic understanding of Hebrew or Biblical Hebrew to Aramaic.2 Kutscher has demonstrated that represents a difference between Western and Eastern pronunciations of Hebrew רִבּוֹנִי .vs רַבּוֹנִי and רַבוּנִי and Aramaic rather than a Hebrew vs. Aramaic distinction. Both languages show the same West/East distinction. Texts such as the early Hebrew Mishnah Taanit 3:8 (according to Codex Kaufmann) and with pataḥ is רַבוּנִי later Aramaic Palestinian Targum fragments from the Cairo Geniza3 show that found in Western Semitic texts.4 Eastern texts, such as the Aramaic Targum Onkelos (passim), use the riboni.” Kutscher has speculated that Targum Onkelos has caused the textual corruptions in“ ,רִבוֹנִי form later printed texts of both Hebrew and Aramaic.5 Since the word ραββουνεί was used in both Hebrew contexts and Aramaic contexts, John must be recognized as correct when he calls rabbouni “Hebrew,” and it cannot be used as evidence that Ἑβραϊστί means “Aramaic.”6 Even more, Sanders’ statistics are actually a sleight-of-hand, since there are not over a hundred examples of rabbouni in Targum Onkelos. Sanders quoted statistics for the use of ribbon, a form also common in mishnaic Hebrew (e.g., ribbono shel `olam “lord of the universe”). The New Testament is actually the oldest attestation of the western pronunciation rabboun-. To further complicate matters, we have another near-synonym of this word, rabban, again found in both Hebrew and Aramaic. However, to assume that rabbounei is “obviously Aramaic” is a circular faux pas. Illegitimate circularity raises its head again when Sanders discusses the meaning of the term ebraisti ἑβραϊστεί “Hebrew.” It has been commonplace within New Testament scholarship over the last 400 years to attribute hebraisti to both Aramaic and Hebrew, as if ancient writers were referring to Aramaic Byz], ραββωνει [D], ραββωνι [Θ], et al. They consistently record an ,א] The Greek texts have ραββουνει [B], ραββουνι 1 [a] sound in the first syllable and an [i] in the final syllable according to Koine Greek phonology. 2 For an example of the trend, and needed correction, see the note 40 on ὡσάννα in Buth’s “The Riddle of Jesus’ Cry from is often called Aramaic in הושע-נא the Cross,” pages 408-409 in the present volume, where it is noted that the Hebrew commentaries; also in agreement on this point is Jan Joosten, “Aramaic or Hebrew behind the Gospels?,” Analecta Bruxellensia 9 (2004): 88–101 (91) states: “hosanna (said by the crowds) and amen, are in fact Hebrew and not Aramaic.” 3 Michael L. Klein, Geniza Manuscripts of Palestinian Targum to the Pentateuch, vol. 1 (Cincinnati, Ohio: Hebrew Union at 1:133 (col. 2, line 3—Gen 44:18), where the vocalization is clear but the consonants רַבּוּנִי ,.College Press, 1986). See, e.g .is attested but the top parts of the consonants are missing רַבּוּנִי are in a lacuna. At line 5 of col. 2, the vocalization [ני] 4 E. Y. Kutscher, “Language of the Sages” (Hebrew), in Ben-Hayyim, Dotan, and Sarfatti, eds., Hebrew and Aramaic Studies, 95–98. 5 Ibid., 98. 6 Randall Buth and Chad Pierce, “Hebraisti in Ancient Texts: does Ἑβραϊστί Ever Mean 'Aramaic'?,” in Buth and Notley, edd., The Language Environment of First Century Judaea [Brill, 2014, pp 66-109], 99-100. when using the term. That was seen as a necessity as long as Hebrew was considered a dead language. Sanders has recognized that Hebrew remained in use in the Second Temple. He may find it interesting, even surprising, to carefully sift through the data on the word hebraisti. The numbers of errors and misreadings that have been allowed to echo within secondary literature are quite humbling to all of us in the field.7 Superficial logic has helped modern scholars to misread ancient authors. For example, Josephus showed that he meant Hebrew when he called σαββατα sabbata (“sabbath”) Hebrew and said that it meant “to rest.” Scholars have sometimes alleged that Josephus must have meant Aramaic because sabbata ends in “-a.” However, the Aramaic-friendly citation form, sabbata, only shows the preferred way to refer to the term in Greek, following a centuries-long interface between Greek and Aramaic in connection with Hebrew in the Middle East8 (similarly with πασχα “Passover” and σικερα “beer” (Luke 1:15), loanwords in the NT that are already found in the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible). The citation form does not make Josephus’ σαββατα “Aramaic.” Josephus was referring to the Hebrew word when he called the word “Hebrew” because Aramaic did not have a verb shabat but used a different verb, naH, for “rest.” The attested Aramaic word for sabbath in Egypt and Israel was shabba [sic]. I would recommend that someone read through the article, “Hebraisti in Ancient Texts: does Ἑβραϊστί Ever Mean 'Aramaic'?,” by Buth and Pierce, cited above, before continuing the conversation.9 This is a case were an assumed fact on the ground turns upside down. The result of the study also leads one to recognize that John most probably meant Hebrew when he correctly called rabbouni Hebrew. The same apparently goes for betesda, gabbata, and golgota (John 5:2; 19:13, 17).10 Another item that needs to be flagged in Sanders’ article regards the Aramaic Targums: By the second century B.C.E. Palestinian Jews were writing major religious texts in all three languages, and translating the Hebrew scriptures into both Aramaic and Greek. 7 See for example, Matthew Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts, 3rd ed., [Clarendon, 1967] p 48, on Letter of Aristeas 11-12. 8 Other examples of this phenomenon are πάσχα “Passover” (Mt 26:17; Mk 14:12; Lk 22:7) and σίκερα “beer” (Luke 1:15), loanwords in the NT that are already found in the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible. 9 Randall Buth and Chad Pierce, “Hebraisti in Ancient Texts: does Ἑβραϊστί Ever Mean 'Aramaic'?,” in Buth and Notley, edd., The Language Environment of First Century Judaea [Brill, 2014, pp 66-109]. 10 Bet-esta and Gabbata may not even be Semitic in etymology. The writer of John’s Gospel did not say what those two names meant, only that they were the local names in Hebrew. Again, see the article, “Hebraisti in Ancient Texts: does Ἑβραϊστί Ever Mean 'Aramaic'?,” for the details. Sanders’ statement goes beyond the evidence, especially since Tobit is not part of the Hebrew canon. We have Hebrew and Aramaic copies of Tobit among the Dead Sea texts, and not a few non-canonical Hebrew and Aramaic texts. But the only sure copy of an Aramaic Targum is an Aramaic translation of Job, with linguistic traits that show that it had been imported from the East. There is also a piece of Leviticus 16’s “Day of Atonement,” which may testify to a copy of the whole book, or it may be a reading that was intended for the many foreign pilgrims who would visit on the high holidays. What is remarkable is that we have lots of Hebrew Bible and Greek Bible among Judean texts, but virtually no Aramaic Bible, and the primary example is an import. Just like Alexandria is credited with the impetus in creating a Greek Bible, we may assume that the Eastern diaspora is where an Aramaic Bible first gained ground.
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