variegated expatiations

You can now read about linguistic dating of biblical texts over at Bible and Interpretation here. Well worth a read because it calls into question many of the assumptions frequently made about dating texts…

I just noticed that the NET Bible’s website has been updated. It looks quite fancy, so check it out. My only suggestion would be to adjust the line-height in the CSS to increase the spacing between text lines.

Mark Baddeley has been posting about the impassibility of God over on the SolaPanel. I’ve always had reservations about the doctrine, so here’s a copy of the comment I posted over there:
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A recent article in the UK paper The Guardian reports that a newly translated by Irving Finkel (although not, apparently, newly discovered) tablet of Atra-hasis makes reference to the Mesopotamian ark as being “circular” (I assume it means more cylindrical than spherical). Although the provenance of the tablet seems unclear, there has been no doubt cast upon its authenticity that I’ve seen.

The relevant portion of the text is translated thus:

Wall, wall! Reed wall, reed wall!
Atram-Hasis, pay heed to my advice, that you may live forever!
Destroy your house, build a boat; despise possessions And save life!
Draw out the boat that you will built with a circular design;
Let its length and breadth be the same.

As I’ve noted previously, the Mesopotamian conception of the ark recorded a vessel with equal width, breadth, and height, and so it has been widely assumed to have been cubic (a shape with significant cultic connections), but a cylindrical vessel would also easily fit these dimensions.

There are, however, a couple of notes of caution worth raising.

First, I have only seen Finkel’s translation. Without seeing the tablet itself it is difficult to judge how certain the translation “circular” is for whatever term was used on the tablet. The semantic range of the term could be less precise or script on the tablet itself could be unclear and allow some room for movement.

Second, the reports that this was the original shape of Noah’s Ark are simply wrong. The Bible records clear dimensions for its conception of the Ark and they simply cannot be circular (whatever that means in 3D). The biblical account is not merely a retelling of an older story, and hence it cannot be “corrected” by reference to older versions.

Nonetheless, I may need to go back to the drawing board for my lego Ark…

Jim West has posed a yuletide quest to uncover the “right” translation of Luke 2:14 (does anyone else get a Google ad inserted into that page for the “United Church of God”?). So here I’ll get into the spirit and have a go!

First, for reference, Jim suggests the following:

Glory to the highest God; and on earth, peace to men of good will.

The Greek text reads as follows:

δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις θεῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκίας.

There is one significant textual issue in the verse, where some manuscripts read εὐδοκία rather than εὐδοκίας, that is a nominative (although dative is distinguished from nominative only by the iota subscript and so would also have been indistinguishable in uncial MSS) rather than genitive.

A close parallel exists in the LXX in the Odes 14:1-3 which reads:

δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις θεῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκία

This is probably sourced from Luke 2:14, although it further attests to the nominative (or possibly dative) reading of the word εὐδοκία. This all means that a faithful translation (as far as such is ever possible) is going to be more difficult because there will remain some question over the precise text.

For the purposes of the discussion, I’ll go with the genitive εὐδοκίας.

The first clause, δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις θεῷ sets up a contrast with the second clause — ἐν ὑψίστοις “in the highest places” vs. ἐπὶ γῆς “on Earth.” As such, I think Jim’s rendering “the highest God” is perhaps not the best we could achieve (I’d be happy with that were the Greek ἐν ὑψίστῳ θεῷ; cf. Gen 14:19–22). So I’ll go with “Glory in the high heavens to God” for that clause.

That leaves the remainder, ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκίας. Perhaps the most interesting part is the final part, in particular how the genitive εὐδοκίας relates to “among people.” I think it reasonable to read εὐδοκίας as adjectival, thus restricting the people upon whom peace is wished. So I would go with “on Earth, peace on favoured people.”

So, putting it all together:

“Glory in the high heavens to God, and on Earth peace with favoured people.”