Domanda-Aramaico..

... anche perché non so dove postarla!!

Alcuni di voi forse avranno notato che sto intervenendo in un 3D sul significato (ove vi sia) di Ego Eimi nel QV (ad es. Gv 8:5.

In Aramaico Ego (io) si dice Ena ed Ego Eimi (io sono) Ena-na: secondo un certo Andrew Gabriel Roth (???) sarebbe un chiaro riferimento a Dio (come per molti commentatori, tra l'altro, del NT in greco).

C'è qualcuno che saprebbe indicarmi del materiale ermeneutico-esegetico su questa espressione aramaica? owsr

Uno alla volta però ...

ehmmm certo cvon calma ma sai questo è un forum serio per persone serie

Link interessante

Ciao e fammi sapere

Ciao Tamburino,

---

In Aramaico Ego (io) si dice Ena ed Ego Eimi (io sono) Ena-na: secondo un certo Andrew Gabriel Roth (???) sarebbe un chiaro riferimento a Dio

---

Sono curioso di sentire le considerazioni di Roth, fra altro nell'interlineare della Peshitta (www.peshitta.org) leggo che Giovanni 8:58 è reso "Io, Io ero" e non con il classico "io sono".

Ciao

[Modificato da barnabino 13/07/2005 10.48]

Ecco bravo! Compralo tu, poi vieni a casa mia e ce lo declamiamo a vicenda. E magari facciamo un giro a cavallo nella brughiera milanese ...
Che romantico! fdetr

---

Scritto da: M.Tamburino 29/06/2005 17.53
... anche perché non so dove postarla!!

Alcuni di voi forse avranno notato che sto intervenendo in un 3D sul significato (ove vi sia) di Ego Eimi nel QV (ad es. Gv 8:5.

In Aramaico Ego (io) si dice Ena ed Ego Eimi (io sono) Ena-na: secondo un certo Andrew Gabriel Roth (???) sarebbe un chiaro riferimento a Dio (come per molti commentatori, tra l'altro, del NT in greco).

C'è qualcuno che saprebbe indicarmi del materiale ermeneutico-esegetico su questa espressione aramaica? owsr

Uno alla volta però ...

---

Ciao M.Tamburino, secondo i miei modesti studi
Ego Eimi =Io-Sono in greco,
mentre in aramaico EGO(IO) = ANA',
infatti in ARABO (l'aramaico è una lingua più araba che ebraica)
EGO (IO) continua a dirsi ANA ( senza accento).

[Modificato da Yohanan 14/07/2005 11.46]

Ciao Tamburino,

Come vedi tra una vacanza e l'altra non manco di tornare sulla spinosa questione dell' ego eimi

La tesi di Roth (la trovi nel suo sito) che identificherebbe l'espressione ena-na come un riferimento al nome divino si basa sul fatto che mentre in aramaico (come ha correttamente riportato l'amico Yohanan) "io sono" si indica semplicenente con ena (che altro non è che il pronome personale "io") in Giovanni è usata l'espressione ena-na dove il pronome personale è ripetuto per due volte (sarebbe ena ena, ma come eclitica è usata la forma abbreviata na).

In realtà in aramaico il pronome personale può essere usato anche come copula (vedi Syriac Grammar di T. Robinsons) e dunque lessicalmente avrebbe sempre il significato di "io sono" ma, secondo Roth, questa forma sarebbe specificamente correlata con EHYEH ASHER EHYEH di Esodo 3:14 in quanto nella traduzione siriaca di quel versetto (secondo Roth, io non ho controllato) in quel versetto non viene usata la forma semplice ena ma quella ripetuta ena-na (tesi di per se molto simile a quella dei sostenitori di "ego eimi" come riferimento diretto a "ego eimi ho on"). Roth basarebbe la sua tesi sul fatto che ena-na nelle versioni siriache verrebbe usato esclusivamente in riferimento all'autoidentificazione di Dio (in Esodo 3,14) e poi da Cristo in Giovanni (ma non in Giovanni 8:58 dove "ego eimi" viene reso con la forma corrispondente a "io ero").

In realtà questa mi pare un tesi un pò tirata per i capelli, infatti non è vero che ena-na sia usata esclusivamente a proposito di Dio ma anche per altre persone, per esempio in Genesi 45:3,4 quando Giuseppe palesa la sua identità ai fratelli ("Io sono [ena-na] Giuseppe vostro fratello") ed in altre frasi nei vangeli, per esempio in Luca 1,19 (l’angelo gli disse: “Io sono [ena-na] Gabriele") e in Giovanni 9:19 (L’uomo diceva: “Sono io” [ena-na]). Come "ego eimi" dunque anche "ena-na" non sarebbe nulla di più che una forma di autoidentificazione che non identifica necessariamente "Geova" (o un essere "divino") ma semplicemente la persona a cui si fa riferimento.

Inoltre, per pensare alla validità di questa ipotesi, ci sarebbe anche da presupporre che Cristo parlasse aramaico e citasse dalla versione in aramaico di Esodo ovvero che il vangelo di Giovanni fosse stato originariamente redatto in aramaico, ma entrambe queste tesi sono poco attendibili, per esempio Flusser ritiene che al tempo di Gesù in Giudea fosse parlato non l'aramaico ma l'ebraico e ancora più dubbia e la tesi che il vangelo di Giovanni fosse stato scritto originariamente in aramaico e poi tradotto in greco.

Per altro per Roth questi passi non avrebbero comunque un senso trinitario, secondo la sua tesi Cristo voleva solo dire che come Figlio di Dio in lui dimorava una manifestazione della natura divina di YHWH.

Ciao

[Modificato da barnabino 25/07/2005 1.07]

Uff ... torna in vacanza!

Io comunque non volevo assolutamente parlare di Roth (chi è costui nel? boh!).

Permettimi solo un'osservazione: tu continui ad ostinarti a dare una valenza "grammaticale" all'argomento. Mi può stare bene ma la valenza che si sta approfondendo è teologica o come diresti tu "mistica".

E' innegabile che hu sia un pronome ma, almeno secondo le interpretazioni che ho già avuto modo di postare, quali sono le motivazioni che lo fanno assurgere a ruolo di "Nome"?

Questo non me l'hai ancora chiarito.

987 (Hai notato la mia nuova firma?)

Ciao Tamburino!

---

Uff ... torna in vacanza!

---

Hehehehe... lo spero bene anche io, ma tra viaggetto e l'altro non posso mancare l'appuntamento di "ego eimi" e poi questa cosa dell'aramaico mi ha attizzato!

---

Roth (chi è costui nel? boh!).

---

Roth è l'autore di quel libro che citavi tu all'inizio in cui si sosteneva che in aramanico ena-na sarebbe un chiaro riferimento a Dio.

---

Permettimi solo un'osservazione: tu continui ad ostinarti a dare una valenza "grammaticale" all'argomento. Mi può stare bene ma la valenza che si sta approfondendo è teologica o come diresti tu "mistica".

---

Quello che vorrei mettere in risalto è solo che in questo caso (a quanto ho raccolto fino ad ora ovviamente) la valenza teologica di questa espressione è nulla in quanto per "ego eimi" si parla di una espressione grammaticale che:

1. si spiega perfettamente con il contesto come autoidentificazione
2. non ha mai avuto prima alcuna valenza teologica
3. non l'ha mia avuta al tempo di Cristo e nei secoli subito successivi

Ma questo mi pare di averlo già ripetuto, ed anche in modo un pò antipatico! Diverso è il caso di "hu" dove invece la possibile (anche se a mio parere non del tutto provata) natura di nome indicate la persona divina è più plausibile, per esempio dal fatto che è usato all'interno di nomi di persona e che come tale dimostra un uso stratificato nel tempo. E comunque, anche in questo caso, non sempre "hu" indica un nome divino oppure ha necessariamente una qualche valenza mistica se nel contesto non è richiesta dall'impossibilità di una lettura comune.

Non so se mi sono spiegato caro Tamburino, non vorrei darti l'impressione di essere troppo polemico e assolutista su questa cosa, semplicemente, come si dice, ci ho la "coccia" e voglio vederci chiaro!

Tornando al'ipotesi teologica ti ho riportato quella di Roth secondo cui quel ena-na non sarebbe una identificazione di Gesù con Geova ma piuttosto avrebbe indicato il fatto che come Figlio di Dio in lui dimorava una manifestazione della natura divina di YHWH. Potrebbe essere una ipotesi affascinante ed in linea con il resto del vangelo di Giovanni senza scomodare teorie trinitarie francamente troppo precoci in questo periodo. Ma ancora non riesco a vedere ababstanza prove lessicali e storiche che dimostrino almeno con una certa approssimazione che ena-na, ego eimi o ani hu siano qualcosa di più di una comune autoidentificazione, non trovo nessun particolare rapporto tra queste espressioni e la divinità. Spero che, al di là di ogni polemica, tu possa capire i miei dubbi.

Ciao (saluta Tamburino!)

[Modificato da barnabino 25/07/2005 17.05]

Barnabain!
Quando chiedevo chi fosse intendevo dire: Che autorità è Roth? Lo sapevo che l'avevo citato io!

Mi pare però che sorvoli un po' troppo grossolanamente sulle testimonianze rabbiniche. All'inizio dei miei interventi se ricordo bene negavi anche quelle ...

E' vero invece che le testimonianze patristiche sono deboli:

Epistle of Ignatius to the Tarsians
Irenaeus Against Heresies Book IV
Fragments from the Lost Writings of Irenaeus
in Origen Against Celsus Book VIII
in A Treatise of Novatian Concerning the Trinity
in Pseudo-Gregory Thaumaturgus Twelve Topics on the Faith

Però non è giusto! Sei in ferie, entri, agiti le acque e poi te ne riparti? Guarda che ti raggiungo in Corsica ... e ti segnalo che i miei ultimi viaggi sono stati prima che avvenissero i seguenti fatti:
Tsunami
Kamikaze

Okkio!

Caro Tamburino,

In effetti Roth non è una grande autorità, ma siccome lo avevi citato tu non volevo demolirlo con attacchi ad personam per questo che avevo inteso quel "chi è?" come una piccola dimenticanza.

D'altronde a me non interessa chi parla ma piuttosto cosa dice, ci sono anche fior di biblisti che dicono delle emerite stupidaggini!

---

Mi pare però che sorvoli un po' troppo grossolanamente sulle testimonianze rabbiniche

---

Non sto sorvolando, ma devo dirti che le trovo poco probanti, per diverse ragioni. La prima è che come d'altronde riconosce lo stesso Dodd si tratta di testimonianze troppo tarde per stabilire un rapporto tra il rabbismo giudaico e il vangelo di Giovanni, per esempio chiude il paragrafo sul nome di Dio con questa osservazione: "molto di quanto ho detto sembrerà un pò una speculativo, manca inoltre qualche anello della catena dimostrativa"

Dodd infatti usa spesso materiale di epoca più tarda all'epoca che lui considera importante per la formazione del Vangelo di Giovanni (cioè dal 70 al 135) e quando lo fa si accontenta di considerare il giudaismo nel suo insieme benchè quello di Gesù è di na generazione anteriore al 70 e quello di Giovanni di una generazione posteriore, ed in mezzo abbiamo l'evento più catastrofico nella storia del giudaismo che ne cambiò radicalmente il volto.

Non voglio certo sminuire il lavoro di Dodd ma credo che si debbano anche valutarne i limiti.

Per entrare nel particolare mi pare che in Giuda ben Ilai (130-160 dC) l'espressione ‘ani wehu, Io e Lui (che indicava l’unione intima o quasi identificazione di Dio con Israele) non indichi che 'ani hu era considerato un nome divino, al massimo qui YHWH era identificato con "Lui". Che si possa pensare ad una intima relazione tra Israele e Lui può essere accettabile nella logica ebraica, ma parlare di "identificazione" mi pare francamente un pò una forzatura di Dodd.

Le altre due testimonianze mi sembrano francamente ininfluenti (per altro quella di Abbahu è troppo tarda, del III secolo) in quanto anche qui non vedo un uso particolare di 'ani hu usato semplicemente nel suo senso grammaticale di "io stesso".

Più credibile potrebbe sembrare la citazione di Pinkas ben Jair (130-160 d.C.) di cui però dobbiamo chiederci che peso potesse avere la sua opinione sulle parole di Cristo e su Giovanni vissuti diverse generazioni prima (e tra Cristo e ben Jair c'è il 70).

La sua traduzione è chiaramente una interpretazione (infatti traduce anche in modo errato ki) di quel versetto particolare non risulta infatti, a quanto dice Dodd, che egli mantenga 'ani hu negli altri versetti di Isaia in cui compare questa espressione, per cui non mi pare che possa essere usato come argomento per sostenere che 'ani hu era considerato di per sè un nome divino visto che in altri casi è reso normalmente secondo la grammatica. Mi pare davvero un pò poco per stabilire con una certa sicurezza che per il tutto il giudaismo del 1° secolo fosse comune identificare YHWH con 'ani hu. A mio parere non ci sono gli estremi per farlo. E ancora si dovrebbe stabilire un rapporto diretto tra il rabbinismo giudsismo e il vangelo di Giovanni, operazione ancora tutta da fare.

E' vero che 'Ani hu è tradotto dalla LXX con ego eimi che ci ricorda l'espressione Giovanni ma come altro doveva essere tradotto? Grammaticalmente 'ani indica il pronome personale io mentre hu non è certo interpretato dalla LXX come un nome divino ma semplicemente come copula. Mi pare che la LXX non possa indurre ad alcuna speculazione teologica di 'ani hu che è tradotto semplicemente secondo la grammatica "io sono". E' difficile vedere 'ani hu come qualcosa di più di una autoidentificazione (vedi anche 1 Cronache 21:17 dove 'ani hu è ugualmente tradotto con ego eimi dalla LXX). Il problema è: leggendo l'espressione greca "ego eimi" chi l'avrebbero collegata con il nome divino? Non i padri della chiesa che pur conoscevano bene il greco e le tradizioni apostoliche, alcuni conobbero anche Giovanni.

Per altro nella stragrande maggioranza dei casi ego eimi traduce semplicemente il pronome 'ani, per cui diventa difficile stabilire dal testo greco se Gesù (ammesso che parlasse ebraico) pronunciasse la frase nominale 'ani hu o semplicemente 'ani (oppure anokhi).

Insomma, senza essere tassativi, mi pare solo che tutto questo sia troppo speculativo caro Tamburino, la mia impressione è che in una frase leggibilissima senza troppe complicazioni si voglia a tutti i costi far entrare la stretta calzamaglia del trinitarismo.

---

E' vero invece che le testimonianze patristiche sono deboli

---

Potresti postare quelle che ti sembrano più interessanti? Forse ne ricaviamo qualcosa di interesante. Per altro l'epistola di Ignazio ai Tarsiani non è ritenuta autentica.

Spero che dopo questo non mi trovi in pieno Tzunami... non ti rivelerò mai la data della mia partenza!

Ti saluto!

---

Non sto sorvolando, ma devo dirti che le trovo poco probanti, per diverse ragioni. La prima è che come d'altronde riconosce lo stesso Dodd si tratta di testimonianze troppo tarde per stabilire un rapporto tra il rabbismo giudaico e il vangelo di Giovanni, per esempio chiude il paragrafo sul nome di Dio con questa osservazione: "molto di quanto ho detto sembrerà un pò una speculativo, manca inoltre qualche anello della catena dimostrativa"

Dodd infatti usa spesso materiale di epoca più tarda all'epoca che lui considera importante per la formazione del Vangelo di Giovanni (cioè dal 70 al 135) e quando lo fa si accontenta di considerare il giudaismo nel suo insieme benchè quello di Gesù è di na generazione anteriore al 70 e quello di Giovanni di una generazione posteriore, ed in mezzo abbiamo l'evento più catastrofico nella storia del giudaismo che ne cambiò radicalmente il volto.

Non voglio certo sminuire il lavoro di Dodd ma credo che si debbano anche valutarne i limiti.

---

Ecco, mi hai indisposto, soprattutto perchè provocandomi mi fai trasgredire al mio fioretto.

Limiti che nessuno nasconde ...

Per la verità Dodd chiude il capitolo dicendo (TU HAI LE VERSIONE IN INGLESE!!!!)

Qualcuno potrebbe avere l'impressione che quanto abbiamo si qui detto sia, almeno in parte, frutto di congetture arbitrarie e che nella nostra argomentazione manchi qualche elemento.
Tuttavia, penso che si debba almeno ammettere la possibilità che una delle idee più tipiche del quarto Vangelo - e supposta comunemente come estranea al giudaismo entro il quale sorse il cristianesimo -, si trovi invece radicata nel pensiero giudaico. In particolare penso che i rabbini ebrei furono indotti dalle calamità nazionali, che colpirono Israele dal 70 al 135 dopo Cristo, a riflettere sull'insegnamento profetico riguardate i rapporti tra Dio e il suo popolo.

Almeno ammettere la possibilità ... cosa che tu non fai. Chi era qui quello dogmatico?

Inoltre mi piacerebbe che lo stesso rigore sulla validità di prove "tardive" fosse allora applicata anche quando si parla di canone alessandrino o canone palestinese ...

Quest'ultima cosa l'ho detta solo per provocarti! Tu mi stuzzichi! Comunque non è necessario che mi sposti fisicamente: è sufficiente che fissi intensamente un mappamondo. E prova ad immaginare ove si è in quest'ora posato il mio gentil sguardo???

Caro Tamburino,

---

Almeno ammettere la possibilità ... cosa che tu non fai. Chi era qui quello dogmatico?

---

Non è che non ammetto questa possibilità, il fatto è che comunque, anche ammettendo una possibile influenza del rabbinismo giudaico nel vangelo di Giovanni, ipotesi di Dodd appunto ma non condivisa dalla maggioranza di studiosi, non vedo davvero le prove che il giudaismo del 1° secolo indentificasse 'ani hu con il nome divino e tanto meno che con il greco ego eimi si intendesse un ipotetico "io sono Lui" come autoindentificazine divina. Tutto, se devo essere sincero, mi pare davvero troppo speculativo.

Con questo non penso di essere dogmatico, non voglio difendere alcun dogma, anzi proprio al contrario vorrei tornare al testo. Io sono il primo a sostenere che ci sono forti influenze giudaiche nel vamgelo di Giovanni, ma lo vedo più come un ricorso alle scritture che alle interpretazioni rabbiniche delle stesse. Comunque un certo modo di procedere nelle discussioni di Gesù rispecchi il metodo rabbinico, questo si deve ammetterlo, ma non mi pare che Gesù ne condividesse i contenuti, questa almeno è la mia impressione.

---

Ecco, mi hai indisposto, soprattutto perchè provocandomi mi fai trasgredire al mio fioretto.

---

E tu al mio... avevo fatto giurin giuretto che su ego eimi me ne sarei stato calmo per un pò almeno fin dopo le meritate vacanze!

---

Per la verità Dodd chiude il capitolo dicendo

---

Non è che la versione italiana è on-line???? dimmi di si!

---

Inoltre mi piacerebbe che lo stesso rigore sulla validità di prove "tardive" fosse allora applicata anche quando si parla di canone alessandrino o canone palestinese ...

---

Ahi... ahi... qui rischiamo di infognarci per almeno altri due o tre mesi, per ora faccio finta di non aver letto niente!


Ciao

---

Non è che la versione italiana è on-line???? dimmi di si!

---

No, io viaggio con il TOMO nella mia cartella ... e lo faccio solo per TE! Che romantico ...

---

più come un ricorso alle scritture

---

Quindi ... hai anche quello di Dodd sulle "formule di citazione"?

Lo vuoi????

Per esempio scannerizzarli tutti e due? Magari averli... io vado avanti a prestiti, ma gli amici ormai mi evitano quando mi vedono da lontano!

---

Inoltre, per pensare alla validità di questa ipotesi, ci sarebbe anche da presupporre che Cristo parlasse aramaico e citasse dalla versione in aramaico di Esodo ovvero che il vangelo di Giovanni fosse stato originariamente redatto in aramaico, ma entrambe queste tesi sono poco attendibili, per esempio Flusser ritiene che al tempo di Gesù in Giudea fosse parlato non l'aramaico ma l'ebraico e ancora più dubbia e la tesi che il vangelo di Giovanni fosse stato scritto originariamente in aramaico e poi tradotto in greco.

---

Visto che sei tornato e dato che fra due giorni parto io (tiè!) allora posso postare quello che ho tenuto in caldo in tuo onore. Aspetta, aspetta ... uh ... eccolo qui il "piccolino". Che bello!

Ovviamente le premesse di questo mio ultimo intervento estivo (anche se data la temperatura, a Milano l'estate è già finita almeno da dieci giorni) sono sparse qua e là (ma tanto SO che a quest'ora le avrai già intercettate).

In sostanza il punto della questione è: possono le testimonianze rabbiniche gettare luce sul vangelo di Giovanni?

... sono spesso lo strumento che consente l’espressione di una vera teologia. È ciò che illustrano due esempi tratti dai midrashim sull’Esodo.

Il primo è tratto dai commenti sull’incontro di Ietro con Mosè nel deserto del Sinai (Es 18:1-12).

---

[1] Ietro, sacerdote di Madian, suocero di Mosè, venne a sapere quanto Dio aveva operato per Mosè e per Israele, suo popolo, come il Signore aveva fatto uscire Israele dall'Egitto.
[2] Allora Ietro prese con sé Zippora, moglie di Mosè, che prima egli aveva rimandata,
[3] e insieme i due figli di lei, uno dei quali si chiamava Gherson, perché egli aveva detto: "Sono un emigrato in terra straniera",
[4] e l'altro si chiamava Eliezer, perché "Il Dio di mio padre è venuto in mio aiuto e mi ha liberato dalla spada del faraone".
[5] Ietro dunque, suocero di Mosè, con i figli e la moglie di lui venne da Mosè nel deserto, dove era accampato, presso la montagna di Dio.
[6] Egli fece dire a Mosè: "Sono io, Ietro, tuo suocero, che vengo da te con tua moglie e i suoi due figli!".
[7] Mosè andò incontro al suocero, si prostrò davanti a lui e lo baciò; poi si informarono l'uno della salute dell'altro ed entrarono sotto la tenda.
[8] Mosè raccontò al suocero quanto il Signore aveva fatto al faraone e agli Egiziani per Israele, tutte le difficoltà loro capitate durante il viaggio, dalle quali il Signore li aveva liberati.
[9] Ietro gioì di tutti i benefici che il Signore aveva fatti a Israele, quando lo aveva liberato dalla mano degli Egiziani.
[10] Disse Ietro: "Benedetto sia il Signore, che vi ha liberati dalla mano degli Egiziani e dalla mano del faraone: egli ha strappato questo popolo dalla mano dell'Egitto!
[11] Ora io so che il Signore è più grande di tutti gli dei, poiché egli ha operato contro gli Egiziani con quelle stesse cose di cui essi si vantavano".
[12] Poi Ietro, suocero di Mosè, offrì un olocausto e sacrifici a Dio. Vennero Aronne e tutti gli anziani d'Israele e fecero un banchetto con il suocero di Mosè davanti a Dio.

---

Riassumiamo brevemente il racconto biblico.

Ietro, madianita, suocero di Mosè, accompagnato dalla figlia Zippora e dai suoi due nipoti, si reca a trovare il genero nel deserto del Sinai, dove è accampato il popolo di Israele.
Riprendendo gli elementi del racconto, la tradizione rabbinica vi ha visto le tappe dell’accesso del pagano alla fede e della sua aggregazione al popolo di Dio: Ietro, descritto come sacerdote pagano all’inizio del capitolo (v. 1) lascia Madian per raggiungere Israele nel deserto, vicino alla montagna di Dio (v. 5); dopo aver ascoltato dalla bocca di Mosè il racconto delle grandi opere di Dio (v. 9), benedice Dio (v. 10), fa una professione di fede (v. 11), offre un olocausto e sacrifici e partecipa a un banchetto di comunione (v. 12), diventando così il tipo del prosèlito, secondo MRI Ietro ritorna al suo paese per farvi a sua volta dei prosèliti.

Ci soffermeremo in particolare sui commenti al v. 6. Dal punto di vista grammaticale, il testo non presenta alcuna particolare difficoltà, ma contiene un’incoerenza che ha attirato l’attenzione dei commentatori antichi. Il testo recita:
«Egli disse a Mosè: io, Ietro, tuo suocero, vengo da te, con tua moglie e i suoi due figli con lei». La difficoltà sta nel fatto che Ietro si rivolge a Mosè per annunciargli che viene; d’altra parte, può parlargli solo se si trova alla sua presenza; e in questo caso non ha bisogno di annunciargli la sua venuta, che peraltro è già stata segnalata nel versetto precedente.
[Gli esegeti moderni, che si scontrano con la stessa difficoltà, la risolvono parafrasando il testo e traducendo: «Egli fece dire a Mosè» o «Si disse a Mosè». Certe traduzioni (per esempio la TOB), fanno dire al testo che Ietro si è messo in viaggio al v. 5 e che si fa annunciare a Mosè al v. 6. È interessante notare, al riguardo, che gli esegeti moderni incontrano gli stessi problemi di quelli antichi e che le cosiddette traduzioni scientifiche non sono sempre prive di tendenze e procedimenti più o meno targumici].
Del resto solo al v. 7 Mosè esce a incontrare il suocero. Per risolvere questa difficoltà, la Mekilta de-Rabbi Ishmael propone tre commenti successivi. I pirmi due sono molto simili alle parafrasi moderne:

Rabbi Yehoshua dice: «Glielo scrisse in una lettera». Rabbi Eleazar di Modim dice: «Glielo annunciò attraverso un messaggero e gli disse: “Fallo per riguardo a me; e se non lo fai per riguardo a me, fallo per riguardo a tua moglie; e se no, fallo per riguardo ai tuoi figli”»

Il primo commento interpreta molto liberamente il verbo dire, perché Ietro, in realtà, annuncia la sua venuta per iscritto. Il secondo che fa intervenire un messaggero, rende conto del carattere orale del messaggio, spiegando al tempo stesso la ripetizione della menzione della moglie e dei figli, già enunciata ai vv. 2 e 3: quest’elencazione viene interpretata come una captatio benevolentiae nel caso in cui Mosè si rifiutasse di ricevere il suocere; essa conferisce, inoltre, un contenuto al dialogo che si instaura fra il messaggero e Mosè.

La terza interpretazione è assolutamente originale rispetto alle altre due: essa viene valorizzata attraverso la sua collocazione al terzo posto sia mediante gli sviluppi di cui è oggetto. Per renderla comprensibile, dobbiamo anzitutto tradurre il più letteralmente possibile il versetto biblico:

«Disse [wayyomer, il verbo può avere un soggetto esplicitamente indicato o può contenere implicitamente il soggetto come ad esempio il latino dixit, che può significare ‘egli disse’ se la frase non comporta altro soggetto] a Mosè io [‘ani] Ietro tuo suocere venente a te come la tua moglie e i suoi due figli con lei.

Il midrash fa del pronome “io” [‘ani] il soggetto del verbo ‘disse’, come se questo io fosse un nome proprio, e interpreta la frase in questo modo: “IO disse a Mosè: tuo suocero Ietro viene da te ...”.

Il seguito del testo precisa che questo IO altri non è che il Creatore:

“IO, colui che disse e il mondo fu (= formula rabbinica per indicare Dio senza nominarlo, Tg N Es 3:14), io sono colui che avvicina e non colui che allontana, come è detto: “Non sono forse IO, un Dio che avvicina, oracolo del Signore, e non un Dio che allontana?” (Ger 23:23). Sono IO che ho fatto avvicinare Ietro, non l’ho allontanato. E tu, quando qualcuno verrà da te per convertirsi – e se viene solo per i Cieli (= cioè se le motivazioni sono pure) – anche tu rendilo vicino e non allontanarlo”.

Perciò è Dio che ha ispirato l’iniziativa di Ietro e che annuncia personalmente a Mosè la sua venuta.

L’utilizzazione della citazione di Geremia richiede una spiegazione. Il senso ovvio del testo biblico è il seguente: “Non sono io [‘ani] Dio che da vicino [miqqarov], oracolo del Signore, e non sono io Dio da lontano [merahoq]?”. Il midrash gioca sull’ortografia dei termini miqqarov e merahoq i quali, non essendo vocalizzati nel testo biblico, possono essere letti meqarev e meraheq. L’espressione di Geremia viene quindi interpretata in questo modo: “Non sono forse io un Dio avvicinante [meqarev] e non un Dio allontanante [meraheq]?” o più esattamente “ IO [‘ani] non è forse un Dio che avvicina e non un Dio che allontana?”.

La lezione che deriva da questa terza intepretazione è chiara: è Dio stesso all’origine dell’iniziativa del pagano e del suo desiderio di associarsi con il popolo di Dio; Mosè non ha l’autorità di opporvisi. In questo commento il pronome IO viene interpretato, con l’ausilio di un versetto di Geremia, come designazione del Dio che avvicina.

Il secondo esempio è tratto da un midrash sulla scena del roveto ardente (Es R 3,4 su Es 3:11). Quando Dio gli ordina di recarsi dal faraone, Mosè chiede “Chi sono io?”. In ebraico, la domanda è alla lettera: “Chi io?”. Anche in questo caso il midrash intepreta questo “io” come un nome proprio e sviluppa la domanda di Mosè con una parabola:

“Mosè disse ...: chi io?”. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi dice: “Avviene come di un re che diede la propria figlia in matrimonio e decise di donarle una provincia e una dama di compagnia di nobili natali, ma le diede di fatto una schiava nera. Il genero gli disse; “Non avevi deciso di darmi una dama di compagnia di nobili natali?”. Allo stesso modo, Mosè disse al Santo, benedetto egli sia: “Signore dei mondi, quando Giacobbe scese in Egitto, non gli dicesti: “IO [‘anokhi] scenderò insieme a te ... e IO [‘anokhi] ti farò risalire” (Gn 46:4)? E ora tu mi dici “Va’, io ti mando dal faraone!”.

Mosè rimproverava quindi a Dio di far mantenere i suoi impegni da altri: aveva promesso a Giacobbe di scendere insieme a lui in Egitto e di farlo risalire. Egli è sceso fin nel roveto ardente, ma ora vuole far fare a Mosè, al suo posto, l’ultima tappa della discesa, dal Sinai al faraone. È ciò che illustra la parabola: se è Mosè a “scendere” in Egitto e non Dio stesso, Giacobbe potrà rimproverare a Dio di non mantenere le sue promesse, come il genero del re può lamentarsi di aver ricevuto una schiava al posto della donna libera che era stata promessa alla sua sposa. In quest’argomentazione, il pronome “io” – qui nella sua forma enfatica “’anokhi” – viene considerato un nome proprio. Secondo il midrash, ponendo a Dio la domanda “chi io?”, Mosè non chiede “chi sono io?” ma “chi, di noi due, è IO?, chi di noi due si chiama IO?”.

È ciò che afferma esplicitamente una variante attestata in vari manoscritti:

Io non sono questo IO a proposito del quale tu gli hai detto “IO ti farò risalire”.

Mosè sarebbe IO? Aronne sarebbe IO?

Il seguito del midrash sviluppa quest’interpretazione: IO è il nome di Dio che salva; è in forza del suo IO che Dio reca salvezza. Questo commento viene collegato all’espressione “Ecco il segno che IO ti ho mandato” (Es 3:12).

Cosa significa il fatto che gli disse: “... che IO ti ho mandato?” I nostri maestri hanno detto: “Era il segno della prima redenzione: essi sono scesi in Egitto grazie a IO, che è detto “IO scenderò con te in Egitto e IO ti farò risalire” (Gn 46:4); e [sarà] il segno della redenzione finale: grazie a IO [saranno] guariti e saranno riscattati, come è detto “Ecco che IO vi invio Elia il profeta” (Ml 3:33).

Ricorrendo al gezera shava (ragionamento per analogia), il midrash accosta gli uni agli altri testi biblici nei quali compare il pronome io. In ciascuno di questi testi, questo pronome viene associato alla redenzione. Perciò si conclude che l’IO è legato all’intervento redentore di Dio o che Dio riscatta mediante il suo ‘anokhi, il suo IO.

Leggendo questa nota, il lettore si chiederà inevitabilmente a quando risalgono queste tradizioni e se siano pertinenti per la lettura del Nuovo Testamento. E qui dobbiamo fare un taglia e cuci di vari 3D sparsi ora qua ed ora là Devo fare tutto io???

Dimenticavo: ovviamente tutto 'sto papirozzo non è farina del mio sacco ma è tratto da
Michel Remaud, Vangelo e tradizione rabbinica, EDB, 2005.

Lo conoscevo giàa, lo conoscevo giàa

Non l'ho citato perchè cita un testo rabbinico medievale che non saprei quanto possa essere considerato valido per capire l'interpretazione che di quel testo era data nel primo secolo, e comunque mi pare che faccia ulteriore confusione e giochi sempre un pò sull'ambiguità dei pronomi personali.

Non si capisce infatti se Dio sarebbe stato chiamato con hu (lui) ani (io/io sono) o ani hu (io sono lui). L'impressione è che i pronomi, in definitiva, vengano usato solo per quello che sono, Dio quando parla indica se stesso con "io" e quando altri lo additano lo indicano con "lui" ma sinceramente non vi vedo un qualche significato mistico o diretto esclusivamente della divinità. Mi pare che il significato dipenda solo da soggetto che indica e non dal pronome in se stesso.

Alla fine sembra che tutte queste spiegazioni siano frutto di una esegesi tarda, spesso ambigua, e poco probante per sostenere con la certezza la tesi che ego eimi rappresenti una autoidentificazione di divinità da parte di Gesù.

Ma con questo non fraitendermi, non voglio escluderlo tassativamente o dire che sia una ipotesi priva di ogni fondamento (specialmente per la frequenza con cui Giovanni usa questa espressione in paragone ad altri) dico solo che traduttori e commentatori dovrebbero essere più cauti nel presentare "ego eimi" con certezza come affermazione di divinità. Per altro la maggior parte di loro non fa nessun accenno ad un possibile origine rabbinica che per ora invece è a mio parere la sola spiegazione che potrebbe avere un senso visto il silenzio su tale espressione tra i Padri.

Purtroppo l'impressione è che sia considerato un dato di fatto senza alcun problema esegetico o filologico, non viene presentato come una "possibilità" teologica ma come una "certezza critica", citando a sostegno la LXX in Esodo 3:14. E' questo quello che mi impressiona, la totale assenza di una lettura critica, mi pare impossibile che fior di biblisti non vedano nelle loro affermazioni perentorie una palese esagerazione e che molti grecisti non si accorgano del palese errore esegetico nel confrontare Esodo 3:14 e i passi di Giovanni. Non voglio far sobbalzare Polymetis, ma se questo è il tipo consenso generale del mondo accademico mi si permetta di starne fuori.

Va bene... dopo questo sfogo contro i critici cattivoni ti lascio partire per le vacanze, divertiti e mandaci una cartolina virtuale! Io riprendo l'attività didattica tra qualche giorno.

A presto

E se lo conoscevi già perché non me l'hai suggerito?

Comunque tu non ci crederai, ma prima di iniziare a postare in questo forum non sapevo quanto Giovanni fosse "semitico" nel suo vangelo (propendevo più per un sostrato ellenico ... fin troppo ellenico, a questo punto).

Comunque io mi sono divertito, ho pensato a te, ho fatto qualche piccola ricerchina ... ma ... tu a me hai pensato?

78erw9rwe9

By Jimmy Akin

In 2002 a unique archaeological find was announced: a limestone ossuary (bone box) that may have held the remains of James the “brother” of Jesus. The box dates to first century Palestine and is inscribed in Jesus’ native language, Aramaic, with the words “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.”

New attention was drawn to the ossuary by a book titled The Brother of Jesus, by Hershel Shanks and Ben Witherington. Shanks is the editor of Biblical Archaeology Review; Witherington is a New Testament professor. To publicize it, the two wrote a tie-in piece in USA Today's weekend magazine, in which Witherington (the primary author) asserted:



It is possible the inscription on the ossuary--"James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus"--provides us with a challenge in regard to some basic Christian assumptions about James. The Roman Catholic tradition is that Jesus' brothers and sisters actually were cousins; Orthodox Christians believe they were Joseph's children by a previous marriage. The inscription conflicts with both of those Christian traditions, in fact, for there certainly was an Aramaic word for "cousin" that could have been used in this inscription but was not. If Jesus was the son of only Mary, and James was the son of only Joseph, then Jesus and James would not literally have been brothers, as this inscription states.
--"In the Name of the Brother," USA Weekend, April 13, 2003


Witherington's statement proved highly controversial. Though his characterization of Catholic teaching is not without problem, his assertion that there is an Aramaic word for cousin was egregious.

The Source of the Controversy

The New Testament is explicit that Mary was a virgin at the time she conceived Jesus by the Holy Spirit. Christian tradition--later infallibly affirmed by the Church--acknowledges that she remained a virgin afterwards. The great majority of Christians acknowledges this. Only the Protestant community dissents.

But there are certain questions to be answered, such as who the "brethren" or "brothers" of Christ mentioned in Scripture are.

In English when we say "brother" we usually mean full brother--a male sibling sharing both biological parents. But the term has a broader range of meanings. It can include half-brother (male sibling sharing one biological parent), step-brother (male sibling sharing one parent by marriage), and adoptive brother (male sibling adopted into the family). It can be given figurative meanings, such as "comrade," as when military men are described as "a band of brothers."

Which applies to the brethren of Christ in Scripture?

It is unlikely that the term "brother" is being used figuratively or mystically because all Christians are Christ's brothers in that sense, making it pointless to single out certain individuals for this description. Full brother is impossible, as Protestants also acknowledge, since Jesus was not the biological child of Joseph. Half-brother is ruled out by the fact that Mary remained a virgin. It is possible they were adoptive brothers, but there does not seem to be any evidence for this in the biblical or patristic record.

More plausibly, they were step-brothers: children of Joseph who were Jesus' brothers by marriage. There is some evidence for this in the writings of early Christians. The earliest discussion of the matter that we have--in a document known as the Protoevangelium of James (c. A.D. 120)--states that Joseph was a widower who already had a family and thus was willing to become the guardian of a consecrated virgin. Though not inspired, the document was written within living memory of Mary, when Christ's family was still well known, as other sources attest (e.g., second century historian Hegisippus). It may contain accurate traditions regarding the family structure.

The step-brother hypothesis was the most common until St. Jerome (the turn of the fifth century), who popularized the idea that the brethren were cousins. One would not guess this from a casual reading of the New Testament, but many have tried to deduce it from statements in the New Testament.

Part of the issue turns on the meaning of the word "brother." Thus far we have been discussing the English word brother for simplicity. The Greek equivalent (adelphos) includes the same concepts in its range of meaning. But Greek also has a word for "cousin" (anepsios), which seems to have been the normal word used when referring to cousins. An advocate of the cousin hypothesis would need to explain why it wasn't used if Christ’s brethren were cousins.

The standard explanation is that the New Testament isn't ordinary Greek. Some have suggested that parts of it may be translations from Aramaic. It is unknown if or how much of the New Testament had an Aramaic original, but even if none did, Aramaic had a strong influence on it. Probably all the New Testament authors except Luke were native Aramaic-speakers, and much of the dialogue in the Gospels originally occurred in Aramaic. Sometimes the Gospels even tell us the original words (e.g., “Talitha cumi” in Mark 5:41).

This is important because the meaning of the Aramaic word for "brother" (aha) not only includes the meanings already mentioned but also includes other close relations, including cousins.

In fact, there was no word for "cousin" in Aramaic. If one wanted to refer to the cousin relationship, one has to use a circumlocution such as “the son of his uncle” (brona d-`ammeh). This often is too much trouble, so broader kinship terms are used that don’t mean “cousin” in particular; e.g., ahyana ("kinsman"), qariwa ("close relation"), or nasha ("relative"). One such term is aha, which literally means “brother” but is also frequently used in the sense of “relative, kinsman.”

The first Christians in Palestine, not having a word for cousin, would normally have referred to whatever cousins Jesus had with such a general term and, in translating their writing or speech into Greek, it is quite likely that the Aramaic word aha would have been rendered literally with the Greek word for brother (adelphos).


Which James?

There may be as many as seven men named James mentioned in the New Testament. For our purposes the most important are:
James “the brother of the Lord” (Matt. 13:55, Acts 15:13-21, 1 Cor. 15:7, Gal. 1:19)
James “son of Zebedee” (Matt. 4:21, 10:2, 17:1, Acts 12:2)
James “son of Alphaeus” (Matt. 10:3, Acts 1:13)
It is the first whose ossuary may have been found. He often was called “James the Just” and was martyred in the A.D. 60s (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20:9). He is not the same as James son of Zebedee, who was martyred earlier (Acts 12:2). Advocates of the cousin interpretation commonly seek to identify him with James son of Alphaeus.



Engaging the Argument

In the USA Weekend piece, Witherington criticized both the step-brother and the cousin hypotheses. Regarding the former, he wrote, "If Jesus was the son of only Mary, and James was the son of only Joseph, then Jesus and James would not literally have been brothers, as this inscription states."

This argument seems flatly erroneous. The inscription does not state that Jesus and James were "literally" brothers. It says that they were brothers, period. It doesn't say "James, son of Joseph, literal brother of Jesus."

And what does Witherington mean by "literally"? To most ears, the most literal meaning of “brother” is full brother, all the other senses being in some sense accommodated to this primary sense. But we know that James can't be a full brother because Joseph was not Jesus' biological father. (A point that Witherington, who has written a book critical of liberal reinterpretations of Jesus, presumably acknowledges.)

Witherington is trying to get too much out of the single word "brother" in the inscription. It's range of meaning is simply too broad to rule out James being a step-brother.

Even in English, which has a gigantic vocabulary that includes a term for step-brother, we tend to use just "brother." Someone making introductions is more likely to say "This is my brother" than "This is my step-brother," unless family relations are unusually icy.

Witherington dismissed the cousin hypothesis by simply asserting, "there certainly was an Aramaic word for 'cousin' that could have been used in this inscription but was not." For this argument to work, several premises have to be granted:

1. The ossuary is that of James the Just.
2. The person who wrote "brother of Jesus" knew what he was talking about.
3. There is a word for "cousin" in Aramaic.
4. This word was used in first-century Palestinian Aramaic.
5. This was the preferred term for describing cousins at that time.




Premise 1 is necessary or the ossuary has no relevance to the Holy Family. Premise 2 is necessary because--even if the box belonged to James the Just--the inscriber had to correctly record his relationship to Jesus. Premise 3 is what Witherington's argument hinges on.

Premise 4 is needed because Aramaic is a language going back four thousand years. It is very diverse since it served as the lingua franca of the Middle East for centuries, developing numerous dialects. Hypothetically, some dialect could have acquired a word for "cousin." But the fact that one dialect would have such a word--and that it might conceivably be found in some Aramaic dictionary (not one I have located)--would not prove that it could have been used on the St. James ossuary. For that to happen, it would have to have been part of first century Palestinian Aramaic.

Finally, premise 5 also would have to be true: The term would have to have been the preferred word for "cousin." By way of comparison, if I wanted to talk about someone's housecat, I might refer to his "domestic feline." That's possible in current English, but not preferred. I'd be expected in normal speech to use the preferred term "housecat." If there were a "cousin" term in first century Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, but it was a rare or non-preferred term, we would not expect it to be used on the ossuary. It would have to be preferred for the argument to have weight.

How probable are the five premises?

Premise 1 is possible, perhaps probable. There is a good case to be made that the ossuary was that of James the Just (see Herschel Shanks' part of The Brother of Jesus). Yet it is possible that the ossuary belonged to someone else.

This could happen if the inscription has been parsed incorrectly. It has been generally assumed that the phrase "brother of Jesus" applies to James. This is not certain; it may apply to Joseph (see Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 2003, 12). In other words: the box belonged to a James who was the son of a Joseph, and Joseph was a brother of someone named Jesus. In this case, Jesus would be the uncle of James.

What would make this Jesus worth mentioning? If he was Jesus Christ, that would do it. Christ had a "brother" named Joseph (Matt. 13:55), so he might have had a nephew named James. If so, Witherington's argument can be reconstructed, because then Joseph is being described as Jesus' "brother."

It also is possible that the box has no connection with the Holy Family, and the Jesus of the inscription is worth mentioning for a different reason. It has been suggested (ibid., 14) that the inscription is due to a levirite marriage. According to this Jewish marriage custom (which lasted until the Middle Ages), if a man died childless, his brother was obliged to marry the widow to become the biological father of children whose legal father would be the dead man. Thus the box might belong to a James who had both a legal and a biological father, the two being brothers.

So while premise 1 is quite possible, it is not certain. The same is true of premise 2. A few scholars have suggested that the part of the inscription that reads "brother of Jesus" may have been added later than the first part--though still in antiquity since it also is highly weathered. If this was added then the scribe presumably did so to clarify which "James son of Joseph" was being discussed-- the one with the famous relation named Jesus.

But since the hypothetical second scribe was at least somewhat later than the first, he may have been more removed from the facts and thus might not know the exact relationship between the two. Thus per premise 2 we must assume that whoever wrote “brother of Jesus” knew what he was talking about.

That's not unreasonable, but the uncertainty increases the later in time the hypothetical scribe lived. If he was in the third or fourth century then the exact knowledge of Jesus' family relations had likely vanished by the time he wrote.

Premise 3--that there is an Aramaic word for "cousin" is where Witherington’s argument falls apart. He does not tell us what word he is thinking of, either in the USA Weekend piece (which seems understandable) or in his part of The Brother of Jesus (which seems inexcusable since his case hinges upon it and he liberally produces other foreign-language words).



Cordial Correction?

When I first learned of Witherington's claim--before I realized I would need to write this--I sent a very cordial note asking what word he was thinking of. Receiving no reply, I gave him a call, and we had a very cordial chat. He seems like a genuinely nice guy.

Unfortunately, after the conversation I was still unclear on what term he had in mind. One term we discussed was ahyana ("kinsman"). But this word may be unique to modern Aramaic, and in any event Witherington acknowledged that it has a broader meaning than "cousin."

It is not clear to me that Witherington even speaks Aramaic. New Testament professors in Protestant seminaries are well trained in Greek and have some background in Hebrew but almost none in Aramaic. In our conversation, Witherington referred me to one of his colleagues, who he described as "the real expert" and who had "assured" him that there was a word for cousin.

Witherington's lack of ease with Aramaic seems confirmed by the fact that, in his part of The Brother of Jesus, he freely explains Greek words for things, but tends to fall silent when it comes to Aramaic. From what I know at present, he may just be basing his argument on what he has heard from others.

Those others would not seem to include his co-author, Shanks. In his part of The Brother of Jesus Shanks writes things that undercut Witherington's claim. For example, he quotes the paleographer Emile Peuch, O.P., as saying "the specific relationship of James and Jesus in our ossuary is quite simply indeterminable. . . . The term 'brother' actually concurrently [in the first century] meant blood brother, half-brother, husband, uncle, nephew, cousin, friend, and companion" (51).



Experts Respond

To my knowledge, I'm the only full-time Catholic apologist who makes a study of Aramaic. I've paid particular attention to the cousin issue because of its apologetic implications. Still, I am not an expert, so I consulted several people who know more than I.

The first that I was able to reach was Mitchel Pacwa, S.J., and he swiftly confirmed that he also was unaware of any Aramaic term (in any dialect) that means "cousin."

Next, I drove across town to pay a visit to my Aramaic teacher, Fr. Michael Bazzi, who is a Chaldean Catholic priest from Mosul, Iraq. He is a native-speaker of Aramaic (the ethnic language of Chaldeans) and the author of several textbooks on both modern and classical Aramaic. Fr. Bazzi confirmed that there is no term for "cousin," and whenever one wishes to pick out the cousin relationship one uses one of the various possible circumlocutions. Neither did the dictionaries that I and Fr. Bazzi checked produce terms for "cousin."

Finally, I corresponded with Joseph Fitzmyer, S.J. Though scholarly reserve would prevent him from saying so, he is regarded as an 800-pound gorilla among American scholars of Aramaic. In The Brother of Jesus, Shanks notes: "no one wants to get into the ring with Joe Fitzmyer when it comes to Aramaic" (47).

Fitzmyer was quite helpful. Regarding the idea that there was a word for cousin, he was direct: "In first-century Palestinian Aramaic there was no word for 'cousin,' but one used the circumlocution, 'son of the uncle.'" Further, he adds, "I do not know of any word for 'cousin' (apart from the circumlocution) in any other Aramaic dialects."

Concerning the word "brother," Fitzmyer notes: "The word did not simply mean 'blood brother,' and you will find in the Book of Tobit a variety of broader meanings: 'compatriot,' 'kinsman, relative,' and even a generic usage when a speaker employs it, not really knowing (yet) the relationship proper. The young Tobiah even calls the Angel Raphael (in disguise), 'Brother Azariah' (6:7, extant in Aramaic). By that he certainly did not mean 'blood brother.'"



What to Conclude?

The conclusion thus seems inescapable: Witherington is wrong. There is no Aramaic word for cousin, and there certainly is no evidence that there was one in first-century Aramaic. If Witherington wishes to dispute this, he needs to produce the word in question (satisfying premise 3), along with the evidence backing up its existence in first-century Aramaic (premise 4) and evidence it was the preferred term for “cousin” at that time (premise 5).

If he cannot then—however nice a guy he may be—Witherington behaved irresponsibly by asserting in popular print that there is such a word. In so doing he misled people of multiple religious persuasions, disturbed the faith of some, confused others, and sparked a round of needless arguments.

By Jimmy Akin

In 2002 a unique archaeological find was announced: a limestone ossuary (bone box) that may have held the remains of James the “brother” of Jesus. The box dates to first century Palestine and is inscribed in Jesus’ native language, Aramaic, with the words “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.”

New attention was drawn to the ossuary by a book titled The Brother of Jesus, by Hershel Shanks and Ben Witherington. Shanks is the editor of Biblical Archaeology Review; Witherington is a New Testament professor. To publicize it, the two wrote a tie-in piece in USA Today's weekend magazine, in which Witherington (the primary author) asserted:



It is possible the inscription on the ossuary--"James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus"--provides us with a challenge in regard to some basic Christian assumptions about James. The Roman Catholic tradition is that Jesus' brothers and sisters actually were cousins; Orthodox Christians believe they were Joseph's children by a previous marriage. The inscription conflicts with both of those Christian traditions, in fact, for there certainly was an Aramaic word for "cousin" that could have been used in this inscription but was not. If Jesus was the son of only Mary, and James was the son of only Joseph, then Jesus and James would not literally have been brothers, as this inscription states.
--"In the Name of the Brother," USA Weekend, April 13, 2003


Witherington's statement proved highly controversial. Though his characterization of Catholic teaching is not without problem, his assertion that there is an Aramaic word for cousin was egregious.

The Source of the Controversy

The New Testament is explicit that Mary was a virgin at the time she conceived Jesus by the Holy Spirit. Christian tradition--later infallibly affirmed by the Church--acknowledges that she remained a virgin afterwards. The great majority of Christians acknowledges this. Only the Protestant community dissents.

But there are certain questions to be answered, such as who the "brethren" or "brothers" of Christ mentioned in Scripture are.

In English when we say "brother" we usually mean full brother--a male sibling sharing both biological parents. But the term has a broader range of meanings. It can include half-brother (male sibling sharing one biological parent), step-brother (male sibling sharing one parent by marriage), and adoptive brother (male sibling adopted into the family). It can be given figurative meanings, such as "comrade," as when military men are described as "a band of brothers."

Which applies to the brethren of Christ in Scripture?

It is unlikely that the term "brother" is being used figuratively or mystically because all Christians are Christ's brothers in that sense, making it pointless to single out certain individuals for this description. Full brother is impossible, as Protestants also acknowledge, since Jesus was not the biological child of Joseph. Half-brother is ruled out by the fact that Mary remained a virgin. It is possible they were adoptive brothers, but there does not seem to be any evidence for this in the biblical or patristic record.

More plausibly, they were step-brothers: children of Joseph who were Jesus' brothers by marriage. There is some evidence for this in the writings of early Christians. The earliest discussion of the matter that we have--in a document known as the Protoevangelium of James (c. A.D. 120)--states that Joseph was a widower who already had a family and thus was willing to become the guardian of a consecrated virgin. Though not inspired, the document was written within living memory of Mary, when Christ's family was still well known, as other sources attest (e.g., second century historian Hegisippus). It may contain accurate traditions regarding the family structure.

The step-brother hypothesis was the most common until St. Jerome (the turn of the fifth century), who popularized the idea that the brethren were cousins. One would not guess this from a casual reading of the New Testament, but many have tried to deduce it from statements in the New Testament.

Part of the issue turns on the meaning of the word "brother." Thus far we have been discussing the English word brother for simplicity. The Greek equivalent (adelphos) includes the same concepts in its range of meaning. But Greek also has a word for "cousin" (anepsios), which seems to have been the normal word used when referring to cousins. An advocate of the cousin hypothesis would need to explain why it wasn't used if Christ’s brethren were cousins.

The standard explanation is that the New Testament isn't ordinary Greek. Some have suggested that parts of it may be translations from Aramaic. It is unknown if or how much of the New Testament had an Aramaic original, but even if none did, Aramaic had a strong influence on it. Probably all the New Testament authors except Luke were native Aramaic-speakers, and much of the dialogue in the Gospels originally occurred in Aramaic. Sometimes the Gospels even tell us the original words (e.g., “Talitha cumi” in Mark 5:41).

This is important because the meaning of the Aramaic word for "brother" (aha) not only includes the meanings already mentioned but also includes other close relations, including cousins.

In fact, there was no word for "cousin" in Aramaic. If one wanted to refer to the cousin relationship, one has to use a circumlocution such as “the son of his uncle” (brona d-`ammeh). This often is too much trouble, so broader kinship terms are used that don’t mean “cousin” in particular; e.g., ahyana ("kinsman"), qariwa ("close relation"), or nasha ("relative"). One such term is aha, which literally means “brother” but is also frequently used in the sense of “relative, kinsman.”

The first Christians in Palestine, not having a word for cousin, would normally have referred to whatever cousins Jesus had with such a general term and, in translating their writing or speech into Greek, it is quite likely that the Aramaic word aha would have been rendered literally with the Greek word for brother (adelphos).


Which James?

There may be as many as seven men named James mentioned in the New Testament. For our purposes the most important are:
James “the brother of the Lord” (Matt. 13:55, Acts 15:13-21, 1 Cor. 15:7, Gal. 1:19)
James “son of Zebedee” (Matt. 4:21, 10:2, 17:1, Acts 12:2)
James “son of Alphaeus” (Matt. 10:3, Acts 1:13)
It is the first whose ossuary may have been found. He often was called “James the Just” and was martyred in the A.D. 60s (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20:9). He is not the same as James son of Zebedee, who was martyred earlier (Acts 12:2). Advocates of the cousin interpretation commonly seek to identify him with James son of Alphaeus.



Engaging the Argument

In the USA Weekend piece, Witherington criticized both the step-brother and the cousin hypotheses. Regarding the former, he wrote, "If Jesus was the son of only Mary, and James was the son of only Joseph, then Jesus and James would not literally have been brothers, as this inscription states."

This argument seems flatly erroneous. The inscription does not state that Jesus and James were "literally" brothers. It says that they were brothers, period. It doesn't say "James, son of Joseph, literal brother of Jesus."

And what does Witherington mean by "literally"? To most ears, the most literal meaning of “brother” is full brother, all the other senses being in some sense accommodated to this primary sense. But we know that James can't be a full brother because Joseph was not Jesus' biological father. (A point that Witherington, who has written a book critical of liberal reinterpretations of Jesus, presumably acknowledges.)

Witherington is trying to get too much out of the single word "brother" in the inscription. It's range of meaning is simply too broad to rule out James being a step-brother.

Even in English, which has a gigantic vocabulary that includes a term for step-brother, we tend to use just "brother." Someone making introductions is more likely to say "This is my brother" than "This is my step-brother," unless family relations are unusually icy.

Witherington dismissed the cousin hypothesis by simply asserting, "there certainly was an Aramaic word for 'cousin' that could have been used in this inscription but was not." For this argument to work, several premises have to be granted:

1. The ossuary is that of James the Just.
2. The person who wrote "brother of Jesus" knew what he was talking about.
3. There is a word for "cousin" in Aramaic.
4. This word was used in first-century Palestinian Aramaic.
5. This was the preferred term for describing cousins at that time.




Premise 1 is necessary or the ossuary has no relevance to the Holy Family. Premise 2 is necessary because--even if the box belonged to James the Just--the inscriber had to correctly record his relationship to Jesus. Premise 3 is what Witherington's argument hinges on.

Premise 4 is needed because Aramaic is a language going back four thousand years. It is very diverse since it served as the lingua franca of the Middle East for centuries, developing numerous dialects. Hypothetically, some dialect could have acquired a word for "cousin." But the fact that one dialect would have such a word--and that it might conceivably be found in some Aramaic dictionary (not one I have located)--would not prove that it could have been used on the St. James ossuary. For that to happen, it would have to have been part of first century Palestinian Aramaic.

Finally, premise 5 also would have to be true: The term would have to have been the preferred word for "cousin." By way of comparison, if I wanted to talk about someone's housecat, I might refer to his "domestic feline." That's possible in current English, but not preferred. I'd be expected in normal speech to use the preferred term "housecat." If there were a "cousin" term in first century Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, but it was a rare or non-preferred term, we would not expect it to be used on the ossuary. It would have to be preferred for the argument to have weight.

How probable are the five premises?

Premise 1 is possible, perhaps probable. There is a good case to be made that the ossuary was that of James the Just (see Herschel Shanks' part of The Brother of Jesus). Yet it is possible that the ossuary belonged to someone else.

This could happen if the inscription has been parsed incorrectly. It has been generally assumed that the phrase "brother of Jesus" applies to James. This is not certain; it may apply to Joseph (see Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 2003, 12). In other words: the box belonged to a James who was the son of a Joseph, and Joseph was a brother of someone named Jesus. In this case, Jesus would be the uncle of James.

What would make this Jesus worth mentioning? If he was Jesus Christ, that would do it. Christ had a "brother" named Joseph (Matt. 13:55), so he might have had a nephew named James. If so, Witherington's argument can be reconstructed, because then Joseph is being described as Jesus' "brother."

It also is possible that the box has no connection with the Holy Family, and the Jesus of the inscription is worth mentioning for a different reason. It has been suggested (ibid., 14) that the inscription is due to a levirite marriage. According to this Jewish marriage custom (which lasted until the Middle Ages), if a man died childless, his brother was obliged to marry the widow to become the biological father of children whose legal father would be the dead man. Thus the box might belong to a James who had both a legal and a biological father, the two being brothers.

So while premise 1 is quite possible, it is not certain. The same is true of premise 2. A few scholars have suggested that the part of the inscription that reads "brother of Jesus" may have been added later than the first part--though still in antiquity since it also is highly weathered. If this was added then the scribe presumably did so to clarify which "James son of Joseph" was being discussed-- the one with the famous relation named Jesus.

But since the hypothetical second scribe was at least somewhat later than the first, he may have been more removed from the facts and thus might not know the exact relationship between the two. Thus per premise 2 we must assume that whoever wrote “brother of Jesus” knew what he was talking about.

That's not unreasonable, but the uncertainty increases the later in time the hypothetical scribe lived. If he was in the third or fourth century then the exact knowledge of Jesus' family relations had likely vanished by the time he wrote.

Premise 3--that there is an Aramaic word for "cousin" is where Witherington’s argument falls apart. He does not tell us what word he is thinking of, either in the USA Weekend piece (which seems understandable) or in his part of The Brother of Jesus (which seems inexcusable since his case hinges upon it and he liberally produces other foreign-language words).



Cordial Correction?

When I first learned of Witherington's claim--before I realized I would need to write this--I sent a very cordial note asking what word he was thinking of. Receiving no reply, I gave him a call, and we had a very cordial chat. He seems like a genuinely nice guy.

Unfortunately, after the conversation I was still unclear on what term he had in mind. One term we discussed was ahyana ("kinsman"). But this word may be unique to modern Aramaic, and in any event Witherington acknowledged that it has a broader meaning than "cousin."

It is not clear to me that Witherington even speaks Aramaic. New Testament professors in Protestant seminaries are well trained in Greek and have some background in Hebrew but almost none in Aramaic. In our conversation, Witherington referred me to one of his colleagues, who he described as "the real expert" and who had "assured" him that there was a word for cousin.

Witherington's lack of ease with Aramaic seems confirmed by the fact that, in his part of The Brother of Jesus, he freely explains Greek words for things, but tends to fall silent when it comes to Aramaic. From what I know at present, he may just be basing his argument on what he has heard from others.

Those others would not seem to include his co-author, Shanks. In his part of The Brother of Jesus Shanks writes things that undercut Witherington's claim. For example, he quotes the paleographer Emile Peuch, O.P., as saying "the specific relationship of James and Jesus in our ossuary is quite simply indeterminable. . . . The term 'brother' actually concurrently [in the first century] meant blood brother, half-brother, husband, uncle, nephew, cousin, friend, and companion" (51).



Experts Respond

To my knowledge, I'm the only full-time Catholic apologist who makes a study of Aramaic. I've paid particular attention to the cousin issue because of its apologetic implications. Still, I am not an expert, so I consulted several people who know more than I.

The first that I was able to reach was Mitchel Pacwa, S.J., and he swiftly confirmed that he also was unaware of any Aramaic term (in any dialect) that means "cousin."

Next, I drove across town to pay a visit to my Aramaic teacher, Fr. Michael Bazzi, who is a Chaldean Catholic priest from Mosul, Iraq. He is a native-speaker of Aramaic (the ethnic language of Chaldeans) and the author of several textbooks on both modern and classical Aramaic. Fr. Bazzi confirmed that there is no term for "cousin," and whenever one wishes to pick out the cousin relationship one uses one of the various possible circumlocutions. Neither did the dictionaries that I and Fr. Bazzi checked produce terms for "cousin."

Finally, I corresponded with Joseph Fitzmyer, S.J. Though scholarly reserve would prevent him from saying so, he is regarded as an 800-pound gorilla among American scholars of Aramaic. In The Brother of Jesus, Shanks notes: "no one wants to get into the ring with Joe Fitzmyer when it comes to Aramaic" (47).

Fitzmyer was quite helpful. Regarding the idea that there was a word for cousin, he was direct: "In first-century Palestinian Aramaic there was no word for 'cousin,' but one used the circumlocution, 'son of the uncle.'" Further, he adds, "I do not know of any word for 'cousin' (apart from the circumlocution) in any other Aramaic dialects."

Concerning the word "brother," Fitzmyer notes: "The word did not simply mean 'blood brother,' and you will find in the Book of Tobit a variety of broader meanings: 'compatriot,' 'kinsman, relative,' and even a generic usage when a speaker employs it, not really knowing (yet) the relationship proper. The young Tobiah even calls the Angel Raphael (in disguise), 'Brother Azariah' (6:7, extant in Aramaic). By that he certainly did not mean 'blood brother.'"



What to Conclude?

The conclusion thus seems inescapable: Witherington is wrong. There is no Aramaic word for cousin, and there certainly is no evidence that there was one in first-century Aramaic. If Witherington wishes to dispute this, he needs to produce the word in question (satisfying premise 3), along with the evidence backing up its existence in first-century Aramaic (premise 4) and evidence it was the preferred term for “cousin” at that time (premise 5).

If he cannot then—however nice a guy he may be—Witherington behaved irresponsibly by asserting in popular print that there is such a word. In so doing he misled people of multiple religious persuasions, disturbed the faith of some, confused others, and sparked a round of needless arguments.

By Jimmy Akin

In 2002 a unique archaeological find was announced: a limestone ossuary (bone box) that may have held the remains of James the “brother” of Jesus. The box dates to first century Palestine and is inscribed in Jesus’ native language, Aramaic, with the words “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.”

New attention was drawn to the ossuary by a book titled The Brother of Jesus, by Hershel Shanks and Ben Witherington. Shanks is the editor of Biblical Archaeology Review; Witherington is a New Testament professor. To publicize it, the two wrote a tie-in piece in USA Today's weekend magazine, in which Witherington (the primary author) asserted:



It is possible the inscription on the ossuary--"James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus"--provides us with a challenge in regard to some basic Christian assumptions about James. The Roman Catholic tradition is that Jesus' brothers and sisters actually were cousins; Orthodox Christians believe they were Joseph's children by a previous marriage. The inscription conflicts with both of those Christian traditions, in fact, for there certainly was an Aramaic word for "cousin" that could have been used in this inscription but was not. If Jesus was the son of only Mary, and James was the son of only Joseph, then Jesus and James would not literally have been brothers, as this inscription states.
--"In the Name of the Brother," USA Weekend, April 13, 2003


Witherington's statement proved highly controversial. Though his characterization of Catholic teaching is not without problem, his assertion that there is an Aramaic word for cousin was egregious.

The Source of the Controversy

The New Testament is explicit that Mary was a virgin at the time she conceived Jesus by the Holy Spirit. Christian tradition--later infallibly affirmed by the Church--acknowledges that she remained a virgin afterwards. The great majority of Christians acknowledges this. Only the Protestant community dissents.

But there are certain questions to be answered, such as who the "brethren" or "brothers" of Christ mentioned in Scripture are.

In English when we say "brother" we usually mean full brother--a male sibling sharing both biological parents. But the term has a broader range of meanings. It can include half-brother (male sibling sharing one biological parent), step-brother (male sibling sharing one parent by marriage), and adoptive brother (male sibling adopted into the family). It can be given figurative meanings, such as "comrade," as when military men are described as "a band of brothers."

Which applies to the brethren of Christ in Scripture?

It is unlikely that the term "brother" is being used figuratively or mystically because all Christians are Christ's brothers in that sense, making it pointless to single out certain individuals for this description. Full brother is impossible, as Protestants also acknowledge, since Jesus was not the biological child of Joseph. Half-brother is ruled out by the fact that Mary remained a virgin. It is possible they were adoptive brothers, but there does not seem to be any evidence for this in the biblical or patristic record.

More plausibly, they were step-brothers: children of Joseph who were Jesus' brothers by marriage. There is some evidence for this in the writings of early Christians. The earliest discussion of the matter that we have--in a document known as the Protoevangelium of James (c. A.D. 120)--states that Joseph was a widower who already had a family and thus was willing to become the guardian of a consecrated virgin. Though not inspired, the document was written within living memory of Mary, when Christ's family was still well known, as other sources attest (e.g., second century historian Hegisippus). It may contain accurate traditions regarding the family structure.

The step-brother hypothesis was the most common until St. Jerome (the turn of the fifth century), who popularized the idea that the brethren were cousins. One would not guess this from a casual reading of the New Testament, but many have tried to deduce it from statements in the New Testament.

Part of the issue turns on the meaning of the word "brother." Thus far we have been discussing the English word brother for simplicity. The Greek equivalent (adelphos) includes the same concepts in its range of meaning. But Greek also has a word for "cousin" (anepsios), which seems to have been the normal word used when referring to cousins. An advocate of the cousin hypothesis would need to explain why it wasn't used if Christ’s brethren were cousins.

The standard explanation is that the New Testament isn't ordinary Greek. Some have suggested that parts of it may be translations from Aramaic. It is unknown if or how much of the New Testament had an Aramaic original, but even if none did, Aramaic had a strong influence on it. Probably all the New Testament authors except Luke were native Aramaic-speakers, and much of the dialogue in the Gospels originally occurred in Aramaic. Sometimes the Gospels even tell us the original words (e.g., “Talitha cumi” in Mark 5:41).

This is important because the meaning of the Aramaic word for "brother" (aha) not only includes the meanings already mentioned but also includes other close relations, including cousins.

In fact, there was no word for "cousin" in Aramaic. If one wanted to refer to the cousin relationship, one has to use a circumlocution such as “the son of his uncle” (brona d-`ammeh). This often is too much trouble, so broader kinship terms are used that don’t mean “cousin” in particular; e.g., ahyana ("kinsman"), qariwa ("close relation"), or nasha ("relative"). One such term is aha, which literally means “brother” but is also frequently used in the sense of “relative, kinsman.”

The first Christians in Palestine, not having a word for cousin, would normally have referred to whatever cousins Jesus had with such a general term and, in translating their writing or speech into Greek, it is quite likely that the Aramaic word aha would have been rendered literally with the Greek word for brother (adelphos).


Which James?

There may be as many as seven men named James mentioned in the New Testament. For our purposes the most important are:
James “the brother of the Lord” (Matt. 13:55, Acts 15:13-21, 1 Cor. 15:7, Gal. 1:19)
James “son of Zebedee” (Matt. 4:21, 10:2, 17:1, Acts 12:2)
James “son of Alphaeus” (Matt. 10:3, Acts 1:13)
It is the first whose ossuary may have been found. He often was called “James the Just” and was martyred in the A.D. 60s (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20:9). He is not the same as James son of Zebedee, who was martyred earlier (Acts 12:2). Advocates of the cousin interpretation commonly seek to identify him with James son of Alphaeus.



Engaging the Argument

In the USA Weekend piece, Witherington criticized both the step-brother and the cousin hypotheses. Regarding the former, he wrote, "If Jesus was the son of only Mary, and James was the son of only Joseph, then Jesus and James would not literally have been brothers, as this inscription states."

This argument seems flatly erroneous. The inscription does not state that Jesus and James were "literally" brothers. It says that they were brothers, period. It doesn't say "James, son of Joseph, literal brother of Jesus."

And what does Witherington mean by "literally"? To most ears, the most literal meaning of “brother” is full brother, all the other senses being in some sense accommodated to this primary sense. But we know that James can't be a full brother because Joseph was not Jesus' biological father. (A point that Witherington, who has written a book critical of liberal reinterpretations of Jesus, presumably acknowledges.)

Witherington is trying to get too much out of the single word "brother" in the inscription. It's range of meaning is simply too broad to rule out James being a step-brother.

Even in English, which has a gigantic vocabulary that includes a term for step-brother, we tend to use just "brother." Someone making introductions is more likely to say "This is my brother" than "This is my step-brother," unless family relations are unusually icy.

Witherington dismissed the cousin hypothesis by simply asserting, "there certainly was an Aramaic word for 'cousin' that could have been used in this inscription but was not." For this argument to work, several premises have to be granted:

1. The ossuary is that of James the Just.
2. The person who wrote "brother of Jesus" knew what he was talking about.
3. There is a word for "cousin" in Aramaic.
4. This word was used in first-century Palestinian Aramaic.
5. This was the preferred term for describing cousins at that time.




Premise 1 is necessary or the ossuary has no relevance to the Holy Family. Premise 2 is necessary because--even if the box belonged to James the Just--the inscriber had to correctly record his relationship to Jesus. Premise 3 is what Witherington's argument hinges on.

Premise 4 is needed because Aramaic is a language going back four thousand years. It is very diverse since it served as the lingua franca of the Middle East for centuries, developing numerous dialects. Hypothetically, some dialect could have acquired a word for "cousin." But the fact that one dialect would have such a word--and that it might conceivably be found in some Aramaic dictionary (not one I have located)--would not prove that it could have been used on the St. James ossuary. For that to happen, it would have to have been part of first century Palestinian Aramaic.

Finally, premise 5 also would have to be true: The term would have to have been the preferred word for "cousin." By way of comparison, if I wanted to talk about someone's housecat, I might refer to his "domestic feline." That's possible in current English, but not preferred. I'd be expected in normal speech to use the preferred term "housecat." If there were a "cousin" term in first century Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, but it was a rare or non-preferred term, we would not expect it to be used on the ossuary. It would have to be preferred for the argument to have weight.

How probable are the five premises?

Premise 1 is possible, perhaps probable. There is a good case to be made that the ossuary was that of James the Just (see Herschel Shanks' part of The Brother of Jesus). Yet it is possible that the ossuary belonged to someone else.

This could happen if the inscription has been parsed incorrectly. It has been generally assumed that the phrase "brother of Jesus" applies to James. This is not certain; it may apply to Joseph (see Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 2003, 12). In other words: the box belonged to a James who was the son of a Joseph, and Joseph was a brother of someone named Jesus. In this case, Jesus would be the uncle of James.

What would make this Jesus worth mentioning? If he was Jesus Christ, that would do it. Christ had a "brother" named Joseph (Matt. 13:55), so he might have had a nephew named James. If so, Witherington's argument can be reconstructed, because then Joseph is being described as Jesus' "brother."

It also is possible that the box has no connection with the Holy Family, and the Jesus of the inscription is worth mentioning for a different reason. It has been suggested (ibid., 14) that the inscription is due to a levirite marriage. According to this Jewish marriage custom (which lasted until the Middle Ages), if a man died childless, his brother was obliged to marry the widow to become the biological father of children whose legal father would be the dead man. Thus the box might belong to a James who had both a legal and a biological father, the two being brothers.

So while premise 1 is quite possible, it is not certain. The same is true of premise 2. A few scholars have suggested that the part of the inscription that reads "brother of Jesus" may have been added later than the first part--though still in antiquity since it also is highly weathered. If this was added then the scribe presumably did so to clarify which "James son of Joseph" was being discussed-- the one with the famous relation named Jesus.

But since the hypothetical second scribe was at least somewhat later than the first, he may have been more removed from the facts and thus might not know the exact relationship between the two. Thus per premise 2 we must assume that whoever wrote “brother of Jesus” knew what he was talking about.

That's not unreasonable, but the uncertainty increases the later in time the hypothetical scribe lived. If he was in the third or fourth century then the exact knowledge of Jesus' family relations had likely vanished by the time he wrote.

Premise 3--that there is an Aramaic word for "cousin" is where Witherington’s argument falls apart. He does not tell us what word he is thinking of, either in the USA Weekend piece (which seems understandable) or in his part of The Brother of Jesus (which seems inexcusable since his case hinges upon it and he liberally produces other foreign-language words).



Cordial Correction?

When I first learned of Witherington's claim--before I realized I would need to write this--I sent a very cordial note asking what word he was thinking of. Receiving no reply, I gave him a call, and we had a very cordial chat. He seems like a genuinely nice guy.

Unfortunately, after the conversation I was still unclear on what term he had in mind. One term we discussed was ahyana ("kinsman"). But this word may be unique to modern Aramaic, and in any event Witherington acknowledged that it has a broader meaning than "cousin."

It is not clear to me that Witherington even speaks Aramaic. New Testament professors in Protestant seminaries are well trained in Greek and have some background in Hebrew but almost none in Aramaic. In our conversation, Witherington referred me to one of his colleagues, who he described as "the real expert" and who had "assured" him that there was a word for cousin.

Witherington's lack of ease with Aramaic seems confirmed by the fact that, in his part of The Brother of Jesus, he freely explains Greek words for things, but tends to fall silent when it comes to Aramaic. From what I know at present, he may just be basing his argument on what he has heard from others.

Those others would not seem to include his co-author, Shanks. In his part of The Brother of Jesus Shanks writes things that undercut Witherington's claim. For example, he quotes the paleographer Emile Peuch, O.P., as saying "the specific relationship of James and Jesus in our ossuary is quite simply indeterminable. . . . The term 'brother' actually concurrently [in the first century] meant blood brother, half-brother, husband, uncle, nephew, cousin, friend, and companion" (51).



Experts Respond

To my knowledge, I'm the only full-time Catholic apologist who makes a study of Aramaic. I've paid particular attention to the cousin issue because of its apologetic implications. Still, I am not an expert, so I consulted several people who know more than I.

The first that I was able to reach was Mitchel Pacwa, S.J., and he swiftly confirmed that he also was unaware of any Aramaic term (in any dialect) that means "cousin."

Next, I drove across town to pay a visit to my Aramaic teacher, Fr. Michael Bazzi, who is a Chaldean Catholic priest from Mosul, Iraq. He is a native-speaker of Aramaic (the ethnic language of Chaldeans) and the author of several textbooks on both modern and classical Aramaic. Fr. Bazzi confirmed that there is no term for "cousin," and whenever one wishes to pick out the cousin relationship one uses one of the various possible circumlocutions. Neither did the dictionaries that I and Fr. Bazzi checked produce terms for "cousin."

Finally, I corresponded with Joseph Fitzmyer, S.J. Though scholarly reserve would prevent him from saying so, he is regarded as an 800-pound gorilla among American scholars of Aramaic. In The Brother of Jesus, Shanks notes: "no one wants to get into the ring with Joe Fitzmyer when it comes to Aramaic" (47).

Fitzmyer was quite helpful. Regarding the idea that there was a word for cousin, he was direct: "In first-century Palestinian Aramaic there was no word for 'cousin,' but one used the circumlocution, 'son of the uncle.'" Further, he adds, "I do not know of any word for 'cousin' (apart from the circumlocution) in any other Aramaic dialects."

Concerning the word "brother," Fitzmyer notes: "The word did not simply mean 'blood brother,' and you will find in the Book of Tobit a variety of broader meanings: 'compatriot,' 'kinsman, relative,' and even a generic usage when a speaker employs it, not really knowing (yet) the relationship proper. The young Tobiah even calls the Angel Raphael (in disguise), 'Brother Azariah' (6:7, extant in Aramaic). By that he certainly did not mean 'blood brother.'"



What to Conclude?

The conclusion thus seems inescapable: Witherington is wrong. There is no Aramaic word for cousin, and there certainly is no evidence that there was one in first-century Aramaic. If Witherington wishes to dispute this, he needs to produce the word in question (satisfying premise 3), along with the evidence backing up its existence in first-century Aramaic (premise 4) and evidence it was the preferred term for “cousin” at that time (premise 5).

If he cannot then—however nice a guy he may be—Witherington behaved irresponsibly by asserting in popular print that there is such a word. In so doing he misled people of multiple religious persuasions, disturbed the faith of some, confused others, and sparked a round of needless arguments.