TH E SY R I AC FO R M S

N EW TE STAM EN T PR O P E R

BY F C
. . BU R K ITT

FE LL O W O F TH E A CA D E M Y

Read Janumy 2 4, 1 9 1 2

TH E subj ect I have ch os e n for this Paper sounds I fear rath e r , ,

dry and technical so that it may not be out of place to begin by

,

claiming that it presents one element of general interest The .

Pilgrim from Palestine with his staff and his scallop shell and hi s
,
-

tales of the Holy Land i s one of the m ost pi c turesque figures of

,

the middle ages : it will be my task this afternoon to introduce you

to the earliest of that band the earliest that has left any re c ord
, .

His tale is told in a dead language and perhaps not all his archaeology ,

i s c orrect but he deserves to be heard with the respe c t due to

,

a pioneer .

The New Testa ment is a colle cti on of G reek writings and it is not till ,

the last quarter of the second century A D that there is any eviden c e . .

o f e ff orts to translate it into other tongues B ut in the peri o d betwee n

“

1 70 and 200 the G ospels Acts and Pauline Epistles were translated
, ,

into Latin in the West at Rome or Carthage and into Syriac in the
, ,

East at Edess a in the Euphrates Valley The translation o f the New

, .

Testament into Latin presented no special di fficulty and least of all ,

in the proper names There i s of course a right way and a wrong

.
, , ,

as those kno w who have read Pro fessor H ous man s amusing arti c le ’

in the last number of the Journal of Phi lology on G reek Nouns in

Latin Poetry ‘
But the points raised are a ft er all of subsidiary
.
, ,

intere s t The Latin translator had merely to give the Latin letter
.

which c ustom and authority prescribed as equivalent to the Greek

letter He had no need to be wise above that which had been
.

written : it is a pretty question whether we ought to write Plz ara o

1
It is worth whil e recordi ng th e fact th at th e old e s t Ch ris ti an M SS s upp ort .

Profe ss or Housman s ge ne ral c oncl usi ons e g k h as He rode n and t h e

’

,
. .

\ V ii rz b urg Pali mp s e st i n Je re mi ah xiii h as E ufrate n

 PROCEED INGS OF THE BRITISH A C AD EMY

or Farao but all that either form tells us is that the title of the king
,

o f Egypt is spelt ( ha oco in Greek

p .

The tran s lator from Greek into Syriac is in a very di fferen t case .

Syriac the former c omm o n speech of the Euphrates Valley is a

, ,

Semiti c language the fi r s t c ousin of Hebrew Like Hebre w many

, .
,

of the vowels do no t appear in writing and those that are written ,

are gi v en in a notation that a cc ording to our ideas is singul arly

, ,

i mperfe ct On the other hand many distinctions are made espe c i al ly

.
, ,

i n the sibilants whi ch di s appear in the Greek and ( as in Hebrew )

, ,

there are four true guttural so u nd s whi ch are not represented i n

Greek at all .

It is easy enough t o transliterate true Greek Proper Name s

into Syriac They look indeed rather c lu msy and without the
.
,
1
insertion of vowel s igns th e transliterations are often ambiguous .

The real di ffi culty and the real interest arises when as so often ,

i n the New Testament the Proper Name in the Greek is itself

,

a transliteration or adaption of a Semiti c word Greek is a poor .

l anguage for su ch a purpose and the Semitic words lose in tran s,

literation many of their most striking c haracteristics The Patriarc hs .

'
are shorn of their guttural s : Yi s é d k and Ya ci lcob become ,
‘

ABPAAM I caaK and I aKmB and there is nothing to tell the reader
, , ,

that Abraham s h is an English I t Isaac s is a kh ( or very nearly )

’

,
’
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while Jac ob s is the peculiar Semiti c a z n Moreover without private

’ ‘ ’

.
,

information the re trans lator from Greek into a Semiti c language

,

would not know where to put the gutturals in : as a matter of fact ,

the h in Afip aap c omes between the sec ond and third a the it in I craa x ,

c omes instead of the first a and the in I a o c omes between the

,

a and the K .

These di fficulties lie in the nature of the languages and confront

a translator as soo n as he sets about his task When therefore w e .

find that the older Syriac Versions speaking generally do not simply , ,

transliterate t he N e w Testament Proper Names but give the proper ,

Semiti c equivalent we are obviously i n the presen c e of a learned

,

achievement of a work of Biblical learning which demands el ucidation

,

and explanation How did the Syriac translator come by his

.

information 9
Afew words may here be said on the Syriac Versions of whi c h
ac c ount will be taken here The Syriac Vulgate commonly called
.
,

1
Th e c om m e m orat i on of a c e rta i n Ao u
h q at Ni come di a on M arc h 25 is g iv e n
by Li e tz mann from th e anci e nt S yriac M artyrol ogy as dvl s I t d oe s n t l ook
’ ’

q ui te s o b ad i n S y ri ac l ette rs !
 SYRIAC FORMS OF N EW TESTAMENT NAMES 3

the Peshitta comprises the greater part of the Old and New Testa
,

ments It i s preserved with a surprising ab s en c e of variation in

.

many MSS some of which are a s old as the fifth c entury The
.
, .

Canonical Book s of the Old Testament were translated originally

direct from the Hebre w probably by Jews rather than Christian s ; ,

but certain books notably that of Isaiah seem to have been revised
, ,
’
from the G reek Bible The s o called Apocrypha such as the Book
.
-
,

of Wisdom must have been translated from the Greek The text of
, .

the Peshitta in the N e w Testament is also a revision ; it is now

generally recogni z ed that this revision was made by Rab b ula B ishop ,

of Edessa from 4 1 1 to 4 35 No MS of the A cts or Pauline Epistles . .

previous to this revision su rvives but two MSS of the Gospels are , .

known Cureton s MS and the Sinai Palimpsest whi c h represent the

,
’
.
,

texts current before Rabb ula Besides thes e MSS we have the scanty . .

remains of Syriac literature earlier than the fifth century notably ,

the works of Ap h raate s A D ) and Ephrai m ( d 373 . . .

A large m ass of evidence tends to she w that the form in which

the G ospel general ly circulated among Syriac speaking Christian s -

before the time of Rab b ul a was not the Four separate G ospels but ,
’
Tatian s D iatessaron this work survi v es in a late Arabi c translation ,

but the Syriac text from which this Arabi c translation was made
had been assimilated wholesale to the Peshitta In any case the .
,

Arabic cannot be depended on for details connected with the spelling

of Proper Na mes .

Our three chief authorities therefore are the Sinai Palimpsest ( S ) , , ,

the C ure to nian MS ( C ) and the Peshitta ( P ) A later Syriac

.
, .

version of the parts of the New Testament not comprised in the

Peshitta ( v i z 2 Peter 2 and 3 John Jude and the Apocalypse )
.
, , , ,

made in the sixth century for Phi lox e nus of M abb ogh is c ited a s ,

Many of the Proper N ames in the G ospels are mentioned by

A p h raate s whose works include a Homily on the Gospel G e ne alog i
,

his eviden c e where necessary is quoted as A It is clear that f o r

, , .

the most part Ap h raate s used the D iatessaron 1

.

Rab b ula s
’
revision of the text was in many ways drastic and
thorough going but fortunately the Proper Names were very little
-
,

altered His procedure was not unlike that of the English Revi s ers
.

of 1 88 1 wh o also left the Proper Names mu ch as they were though

, ,

in other respects they made alterations in the direction of conformity

to the Greek The proof of the above statement lies in the very
.

Th e num e b r afte r A is th e pag e i n Patroloyz a Syriaca ,

‘

v ol . i ( l 89 4) ,
vo l . ii
 PROCEE DIN G S OF THE BRITISH ACAD EMY
numerous agreements of S C and P and the very fe w c ases of ac tual , , ,

di fferen ce For instan ce the final I ) in Beelz ebub is atte sted by no

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,

Greek M S so far as I kno w b u t Rab b ula retains it following both

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, , ,

S and C and also A 7 1 4 ,

.

The agreement between S C and P i n the Gospel s is the j usti fi , ,

c ation f o r using P in the rest of the New Testament where S and C ,

fail us It should of c ourse be remarked that the definite agree

.
, ,

ment of P with S C is naturally c onfined to those Proper Names

whi c h are transmitted without variant in the Greek Naturally .

it may happen that there is a variant in a name and i n su ch cases ,

P and S C are sometimes fo und on opposite sides e g in Joh i 2 8 , . .

’
S C support Bethabara while P supports Bethany ‘
But such ,
’
.

c ase s are comparatively rare and do not seriously c all in question ,

the general faithfulness of P to the nomenclature of the Old Syriac

Version .

A glance at S C and P shews that the general practice of the

translator of the New Testament into Syriac whoever he may have ,

been was to give the Old Testament equivalent for the Proper
,

Names as far as this c ould be done A discussion of this part of

, .

the s ubj ect wil l be found in E v ang eli on da rll ep harres hé vol ii -
, .
,

pp 2 0 1 — 2 0 5 and I need not repeat it here as I do not think the

.
, ,

dependence of the Syriac N e w Testament in this respect upon

the Syria c Old Testament has ever been seriously c hallenged The .

eviden c e forces u s in fac t to regard the Old Testament Peshitta

, ,

as older than the Syriac New Testamen t and as having been ,

familiar to the translat o r of the latter .

This at on c e a c counts for a large number of peculiar forms the ,

origin of whi ch does not here con cern us as it is su ffi c ient to say that ,

they were taken from the Old Testament Thus Zion is tran s .
’

-
literated IV 11C Sebyon though the Greek is Emi r and t h e Hebre w
s ,
;

i
i 3
’
It
. is di ffi c ult to see how the Syria c form c an ha v e arisen ,

but it throws no direct light upon the geographi cal knowledge of

the New Testament translator as no doubt it was taken direct from ,

the Old Testament in Syria c 1

.

Some of the greater Geographi cal names may very well ha v e been
derived from common knowledge and use names suc h as DB W WWS ,

Uri s lz le m for Jerusalem or Wfi J l l l B ath A ah fln for Mesopotamia

’ ’
l
' ’
, .

t at needs in v e s tigati o n are the rarer names names of persons that ,

1
my ‘
dry lan d is re g ul arl y re nd e re d in th e Pe shi tta b y « t o m
’
thi rs t y .
—S
i t is t h e re fore p rob abl e t h at [ V3 w as und e rs tood to m e an D ry Tor
, , ,

or s ome s uc h si g ni fi c at i on .
 SYRIAC FORMS OF NEW TESTAMENT NAMES 5

do not appear to have been familiar to Syria c speaking folk and -

,

names of places for which we can hardl y suppose that the nati v e s
of Edessa or even of Antioch could have had speci al appellations
, , .

Once more we may remind ourselves of the nature of the pro ce s se s

gone through before a New Testament Semiti c Proper Name appears
in Syriac It has been transliterated from Hebrew or Aramai c into
.

Greek letters : the Syriac translator then takes this Greek tran s
literation and either transliterates it into Syriac letters or dec ide s
, ,

on an appropriate Syriac equivalent The latter process is not .

transliteration but really a kind of translation : it may aff ord u s

,

historical information about the subj e c t matter of the New Testament ,

’
but should not be used as a textual variant This si mple cautio n ‘
.

is not al w ays reme mbered as an example will make clear The name, .

Cai ap h as ( Ka cdcta s or Ka ctpa s ) is transliterated ND ; Cep has ( a fii s )

'

P
’
,

on the other hand is NBND At fi rst sight it seem s irreg ular that
, .

the Syriac equivalent to Kncp as should begin w ith 3 instead of

P .

But what we have to recogni z e is that NBND is not a transliteration

at all but the Syriac for stone : the translator or possibly Syriac
,
‘ ’
,

Churc h custom recogni z ed that S Peter s nam e was Si mon S tone

, .
’
,

1
and they called him where necessary by this appellative
, , .

When Westcott and Hort discuss the breathings to be assigned

to New Testa ment Proper Names such as AAc/ mi og they talk about ’

the authority of the Syriac ( I nti od ’

It is one of the chief '

.
,

obj ects of this Paper to fi nd out in what exactly the authority of ’

the Syriac consists Is it we ask a real and c ontinuous Palestinian

.
, ,

tradition or is it merely an achievement of learning meritorious and

, ,

interesting indeed but not really authoritative ? What had the

,

Syriac translator to go by when the Old Testament failed him and , ,

when the context did not suggest ( as it did in the case of S Peter s .
’

name ) a practically certain solution P

N o w it is true that there are a number of excellent transliteration s

or identi fi cations whichever we like to c all them to be found in the
, ,

Syriac versions Simon the Cananaean is rendered N JJ’

.

P ,

and so is properly distinguished from the Canaanite woman ( X a v a v a a

’

) t ,

who is NH JVJD Ta bi th a and Ta li th a are sa dl y confused in Lati n

’
.

MSS . in the Syriac texts they are properly distinguished and

intelligently spelt Words referring to Jewish Parties & c — Phari s ees
.
, .

( Peri s hé ) Sadducees ( Zadd fi lcaye) Osanna

, Phylacte rie s ,

T
( pe hil lé ) are given a Syriac dress that is ne ar enough to the
,
-

1
I t is t h e same i n Arabi c wh e e S P e t e r is comm onl y call e d ( or wi
,
r .

) g “
 PROCEE D INGS OF THE BRITISH ACA D EMY
c urrent Jewish techni cal term to suggest some knowledge of Jewi s h
c onditions Of the personal names I) ” for Annas N71) for
.
, ,

x ov gab ] 1
NTBW for Sapphira NBN D for Barabbas
,
2
fl) ,
"
,

( i e
. Saturday
. s c hild ) for B ars abb as
3 ’
are all well spelt "
m for , .

Thaddaeus and NSW ( Da lman 1 2 4 ) for 2 5mm are recogni z ed a s

’

Se m itic names and spelt a ccordingly : it may be re marked in passing

that the name of Simon Magus is spelt jlb D ( Si mon) in Syriac a s
’
,

distinguished from Simon Peter and Simon the Tanner who are given ,

the same name as Simeon (IW DW Shi m on) the Patriarch ’

.

As is well known the Syriac New Testament translates X p w r o s by

,
’

M s hi ha i e Messiah wherever it occurs

’
I 7) oi3s becomes 9 1W ( pro
’ ” '

.
, . 0
, .

’
no unce d Yes hu and which i s the later Hebre w form of Joshua .

The Peshitta al ways represents wwm by ” i t” e g in Josh i 1 and

’
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,

it was no doubt the Syriac form of the name Joshua tha t determined
the spelling of the name for Je s us among Syria c speaking Christians -
.

It may here be mentioned that the c ontroversial works of Ephraim

Syrus no w being edited by my friend Mr C W Mitchell for the Text
,
. . .

and Translation Society from a palimpsest in the British Museum ,

will shew that the Syriac speaking Marc ionites were not similarly -

influen ced by the Old Testament and that they transliterated 3770 0 17 9 ,

by I D ’ "
.

Of the place names i Syria c I m) : for X Op a Ca v agrees with th e

n
’ -
,
’

Ta lmudi c spelling ; N35 ( B eth Phagg é ) for Bn0¢ a y1§ is at least

probable ; and NT }: ( B eth Sayyada) for q o a todv though ,

o therwise unattested is pos s ible Other spellings such as 08 ? t for

, .
,

‘
Arabia whi ch at first sight might seem inappropriate are to be
’
, ,

explained from the fac t that su ch Greek words are not representation s
”
of Semitic names at all but ne w Greek appellati o ns The Ap afi e s of , .

A cts ii 1 are properly rendered by N D N ; but Ap a 8 ta is a mere

1 ’ ‘ ’

,
'

geographi c al expression invented by the Greeks and Romans whi c h , ,

is wisely transliterated by the Peshitta in Gal i 1 7 iv 2 5 witho u t ,

Semi ti c gutturals : S Paul never m eant us to infer that he passed .

three years among the Bedouins .

All these Syriac transliterations are intelligent and a few of them ,

really striking At the same time it will be noti ced that they are
.

fairly straightforward ; the best of them suc h as those for X Op a fe t v

’

1
Lk viii 3 . Th e is ce rt i fi e d
Nabate an b y an i ns cri pt i o n at M ad ai n
nam e as

S alih s e e E x p osi tor ( 5 th Se r ) f or Fe bruary 1 8 9 9 p 1 2 1 .

, . .

Th e s ame p atrony m i c was b orne by th e we ll—k n own Rabbi Hi y a b Abb a . .

3
Th e n am e o f M r Satt urday Dav e nant m ay occu r t o s ome E ng lish re ad e rs
. .

M ore anti q ue and ori e ntal is B ai habbes habba ( i e S unday s c hild ) one of th e '
. .
’

m arty rs com m e morat e d i n t h e anc i e nt Sy ri ac K al e nd ar of 4 1 1 .

 SYRIAC FORMS OF NEW TESTAMENT NAMES 7

and x ov gag simply follow the most o rdinary rules of transliteration

, .

We now have to consider one or two that I ven ture to c haract eri z e
as strikingly bad .

The first i mpression of the m odern scholar accustomed to the ,

methods of the Syro Hexaplar and H arcle an versions is to regard

-
,

with respect all Syriac transliterations that contain Semitic g utturals

or Semiti c sibilants i e all words containing n or U 3 or
, . . But ,

thi s assumes that the Syriac word is meant for a real transliteration
of the Greek ; the case is quite di fferent when there has been an
attempt to find a Syriac equivalent for the Greek word The clearest .

instan c e of what I m ean is to be found in the Philoxenian ( and

H arcle an) rendering of Abaddon i n Apoc ix 1 1 Here we are definitely .

’
told that the word means destroying in G reek so that it i s quite ‘
,

c ertain that the Old Testa ment word is intended ut the

I N JN B .

Syriac equivalent is 17 317 i e the translator has used the abs sing
, . . . .

of « ( ch e m servitude This i s universally recogni z ed as being

‘ ’
.

’
a translator s blunder and nothing more At the same time it lead s .

us to infer that the translator c ould have had no contact with any
real tradition about the Jewish background to this Apocalypse .

But what Abadclon proves about the Apocalypse Jai rus prove s ,
’
for the Gospel in Syriac The name l de cp os o c c urs in the G reek
.

’ ’
Bible in Esth ii 5 where we read of M ap hoxai o s 6 7 0 8 I a e tp ov
,
When .

we look the passage up in the original Hebre w we find that Mordec ai

was the son of Jai r This evidence i s really su ffi cient to
e s tablish both the original for m of the name in the G ospel story
and also its appropriateness there Any name thought appropriate .

for an Israelite in a late and popular book like Esther might be

expec ted to o c cur as the name of a personage mentioned in the
G ospels 1
Jai rus (Mk v 2 2 L k viii 4 1 ) should therefore have been
.
,

T N in the Syriac
” But the nam e only o c curs in the nominative
.
,

and the translator seems to have thought that the final 0 9 was part -

’
o f the root and so he turns I de tp o s into
, as if it were one
o f those Jewish names beginning with It is a bad blunder as ,

bad as turning Abaddon into servitude the value of it for us i s to

make it unlikely that the Syriac translator of the Gospels was in
touch with any real histori cal tradition about the names that occur
i n the course of the narrative .

J ai rus does not stand alone It would indeed be unfair to lay

‘ ’
.
, ,

1
we may als o record th e e xiste nce of El ea zar b . Jai r me nt i one d by
Jo se p h us E] ii 1 9 .

2
W ritte n 9 1 a; Lk viii 4 1 in S , a sp e lli ng als o found i n G wi ll i am
’
s 36 ( Mk ) .
 PRO CEE D INGS OF THE BRITISH A CA D EM Y
v ery much stress on c ertain Names in the G enealogies such as Nh ion ,

( L k iii 31 S P) where no doubt S Luke s M arra GaL was meant f o r

’ ’
, , , .

HERD
T
In some of these obs cure names the irregular Spelling of the
.

Syriac parti cularly as preserved in S appears to be due to a know

, ,

ledge that the Greek spelling itself was quite irregular : instances are
L a: and A s a in L k iii 32 S for B oaz and O bed correspondi ng
!
.
, ,

no doubt to Boo c and I wBHA The c ourse of Abi a in L k i 5 i s

, .
‘ ’

spelt N JS in the Peshitta in agreement with the Greek and with

’
,

1 Chr xxi v 1 0 while S has U n,

’
N in agreement with the Old Latin
MSS e and
. In su ch cases as these we are dealing with tran s
literations rather than identifi cations and at the same ti me the ,

Syriac bec omes for the non ce an authority for the spelling of the
G reek word from whi c h it is derived .

More signifi c ant than these are i’NJ for N a t v ( L k vii 1 1 ) and ’

NJDD U S ( M k) S ( Matt) (DUE) P ( Matt Mk ) for Pe dm wav e f

‘
, , , ,

( Matt xxvi 36 Mk xiv 32 ) ,

1
Wha tever view may be held about the
.

original meaning and spelling of these obscure names it i s clear that ,

the Syriac translator had no private information and that he gue s sed , ,

and guessed badly from the Greek letters in hi s exemplar

, Nain .

if it be connected with the plac e quoted in N eu bauer 1 88 ought ,

‘
to have an a i n in it and the latter part of Gethsemane is ’

c onne c ted w ith the Hebrew for oil and should have a 29 not a D , ,

( see D alman Gennesaret or G enne sar again is WDJJ in

‘ ’ ‘ ’
, ,

Syriac the Talmudi c form is fi Du’J and it is natural to suppose that ,

if the Syriac translator had derived his spelling of the name from
living tradition it would have in cluded a 0 between the n and the s .

Of the name s in the A cts and Epi s tles m al vi m for Ap e r a ,

‘ ’ ’
e

( 2 Cor xi 32 ) is a v ery poor transliteration The name of the

2
.

Ethnarch mu s t have been ni ml i later spelt in Syriac ai m ' '

( Wright CB M 7 0 4 b ) correspondi ng to the well known Arabi c

, ,
-

names H ari tha or el Hari th In A c ts ix 35 it is odd to find RJl I D

-
.
'

l
put for r ev Bap aya ( instead of NJfi W ) side by side with I l? for ,
" '

Al oha .Ptolemais be comes 131? and Joppa

‘ ’
but Tarsu s ‘ ’ ‘ ’

is merely transliterated Di b flb pos s ibly the pride of Roman c iti z en

s hip had m ade Tarsus fo rget that in th e Persian period it had spelt
its name fi n on its c oins Gaz a ( NU) and A z otus ( l l lN)
.
‘ ’ ‘ ’

have Greek not Semiti c forms of their names

, , .

I have left out of c onsideration hitherto a number of the mo s t

interesting and c ontroversial proper names in the Syriac New Testa
1
Th e ld e st transm i tted pronunci at i on is Gads é man (s e e Gwi lli am p 1 71 note )
o ,
.
, .

2
T he Arm e ni an of h as Aret wi th no sig n of an i ni t i al g utt ural
, .
 SYRIAC FOR M S OF NEW TESTAMENT NAMES 9

m ent , be cause we ought to examine them with reasonable ideas of th e

kind of rules or information from whi c h the S yriac translator worked .

So far as we have gone I venture to think we have found nothing ,

pointing to a spe c ial or extraordinary knowledge The translat or .

is familiar with the Old Testament in Syriac and he has a good ,

knowledge of ordinary geography whi c h he shews by giving the ,

native names of the coast towns But he does not always recogni z e .

Semitic names in their Greek dress and there is no sign that he is ,

specially familiar with the towns of J udae a or Galilee or w ith the ,

forms of Jewi s h name s apart fro m those in the Old Testament .

I begin with the name Cai ap has about the spelling of which ,

1
the authority of the Syria has frequently been invoked
‘
c Thi s ’
.

name is spelt Ka mchae in most G reek MSS in agreement with .

Josephus ( Ant xviii but D and the Latins have KAKDAC The
. .

Syriac has NB’ and this is often supposed to be a definite pro

P T 7
,

nounce m e nt i n favour of the first over the second G reek reading .

I doubt this : it is of course an indication of the way the Syriac

, ,

t ranslator thought the word was spelt in Palestinian Aramaic but ,

I do not think it gives us any in formation of the way the word w as

spelt in the Greek MS from which the Syriac was translated The . .

Syriac translator thought Bneo a i od ( or Endo a todv ) m eant Fisherman s - ’

To wn well and good But if he turns Bneo a tod into B eth Sayyada
’
.
,

as he does it is fairly obvious that his Kayydp h a may stand for

,
'
Ka np as as well as Ka wub a s .

A somewhat similar conclusion appears to m e to be indicated in

the case of B etha bam and the Gerg es enes a cou ple of names which are ,

very important i n this c onnexion as the forms found i n the Old Syriac ,

MSS have been supposed to demonstrate that the Old Syriac Version
.

itself was made later than Origen and under the in fluence of h i s
exegesis 2
It h as been supposed that Origen himself introduced the
.

name Gergesenes ( for Gadarenes or Gerasenes ) as the name o f

‘ ’

the peopl e among whom the D emoniac was healed and also the ,

name Bethabara for Bethany beyond Jordan where John was

‘ ’
,

bapti ing Consequently when we find N DJWJ in Mk v 1 S and

z .
’
,

NR) ? h : in Joh i 28 S C it is a plausible inferen c e that the Old

”
,

3
Syriac reading is founded upon Origen s conj e ctures ’
.

1
See g E ncy B i bl 1 72 note 1
e . . . .
, .

2
Th e s u bs ta nce of th e foll ow i ng dis cussi on on t h e s e words is tak e n from th e
p re s e nt wri t er s art i cl e i n th e Ame ri can Journal of Biblical L iteratu re xxvii 1 28 —1 33
’

c all e d Gerges a— a Re ply

3
I t may b e con v e ni e nt to i ndi cate h e re s om e t e x tual fac ts whi c h are ass ume d
i n th e foll ow i ng disc u ssi on ( 1 ) O n g e ne ral grounds th e re can b e li tt le d oub t
.

v P— 2
 10 PROCEE D INGS OF THE B RITISH ACAD EMY
It seemed at first a c onfirmation of this theory that the name in
M k v 1 was written in Syriac with a D not with a w Origen h ad , .

not only expressed hi s O pinion that the name of the c ity near whi ch
the swine had rushed i nto the sea was G e rge s a rather than Gadara ,

o r Gerasa : he went on to identify the people with the Girgashites of

Gen xv 2 1 Mr Raymond Clapp to whom i s due the credit of having

. .
,

c alled attention to the great importan c e of these names for our e s ti

1
mate o f the date of the Old Syriac Version c on clude s that N DJWJ ’
, .

the reading of S in Mk v 1 is a simple tran s cript of a Greek MS , .

whi ch read I ep ye o nvé w a readi ng whi ch was itself the result of

‘ ‘

Origen s c onj ecture A little c onsideration will however shew that

’
.
, ,

the Syriac form suggests the opposite c on clusion v i z that all that it , .

tells us is that the translator iden tified the c o u ntry of the [ Gerasenes ] ‘ ’

with the land of the Girgashites

‘
For strange to say the Old ’
.
, ,

Testament Peshitta in Gen x v 2 1 and elsewhere represents the Hebrew

, ,

”
W 31 3?! by N DUWJ The reason for thi s is quite ob s c ure j ust as it is
’
.
,

quite obs cure why the Plain of Shinar s hould be turned in the
Peshi t ta into WUJU The Sinai Palimpsest therefore intends us to .
, ,

understand Girgashites in M k v 1 and the word should be pro

‘ ’
,

2
no unce d Garg os ayé
With regard to Bethabara in Joh i 2 8 the case is similar The ’
.

word is written K ’ i ts in C with the plural points ; they are

l- .

not legible in S but whether they are really absent or merely

,

illegible in S their presen c e in C shew s that the word was regarded

as plural and therefore as a significant appellation ( like O v erstrand
,

t h at H ort s c onc l usi on is righ t vi z th e g e nui ne re adi ng of th e Gre e k is

’

,
.

Gad are n e s i n M at t b ut G e rase ne s i n Mk and Lk ( 2 ) I n t h e Sy ri ac P h as

’

,
’
.
,

Gadare ne s e v e rywh e re C h as Gad are ne s i n L k ( th e o nly pl ace wh e re i t is

e x tant ) S h as Gad are n e s i n M att and Lk b ut i n Mk th e dis tri ct ( x bp a) of
’

,
c

t h e G is re n d e re d t h e l an d of th e worn (3) Th e re nd e ri ng o f th e Di ates

’
.

s aron is n ot k nown from any e arly auth ori t y n at urally Ci as c a s Arabi c i m pli e s
’

Gadare ne s th e re adi ng of P ( 4 ) Syri ac V e rsi ons app e ar to h av e h ad s om e

’

,
.

t e nd e ncy t o i ntro d uce t h e nam e G ad are n e Abi m e l e c h of G e rar b e com e s

Abi m e l e c h of xx ) and th e H agare ne s of Ps lxxx i ii 6 b e com e «( 1 K
, 3

Th e se Gadare ne s als o m e e t u s i n 1 Ch r xxvii 28 P (5 ) Gadare ne s i n M att .

‘ ’

viii 28 S is si m ply a c orre ct re nd e ri ng of t h e Gre e k and ne e ds no furt h e r ,

e xpl anat i on ; G ad are ne s i n Lk vi i i 2 6 37 S C may b e a h armoni zat i on wi t h

’

M att or ( m ore lik e ly) an assi m ilat i on to th e Di ate ssaron I t is th e re adi ng i n

,
.

Mk v 1 S whi c h h as e scap e d h armoni zati on t hat nee ds e xpl a i n i ng

, , .

Journal of B i bli cal L i teratu re xxvi Se e als o Bae th g e n s E vangeli en

’

f ragmente p 83 . .

Th e d roppi ng o f th e 0 i n
M k re s e nts n o di fl i c ul t y i n th e c as e of
9
p
a MS . lik e S For parall e ls s ee Evangeli on da M ep harres h e ii 40 : s e e als o
.
,
-

M att viii 28 i n th e margi n of th e Harcl e an V e rsi on .

 SYRIAC FORM S OF NEW TESTAM ENT NAMES 11

and not as a transliteration of a Greek w o rd In this interpretation .

the Syriac di ffer s from Origen who thought that BnBaBap a mean t ,

N1 ?” fl fl from N33 to create ! )

1
oi k o s Ka r a o x ev fis ( i e while
’
. .
, , ,

the Syriac connects it with wép a v 7 0 8 I op odvov ’

.

We find then that the Syriac agrees with Origen in thinking of

, ,

the Girgashites as the people who owned the Herd of Swine and
‘ ’
,

also in identi fying the place where John bapti z ed with a spot whi ch
may be spelt in Greek Bnfia fi ap a A couple of identifications su c h as .

these can hardly have been made independently but we have further ,

to go on and ask whether there is any j ustifi c ation for the common
v iew that these identi fi cations were m ade for the fi rst ti me by
,

Origen .

Origen s Com mentary on S John in whi c h these identifications

’
.
,

are found is a bulky work composed partly at Alexandria and

, , ,

partly much later at Caesarea In the former books so far as they .

,

survive the geographical interest is absent though there are several

, ,

piec es of Origen s c harac teristic lore abou t the Hebrew meanings of

’

2
N e w Testament names But from Book vi onward i e in the part
.
, . .

written at Caesarea Origen airs his knowledge of Palestine and i s

, ,

uite re ad y to c hange the transmitted text of Scripture accordingly

q .

What has happened in the interval ? We could almost have guessed ,

’
even apart from our author s express statement for we have all seen ,

it in our friends and contemporaries Origen has been on a Pilgrimage .

through the Holy Land an d he no longer needs information about ,

the sites for has he not seen them for hi mself

,

At the same time as I pointed out in the Paper already referred

,

to Origen does not him self clai m to have discovered Bethabara or

,
’

W hat he tells us is that th ey s ay that Bethabara ( r a

’
‘
G erge s a .

Bnea fi ap a) i s s he wn by the gorge of the Jordan where th ey decla re ,

that John bapti z ed ( Orig i n Joan vi Further on he mentions

. .

G e rg e s a from whi c h c ome the Girgashites ( o i Fep yea a io a) an ancient

'

, ,

c ity by what is now called the Lake of Tiberias by whi c h is a steep ,

plac e close to the L ake from which i t is s h ewn that the Swine were
,

c ast down by the dem ons

( Ibid vi This is what he learnt when .

he went on his pilgrimage and i n accordan c e with his geographical,

information he points out that Bethany is not beyond Jordan and ,

that neither Gerasa nor Gadara is situated on the Sea of Galilee .

The step that Origen took was to emend the Greek text of the
Gospels in ac c ordance with the lo c al identifications This i s some .

Se e Isai ah xl 28 xliii , 7 a ls o Bq 9e Bep p a

’

l
o x o s x ar ao x e v ij e OS 20 ]
7
E . g ii 33 ( B rooke i
.
12 PROCEE D I NG S OF THE BRITIS H ACAD EMY
thing more than the translator of the Syriac Version can be proved
to have done His general ai m was to find the proper Aramai c
.

equivalent of the names not to tell us with what letters the Greek s
,

represented the Aramaic names He does not care whether the .

Evangelist wrote I ep oa d) vpi a or ’

the place meant is what
\

his c ountrymen called Uris hlem and he writes it so N o various , .

reading is implied in Ac ts xxi 7 where for Ka rnvr fia aaev e ls Hrokeaa lfia

,
‘

’
the Syriac has we came to Acre And if our translator was per .

s uade d that the oS a 7 631; Fe aa nvéi v was the land of the Girgashite s
X p p
I do not think he would scruple to write it so .

The view I am here advancing is that the agreement of the Old

Syriac with Origen about the place names Bethabara and Girgashites -

or Gergesenes comes not fro m the Old Syriac following Origen but ,

from both the Old Syriac and Origen following lo cal identifi cations .

I venture to think I have proved this conclusion not to be excluded

by the evidence I have now to try and shew that it is not too
.

artificial and improbable a theory to be belie v ed .

In the fi rst place it seems to me fair to urge that any theory which
,

makes the Old Syriac Version dependent upon Origen is in itself

improbable Apart from the eviden c e aff orded or seemed to be
.
,

a fforded by these few place names the latest date assigned to the
,
-
,

Old Syriac Version as it stands in the Sinai Palimpsest is about

, ,

A D 2 00 more than a generation before Origen s commentary wa s

’
. .
,

written .In style in manner in tone it is idiomatically Semiti c

, , , ,

and far removed both from Origen s textual accuracy and his fanciful ’

allegori z ing Further the agreement with Origen is confined to

.
,

geographi cal identifi cations ; when it c omes to the etymology of

Semitic names there is a great di fference Origen was not really .

a profound linguist and his ear for Semitic sounds seems to have
,

been no better than that of most European tourists The Syriac .

tran s lator on the other hand was thoroughly skilled i n Aramaic his ,

native language and he disc riminated between sounds whi ch Origen

,

confused Palestinian Aramai c is of c ourse di ff erent from the Syriac

. , ,

of Edessa and the transcription of sounds in any language is a delicate

,

matter but the two dialec ts have the same gutturals and the same
,

sibilants and t o a Semite they are not easily interch anged

, .

The independence of Origen and the Syriac is best represented by

a Table : the right hand c olumn gives the transmitted Syriac text
-
,

while the middle c olumn gives Origen s etymologie s together with ’

a conjectural restoration of the Semiti c words intended by him .

 SYRIAC FORMS OF NEW TESTAMENT NAMES 13

Bethabara l
o xos K ar a o k e v fi ( vi
s 4 0) NWDU n : ”

was m
Bethania l
o x os i n a x ofis ( vi 4 0) N Jll ’
n) ”

nu
Bethphage (x 30)
’

l
o xo s m a yara u N35
NDE fl: ”

Jordan dfi a o t s im 631) ( vi 42 )
p j fi l ’
-
Ka r a

( i e no. . su ffi x )
Ae non d¢ 9ah p os Bao dvov ( B k Fr 76 ) ) l ( S)
I 3 I’ l
roo e, .
’

’
v
l l j l ll ( C )
’
l
Sali m wi res 6 ( Ibid ) DS
’
c wa fi f a v wv .
’
W
L
1 0)
n/ v 13
’
Origen s explanations are themselves in sad need of elucidation .

Either he m isheard certain Aramaic names or he only heard them ,

from Greek speaking persons and himself gave them his fantastic
-
,

meanings B ut i f Origen were an au th ori ty at all for the Syriac

.

translator I cannot see why he should be trusted for plac e i de nt ifi

,
-

’
c ations and deserted for derivations Origen s derivation for Bethphage .

is espe c ially interesting for it is definitely Aramaic yet it is di fferent

, ,

from that adopted by the Syriac Version .

The general inferen c e I draw is that by Origen s ti me the ’

identifi cation of place names in the Gospels had already begun

-

to excite some interest among Palestinian Christians themselves ,

m ainly a G reek speaking body no t scien tifically trained in the

-
,

ni c eties of Aramai c pronun c iation or grammar At any rate I .

,

venture to c laim that the theory which makes the Syriac Versions
depe nd upon Origen breaks down under investigation and with it ,

the theory that these Versions in any surviving form are later than
Origen breaks down also .

The name of B ethp h ag e as already remarked is spelt i n the Syriac

%
, ,

the same as in the Talmud 1 an: m eans in Aramai c the Place

.

of U nripe Figs and this is a far more likely derivation than oi k os

’

m ayo v wv ( i e d i e a Place of whi c h i s what Origen tells

’
‘
. n: .

us it means But Origen doe s not propose to change the spelling of

.

Bn6 ¢ ay i in Greek so most likely his fantasti c explanation ( repeated

r
,

in the Onoma s ti ca) re s ts ultimately upon a mere error of the ear for
Semiti c sounds About the identification of Bethphage there can be
.

little dispute though the exac t site may be di ffi c ult to locate It was
,
.

'

a known plac e and Origen tells us it was a r oi ro s lep a r t o s which looks

'
‘
x ,
,
14 PROCEE D INGS OF THE BRITISH ACAD EMY
a s if he wa s really indebted to Jewish lore for hi s informati o n as the ,

n o ti ces of Bethphage in the Talmud are c onnected with the v i rtual

1
i nclu s ion of the pla ce i n the Holy City fo r c ertain purposes .

The identifi cation of B ethany is less certain and therefore there is ,

more doubt about the right pronun ciation of the word Th e Syriac .

ha s N JV fi t ) and thi s spelli ng also appears to underlie Origen s oi x os

'’
’ ’
,

inm xofis On the other hand no plac e of thi s name is mentioned by

.
,

Jewish authorities while there is mention of a plac e c alled JTI 37 3

,
” ’

w hi c h may be near the site of Bethany The question i s compli cated

by the gloss BnOa v la oi k o s Bo fns ( OS 1 7358 1 8 294 whi ch
' ’
'
‘

, ,

s eems to indi cate that a Ch ri s ti an tradition on c e existed that equated

lN
[ T another spelling of J Fl n ) 2
Bethany with D J ” ’ ”

I do not think we are in a position to solve the question Bethany .

was no doubt a small and unimportant hamlet : if it really was

, ,

Beth Hini then what we know about it is that it was destroyed three
,
3
years befo re Jerusalem was taken by Titus and most likely all lo cal ,

knowledge of the plac e disappeared When in the fourth century the .

vi c torious Christians built a great church over the reputed grave of

Laz arus the name Bethany having no real roo t in the soil withered
, , ,

away The Lady Etheria in the fifth c entury knows of B eth ani a
.
, ,

from her Bible but on the spot she finds the plac e called L az ari u m
, ,

and E l Az ari ye h it i s called to this day I venture to think therefore

-
‘
.
, ,

that the first Christian archaeologists had nothi ng to go on but the

letters of BH O A N I A It is hardly surprising that with the analogy of
-
.
,

Anathoth to help them they should have thought that AN represented

,

31? rather than JH And after all they may be right in not c o n
’
.
, ,

ne cti ng the New Testament Bnea ma with the Talmudi c Beth Hi ni

’
-
.

If the writer of the Second Gospel was really a Je rus ale m i te he must
have known the true pronunc iation of the name Greek writing does .

not explain to us the initial c onsonant of awe : it may equally well

be N or n or i ! or 17 But the Gospel is good eviden ce that the
“
.

following vowel really was a and not i or ai as it ought to ‘ ’ ‘ ’ ‘ ’

have been if W7 ! was intended In short the evidence suggest s

”
.
,

that the Syriac tran s lator and the earlie s t Christian ide nt ifi cato rs
( represented by the Onomas ti ca) had no real traditio nal e v iden c e to go
upon ; at the same time it is equally in s u ffi cient to prove that the
pronun ciation they suggest is wrong 4
.

1
Se e t h e dis c ussi on i n N eubauer 1 47 ff .

2
For ms no . see Tos i f ta, Sh ebi i th 7 f or 86 § a D’Jm see Isai ah xl 26 .

3
Ba ba Jll ez i a 8 8 a .

Da lman 1 43 s ugge st s t h at th e nam e of mmn : was o rigi nally h ”:

 SYRIAC FORMS O F N EW TESTAMENT N AMES 15

The spelling of fo ur other place names in the Syriac Gospels rais e -

c onsiderations of general interest These are Gennes areth N az areth .

, ,

Cana of Gal ilee and B e thes da .

Gennesa reth is a fertile distri c t in Galilee that sometimes gives i t s

name to the Sea of Tiberias It is variously spelt Fe vvna ap er Fev .
'

and e vv n a but our Syria texts ha e D withou

'
v W JJ
‘

v no a ed I p c r
r t
p , ,

variation vo c ali z ed Genas ar in the Peshitta No true Old Latin M S

,
'
. .

1
has eth or et at the end of the word
- -
.

Our Jewish authorities give us in the Talmud WD 33 in th e

’
,

2
Targums while Josephus and 1 Mac c abees ( xi 6 7 ) have Fevvna dp
, .

The Syriac spelling therefore is vindi cated as c orrect for an Aramaic

, ,

document But when we ask what is the genuine spelling in th e

.

Greek Gospels the answer is not so easy ,

Gennesaret is so familiar .
’

a word to us that we reali z e with di ffi culty that it is confined to the

,

non western text of the Synopti c Gospels For that very reason it i s
-
.

probably genuine there The odd thing about the matter is that it .

is the Western authorities including the Old Latin that present , ,

the spelling which seems to be in fluenced either by lo cal knowledge

or knowledge of Josephus It looks as if the longer form had .

altogether disappeared for a time from the text of the G ospels and
then been reintroduced possibly by Origen , .

It woul d satisfy the general literary c onditions if we supposed

that Genne s aret belonged originally to Mark alone — a peculiar form
belonging to the Evangelist who owes least to literary tradition O n .

’
this hypothesis Mark s G ennesaret was changed to G e nne sar by ‘

the more literary Evangelists Luke and Matthew Harmonisti c .

corruption would then cause the rarer form Gennesaret to drop out ’

of Mark while at a later date it was re introduced into the Gree k

,
-

text of all three G ospel s But I cannot say that the textu al eviden ce .

at all points direc tly to the longer form being more charac teristic o f
Mark than of the other Evangelists D almanutha ( M k viii 1 0) i s
’
.

not a real parallel for that word never found any acceptance in the
,

other Gospels A nearer parallel may possibly be found in Naz areth

.

The name N az areth is connected with more than one insolubl e

problem In the Greek Gospels the name is spelt sometimes N a § ap é €
.
,

sometimes N a fap er while in Matt iv 1 3 L k iv 6 we find N a gap ci in

’

, ,
’

M k vi 5 3 a is not rea lly an e x ce pti on i t h as g e nne z alre tc ume x i s ls e n tde na lui .

Th e et is want e d to b e gi n v e r 5 4 s o th at .
,
r
t h e a c h e t yp e m ust h av e e ad Gennez a r r
5‘
et
2
C orre s p ondi ng to t h e B ibli cal W 133 e .
g . N um xxxiv 1 1 , Jos xiii 27 .
16 PROCEE DI N G S OF THE BRITISH ACAD EMY
the best authorities both Greek and Latin Neither o f these verses
,
.

i s taken from Mark while they a re histori cally parallel to one another
, .

It is therefo re a legitimate inferen c e that the statement of our

, ,

Lord s settlement at this town was taken by Matthew and by Luke

’

from Q the non Markan source that the name of the town was gi ven
,
-
,

in Q and that it was there spelt N a fo p a We have then N az aret

,
.
, ,

or for Mark and az ara for Q

( N az a re th
) N .

The Syriac text s without exception have 11 333 vocali z ed N arra th

, , ,

in th e Peshitta The adj e ctives N a fap nvo s and N a p atag are ren ’ ‘

.
, ,

d ered by N’WEJ In a cc ordan c e with this identi fi cation the acc epted
.
,

s ite of N az areth is c alled y u to day and the Moslems call a

‘ ’
o
-
,

C hristian N ae rcm i ( pl N ayara)

' ‘

. .

Nevertheless there are di ffi c ulties in this identification The first

, .

’
a nd gravest is the z in Naz arene The fact is that in hardly any .
,

o ther instan c e does Greek f stand for Semiti c 3

1
We are a ccus .

t o m e d to the representation of 2 by z in English be c ause it is done in ,

the Authori z ed Version of the Old Testament But this z is really .

‘
made in Germany : it is the German 3 to be pronounced like ts
’
, ,

a nd it was first used by the German Reu c hlin the friend of Erasmus , ,

to imitate the sound which his Jewish teachers used Before Re uch li n s .
’

t ime the universal tran s literation of 2 was simple 8 both in Greek ,

a nd in Latin The di fference between the an c ient and the Renaissan c e

.

s ystem is best illustrated to English people by the name of the c ity of

D avid which is Zion in the Old Testament but Si o n in the New

, ,

T estament and in the Prayer Book Now whether we accept the .

f orm N a § ap é r or N a fap d the sec ond consonant of the Semitic e q u i v a

,

l ent ought to be z ai n ( T ) no t s a de ( It
) Or putti ng it the other way if .
,

t h e name of the town were or if the Je ws were right in c alling

’
C hristians D Tfi lj ( Taan
’
then the name o f the to wn should
f '
.

h ave been written N a o ap e r or N a ap d It should not be forgotten that cr .

o ur Greek Gospels are some two generations earlier than any surviving

m onument of Semiti c Christianity A cc ording to the A cts Christians .

,

w ere on c e called members of the se c t of the N az orae ans ( c 1; N a p a ca y)

'

a nd we know that in later times a Sem iti c speaking s e c t o f Christians -

w as c alled by this name U nfortunately we do not know h o w these

.

p ersons wrote their name in their own Aramai c vernac ular The .

T almudi c passage quoted above ( Gemara of R J oh anan) is later than .

t h e Old Syriac Version Te rtull ian s referen c e to Jew s c alling

’
.

C hristians lVaz a raei or JVaz a reni is c onne cted by that Father with
Lam iv 7 and the N az i ri tes i e with the W WW) , . . .

1
Se e App e ndix I I I f or d e tails .
 PROCEE D INGS OF THE BRITISH ACAD EM Y
arisen from a literary error I mean this that we ought to consider .
,

the possibility that the c ity of Joseph and Mary the wa rp i s of Jesu s , ,

was Ch oraz i n .

I do not suppo s e the adj e ctive Naz arene to have been originally
derived f rom Choraz in This adj ective in the two forms N a fap nvo s
.
,
’
:

( Mk ) and N a p a to s ( Matt Joh Acts ; L k having both ) is better

’‘

, , ,

attested than the name of the town from whi ch it is c ommonly

derived It is di ffi cult not to thin k that Jesus was called the
.
‘

’
Naz arene or the N az orae an : what is doubtful is the meaning of
,
‘ ’

the term It is no t ea sy to understand the form N a p ai o s in any

.
‘

c ase but th e di ffi c u lty is greater if we have to make it an adj e c tive

,

denoting an inhabitant of Na z ara or Na z areth .

After c onsideri ng the matter from various points of view it s eem s ,

to me most probable that the word is really c onne cted with T l) and
the v o w of the Naz irites Of c ourse Jesus was not a legal Naz irite
.
,

whatever John the Baptist may have been fo r He drank wine , .

That He did not s cruple to t o u c h an apparently dead body prove s

nothing for the daughter of Jairus came to life agai n Moreover
, .

the saying Let the dead bury their dead actually expresses an ’

integral part of the Naz irite s enfo rc ed freedom from certain so cial ’

obligatio s Is i t not possible that N az orae an was a ni c kname

n .
? ‘ ’

It might c on c eivably m ean this odd sort of Naz arite — one who ‘ ’

c alls for repentan c e and yet eats and drinks like other folk Matt
, (
xi 1 9 L k vii
, The true origin of ni c knames is ea s ily lost and ,

it may have been s u pp o sed that the name referred to some place in
Galilee It should be noticed that most of the c onsonants o f
.

o az e m reappear in re v erse order in N az a e e

x p p .

It is a desperate c onj ecture and I would no t make it were i t no t , ,

that the ordinary vie w of Na z areth seems to me wholly unproved and

unsatisfactory And the m o st unproved and least satisfac tory part
.

of the ordinary view is that part of it whi c h is attested by the Syriac

Versions whereby the z i s made to repre s ent a Sem iti c 3C
, .

Cana
of Galilee is mentioned four time s in the Fourth G os p e l and l
,

has been vari o u s ly identified But in the Syriac it becomes W .

and this in the constant tradition of the Syriac Vulgate is vocali z ed

2
Kai ne There i s no variation in the Greek whi ch is moreover
.
, , ,

treated by the Evangeli s t as fem sing (e l s rip; Kauai Joh i v . .

“
,

1
Joh ii 1 1 1 ; i v 4 6 ; xxi 2
, .

2
Th i s is t h e v ocali zat i on i t would h av e if i t we re th e e m ph ati c pl ural of a

p art i c ipl e activ e and accordi ng ly s om e M S S of th e P e shi tta sp e ll i t

, .

wi th th e pl ural p oi nts .
 SYRIAC FORMS OF N EW TESTAMENT NAMES 19

This change of Ka rainto [ f ame cannot b e expl ained on palaeographi c al

or linguistic grounds : the words are really as distin c t as Ptolemai s
and A cre and I think we must infer that the Syriac word represents
,

a deliberate geographical identification .

U nfortunately neither this identification nor the ordinary one c an

,

be made out with c ertainty The marriage throne of the bride and .
-

bridegroom at Cana three miles from D io cae s are a on whi ch in the

’

, ,

\ ear 5 7 0 or thereabouts Antoninus of Placentia s c ratched his family

name has disappeared and the Syria c Kama is almost equally hard
1
, ,

to find Katana near D amas cus is too far away and pos s ibly the
.
,

pla c e meant is JN RQ the Bibli cal Kattath (N eubauer But

P
'

thi s hardly explains the odd vocali z ation .

We are not however direc tly con cerned with the actual site The
, , .

important thing in our investigation is that the variation between

the name of Cana of Galilee as written in G reek and as represented ’

in Syriac suggests a geographi c al identi fi cation Such an i de nt i fi ca .

tion could hardly have been made by a Christian s c holar staying at

home i n Edessa and we must infer that the translator himself or the
, ,

source from whi c h he derived his geographical theories must have ,

bee n a Palestine Pilgrim .

Round the nam e of B e thes da many c ontroversies have raged both ,

topographi cal and textual The latest and certainly one of the .

most interesting studies of the questions regarding it is that by

D r Rendel Harris in his book c alled Si de L ig h ts on N ew Tes ta
.
-

men t Res earch pp 36 5 1 and 7 0 7 6

—
,
— 2
I shall not attempt to
. .

touch upon all the points raised except in so far as they relate to ,

the subj ect immediately before us which is the authority of the ,

‘ ’

Syriac Bibli cal tradition The Bethesda question is twofold .

‘ ’

there is a doubt c oncerning the site and a doubt con c erning the ,

name As for the site excavations near the church of S Anne

.
, .

in the north eas t corner of Jerusalem not far from where our topo
-
,

graphical authorities place the Sheep gate mentioned by Nehemiah -

,

have brought to light the Pool whi c h in the early days of Christian
archaeology was identified with the r p oflan x ij o vyBfiOp a mentioned
in Joh v 2 and in the Onomas tica It was th is Pool that was seen .

by the Bordeaux Pilgri m i n A D 333 and i n certain other ways it . .

,

satisfies the data very well B ut this Pool is in the quarter of .

Jerusalem called Be z et h a by Josephus and as several very ancient ,

1
I ti ne ra Sancta 1 6 1 : in i pso ac cu bi t a , ub i ego i ndig n us i
nom na p are nt um
m eorum s c ri p s i .
2
Ang us Le ct ure s f or 1 9 08 .
20 PROCEE D INGS OF THE BRITISH ACA D EMY
authorities spell the name in the Gospel c a ed instead of B ethes da ,

it is almost an irresistible inference that Bq § a 6 d ( or something like it)

is the true reading There is some doubt about the s pelling of
.

Be z et h a in Josephus : a more accurate expression therefore for our , ,

c on c lusion will be that Josephus and the Evangelist i ntend to give

the same name .

The m ost puz z ling part of the eviden ce is that Josephus seems
to tell us that Be z e th a means K ai no p ol i s or New Town 1
This is .

really quite impossible The best attested spelling is Be fe ed Now

. .

between two vowels must stand for Semiti c z a i n and there is no 2 ,

’
in New or Town whether we try Hebrew or Aramai c B eth
‘ ‘ ’

,
.

H a( d)th a has been suggested but this does not mean New Town ‘ ’
.
,

It does not even mean New House or The New House ; if it

’
‘ ’ ‘

m eans anything it means The House of the N e w Man B eth ‘ ’

.
,

literally House is used i n the c onstru c t state before nouns to mean

’
,

The Place of as i n B eth Phagg e i e The Plac e of U nripe Figs

’
, , . .
’
.

But it is not so used before ordinary adj ec tives Neither in A ramai c .

nor in Engli s h is New House synonymous with New Town And .

when we c ome to the a ctual words of Joseph us we find that he does

not quite say that the Greek for Bez eth a is Ka wi) woM s He says ’
.
,

B J V 4 , 2 ( N i es e é k h fidn5 é m xwp lws Be fe ed rd v e 6 x r w rov pcé p o s ,

’
V

a
’ ’
6 p e dep uuv ev ouevov i A é A t s, i 6 you
'

o Soo
p Ka w ) e
yo cr v n . .

m ig h t translate it so but perhaps another phras e would be better

,
.

In B J ii 1 9 4 he seems to distinguish between Bez eth a and his

,
‘ ’

K ai no p ol i s (T7511 7 6 B np oo ayop ev op ev nv Kai rip) Ka wono K ai r ?

’ '
.
) .

K aAofl p e vov o cé v dyOp dv)

’

Professor D alman ( Gram p 1 1 5 ) connects the name with BiKé O , .

( 1 Ma c c vii a pla c e also spelt B n6 § a le B e

g e th and B e th z ech a , , ,

and he supposes the name to mean Plac e of Olive s ( NW T ‘ ’

But i t s eems to me on the whole best to take a hint from a pre v ious
, ,
’
senten ce to the above quoted passage from the Jewish War -
‘
.

Jo s ephus say s des cribing the hills of Jerus al em ( I bid = N i es e v 1 49 )

,
.

AeEra c Bs ge da, i
’
Adcj mv 6 9 lnev os ué v
’

fi
'

r e ra r ov n ep tmx nd va t Ka Ke cwn xp )
p
r ij s
’
a fourth crest
Avrwv la s d wo r e uv o ue v o s 6 3 dp fiypi ar t
’
' ‘

and cu t of from
whi ch is called B ez etha, situated opposite Antonia
it by a deep moat 2 But does not this sugge s t a derivation ? Is
’
.

it no t possible that Be fe ed or a a ed stands for NDQTB i e the , . .

‘

bits cut o ff or possibly NDQI Q the bit cut o ff

1
BJ ii 1 9 , 4 ; BJ v 4, 2 N i es e v
Th e re was
2
a g reat p it or tan k (gbp ’

ea
p) in Be z eth
’

, wh e re B acchid e s flung
his vi ct i m s .
 SYRIAC FORMS OF N EW TESTA MENT NAMES 21

But whether w e take this or regard Be z e th as the old name of an ,

outlying village now become part of the town or suppose that the
, ,

name means Plac e of Olives we do not in any case come to

‘ ’
,

Be thes da . This the most familiar for m of the na me to us is with

, ,

one significant exception not supported in any of the authorities by

which modern criti c al editors are generally in fluenced It is not in .

the Onomas tica which have a a ed in Greek and B ethsai da in Latin

, .

It is not in B ( Bnem aa) in N ( e nema) in D in the genuine

, ,

Old Latin ( B ez a th a Betz a ta B elz a tka B etz e tha) or the Vulgate

, , , ,

( B e ths a id a ) The Egyptian

. versions also with the text of the , ,

H arclean and the Ethiopic have Bethsaida spelt like the city of
’
, ,

Andrew and Peter

The supporters of e nem as are the vast maj ority of G reek MSS .

( including of
, course A and C ) the G othici z ing revised Latin texts
, ,

and and all the Syria c versions except the text of the H arcle an
f g , , .

It is also in the Armenian where the spelling ( B eth heada) makes it ,

pretty certain that it has been deri ved from a Syriac sourc e .

For Bethesda are the By z antine tradition and the authority of

’

the Syriac ; ag ai ns t Bethesda are the ancient Versions ( except the

’ ’

Syriac ) local tradition and the most ancient and trusted Greek MSS
, , .

Such a division of the evidence is not only unfavourable to B ethes da ;

it makes it very likely that the Old Syriac Version which is the one ,

really ancient authority that supports this reading i s also the sourc e ,

of it We are dealing with probabilities and by the nature of the

.
,

case we cannot hope to do more than fram e a hypothesis which will ,

c over the fa c ts of the case and be consistent with the pheno mena

of other various readings and unlikely forms of Proper N ames My .

hypothesis then is that a a dd was the form written by the

, ,

Evangelist that this became extensively corrupted to Bnoga eé ‘

Bnt fa ed & c and also widely assimilated to B ethsaida The Syriac ’

, .
, .

translator on the other hand whatever of these form s may have been
, ,

before his eyes thought that House of Mercy was not far o ff and
,
’
,

so wrote B e th Hes da The Martyr Lucian or whoever else is the real

.
,

1
foster father of the Antiochian Byz antine text may very likely have
- -
,

had Bethsaida i n the text that lay before him this was a manifest
geographical blunder and needed corre ction and the correction that ,

was chosen was derived from the Syriac tradition .

The whole question is in certain ways parallel to the question of , ,

Naz areth In both c ases we have a current tradition now in vogue

about the names a tradition which is unsatisfactory in the light
,

1
Th e te x t ca ll e d K b y v on S od e n .
22 P ROCEE DINGS OF THE BRITISH A CAD E M Y

of the earlie s t eviden c e In the c ase of Naz areth it is the sele ction
.

of a site in the case of Bethesda it is the form of a name In both

, .

cases by far the oldest witness to the unsatisfac tory c urrent tradition
i s the anc ient Syriac Version I do not believe these Syriac .

names have any more authority than Joaras h for Jairus or Kama ’
,

for Cana ; the only di ff eren c e is that the former pair found favour
at the end of the fourth century among the Greeks and the latter
pair did not .

It will be c on venient to notice here certai n Syria c forms of Proper

Names that for various reasons need some eluc idation .

’ ’
1 The Elamites of Acts 1 1 9 are rendered N J7N ( Alanayé ) in P
. .

This is not an irregular transliteration of but means the

Alans a barbarous people mentioned by Pliny ( vi 2 6 ) in c onnexion
,

with the K u rds and by the D ialogue D e Fa to ( h 3 ) in c onnexion

with the regions north of Pontus The name of the Elamites was no .

doubt taken by S Luke from the Old Testament but a Mesopo

.
,

tamian translator would kno w that they were extin ct as the D ruids ,

and so he chose a more m odern name from the same sort of region
as an eq uivalent In exac tly the same spirit D e Sacy s Arabi c
.
’

translates the Parthians by of ‘ ‘ i e K urds

’

, . . .

2 Bar Jesus the name of the Magus in Acts xiii 6 is variou s ly

.
-
, ,

spelt in important Western texts so tha t the original reading is some ,

what doubtful In P ND3W fl) ( B a rs hu ma ) is given as an equivalent

. .

The meaning of B ars h uma is not kno wn : what is known i s that it

was an old family name i n Edessa where it appears on the pre ,

Christian grave of NDl W WD l fi : 3 17 ( i e Stella daughter of Bar

1 '
. .
‘
,

1
shuma ) I do not suppose we c an re construc t the Greek wo rd
’
.

whi ch suggested Barsh u m a to the Syriac translator any more than ,

we c ould rec over E) anei r a i from the Alans in Acts 1 1 9

’
\
’
.

3 Matthias in A c ts i 23 2 6 is transliterated N nn in P
.
’
So far
, .

as I know there is no variation in the name in Greek or Latin

, ,

except that some anc ient MSS have M a 06 ca v instead of M ac a v But .

’ ’
.

in Syriac the case is di fferent Ap h raa te s 1 5 0 ( D emons tr iv 6 ) call s . .

1 ’
him b 7 lfl and this name is substituted for Matthias wherever it
'
,

o ccurs in the Syriac Version of E useb i us s H is tory It is evident that ’

.

1
ZI ) M G xxxvi k e t his op p ortun i ty of s ugge sti ng t h at th e di ffi cul t
164 . I ta

word i n l i ne 3 re ad d a i u rf b y Sach au may b e an i ll c ut ( t i n t-C Th e

, ,
-
a

fi rst four li ne s w ill t h e n run : ( 1 ) I I u bath Bars h um a ( 2) h av e m ad e f or

‘
‘
, ,

m ys e lf t his t om b ( 3) I b eg of t h e e wh oever e ls e e n te rs ( 4 ) h e re not t o m ov e

.
, ,

m y b one s and t h e sarc oph ag us I as s ume th at ” V is th e ab s state of Nnl v

’ ‘’
. .

( Job i x t h e nam e o f a c e rtai n S tar o r C onst e llat i o n .

 SYRIAC FORMS OF N EW TESTAMENT NAMES 23

this is no mere palaeographical error but that the Old Syriac Versi o n ,

’ ’
of the Acts must have had D7)n also This name o ccurs as O ok op ai os .
‘

i n Josephus (Ant xx and is of c ourse the second part of the name

.
, ,

Bartholomew ‘
An ob s c ure name ”D511 does o cc ur in Judges and
.

’ ’
Samuel but D73fl is nothing more than Ptolemy in a Semitic disgu i s e
,

( see Levy N eu H ebr D i et 8 , W h y the Old Syriac of A c ts should

-
. .
, .

have represented Matthias by this name cannot now be ascertained .

4 Mal c hus in Joh xviii 1 0 is rendered 5h ( M alé k) in P but

.

1 ,

( EM aleku ) in S The word o cc urs in S at the end of a line so that

’
.
,

it is not quite c ertain that an B may not be lost i n the margin : in

that case S would present a mere com monplac e transliteration of
M dAXo s But as the name appears to be treated as a Semiti c one
.

in P it is more likely that D S

, D is the true reading in whi ch case we ,

have an interesting parallel to G ashmu the Arabian m entioned

in Neh vi 6 2
BS D ( i e call ) is a very c ommon Palmyrene name
. . . !

( Cook Aramai c G los s a ry p 73 where however vol 7 is a mispri nt

, , .
, , , .

for vol 6 and .is a woman s name ) ’

.

5 Finally as bearing upon the general sociological equipment

.
,

o f the Syriac translator it should be noti c ed that the technical Jewish ,

term j fi lflJD ( Sanhedri n) is never used to render o vve Bp w v e v en when

’ ' -
'

it m ight have been not inappropriate In Matt x 1 7 S P the te chnical .

Jewish term for the local Jewish Court i s correctly given ( N3 l h J " ’
,
’
B eth di n)
- 3
but even in Acts xxii 30 77 6 1 7 5 a v ve fip cov is only rendered
,
;

fl D 71 53 i e all the assembly of their Heads ’

’
ji W W W N WJ ‘
, . . .

I imagine the translator was only a cquainted with the provin c ial
Judaism of U pper Mesopotamia Phylac teries and Beth dins he .
-

knew but the parts of the Jewish organi z ation that c ame to an end
,

wi th the D estru ction of Jerusalem were as unfamiliar to hi m as to

the rest of the Gentile world .

It is now time to sum up the main results of these s c attered

observations I shall attempt to do so in a series of propositions
. .

( 1 ) The translator of the Syri ac Version aimed at giving the

vernacular equivalent of the N e w Testament Proper Names rather ,

than a transliteration of the Greek .

Examples : Acre for Ptolemais Ala ns for Elamites ,

.

1
I n M att viii 3 th olome us o cc u rs in a f or Bart h ol ome w .

2
No d oub t 173 W} c orre sp onds t o 1 34 : i t wou ld b e i nte re s ti ng to k now
(
wh e nce n d e rive d th e s pe lli ng rocem
Th e S yri ac sh ou ld b e v oca li z e d B eth wi th G wi l l iam M as 3,
’
2
di ne, s . not B eth

dayydne ( i e Pl ace of th e j udge s

. .
24 PROCEE D INGS OF THE BRITISH ACAD EMY

( 2 ) Wherever po s sible the forms of the Names in the Syriac Ne w

,

Te s tament are assimilated to those in the Syriac Old Testament

( Peshitta) whi c h is earlier and normative for the Syriac
, New
Testa m ent .

Examples : Sehyti n for Sion Yes hu for Jesus ,

‘
.

( )
3 When the Old Testament failed the Syriac is sometime s ,

demonstrably wrong .

Example : Yoaras h for Jairns .

A c onnexion between the Syria c translator and Origen is to b e

( )
4
noted but it is by way of agreement in identifi cation c ombined with
,

disagr eement in etymology .

Examples : B eth a bara and B ethp h ag e .

( 5 ) The c onnexion is to be explained by the rise of local Palestinian

Christian traditions fostered by the rise of Christian pilgrimage
, .

’
Examples Gerg esenes and again B ethaba ra .

( 6 ) Some Syriac identifi c ations never in fl uenced non Syriac Christian -

tradition This demonstrates the existence of a certain independen ce

.

in the Syriac identifications .

Example : K ayne for Cana .

( 7 ) In other cases the Syriac identification is the oldest evidence

for the m odern and incorrect theory and in some c ases may have ,

been the parent of tha t theory .

Exam ples N as ra th for Naz areth B e thhes da for Be z ath a

'

, .

( 8 ) Now that a dire c t dependen c e of the Syriac New Testament

u pon Origen is ex c luded we are free to date the work in conformity

with all the other indications i e in the last quarter of the se c ond
, . .

c entu ry A D It is thus the earliest surviving m o nument of th e

. .

reviving interest whi ch Christians were beginning to take in the Holy

Places This lessens its value for textual criti cism as the translato r
.
,

becomes to a c ertain extent a c ritic rather than a witness W hen

'

, , .

m inutely examined the Syriac Version even in its oldest form shews
, , , ,

like all other monuments of Christianity the great chasm that ,

separates the second c entury Christian Church from Palestinian life

-

before the D estruction of Jerusalem The only bridge across this .

!

great c hasm is the Greek text of the New Testament itself Naturally .

I do not wish to deny the c ontinuity of Catholi cism with the first
preaching of the Christian Gospel but the c ontinuity with the ,

Fathers of old time to whi ch the Catholic Churc h of the second

century j ustly attached so mu ch weight was c onnected with ideas
and not with tangible antiquities It is possible for theologian s .

to have very di fferent notions of the deposit whi ch Timothy was ‘ ’

charged so carefully to guard but quite c ertainly it did not inclu de

,
26 PROCEE D INGS OF T H E BRITISH ACAD EMY
ob s erved about a s pirating or not aspirating the preceding consonant ,

and these rules are our only safe guide .

To take the case of H ebre w first Here mediaeval Latin and .

English spelli ngs tell us nothing at all and unfortunately there is no ,

i nstan ce either in the Old or N e w Testament where Efi p ai os stands ‘

immediately a ft er a mutable c onsonant But Westc ott and Hort .

appear to have forgotten all about the Gospel according to the ‘

’ ’ t ’
Hebrews 7 6 « ad E/3p alov s Ebayyek i ov
, So far a s I know x a r ‘
.
,
’

EBp a lov s ne v er o cc urs : certainly Ka G Efl

’ °
a lov s is the spelling of the
p
MSS in Eusebius H E iii 2 5 2 7 iv 2 2 and in Origen i n Joan ii 1 2
.
, , , . .

This surely is de isi ve evidence in favour of the rough breathing

, c ,
1

Ag abus has been equally unlu c ky I do not know h o w Westcott .

and Hort came to thin k that this name began in Syriac with $7 or ,

why the statement has been so often repeated e g by Blass in his , . .

edition of the A c ts the fact being that the name in Syriac is written
,

K ( Dlfl ) both in Acts xi 2 8 and in xxi 1 0

'
”
W l N .

Sin c e the name ends in D) i e sin c e the Greek termination i s , . .

transliterated into Syriac we m u st infer that the Syriac translator ,

did not regard the name as rec ogni z ably Semiti c ; in other word s he ,

give s us no opinion as to its derivation (” R d is simply a trans .

literation of araBoc and tells us nothing as to the breathing we

,

ought to prefix to the word If o n quite other grounds we thin k .

araBoc c orresponds to 3 37 1 j ust as ap er ac c orresponds to H ari th a w e

, ,

may prefix a rough breathing but the Syriac eviden ce tells us nothi ng ,

except that our proposed derivation was not obvio u s in an c ient times .

The decision between Alp h aeus and H alp haeu s is les s clear Here .

the Syriac v ersions now reinforc ed by the Sinai Palimpsest ha v e

, ,

H pa l a i This really does i mply that the word is recogni z ed

a s Semiti c not only because of the initial guttural but also be cause
, ,

the Greek termination is dropped It may further h e remarked that .

the Greek name be c omes i n Syriac m a fi d d ( Eus M art . .

P ales t i ) . .

The name H alp ai does not certainly o ccur in Jewish sourc e s .

D alman ( p 1 4 2 ) c ites ” .5 7 W fro m j K idd 5 8 d but this is not the . .

,

name of a Rabbi The word seems to mean c ontroversialist

.

Moreover in b Taan 2 1 a it appears as NBSN

"

, .
’
. However as there .
,

is no sign of a various reading in the New Testament the ,

‘
authority of the Syriac may in this c a s e s tand qua ntu m va leat and , ,

‘
we may c ontinue to write Ah qba i o s
’

1
Un d e r th e i nfluenc e of W e stcott and H ort
s m ooth bre athi ng h as be e n
th e
s d f or Camb rid ge LX X and th e O xford Concord ance t o th e LX X I
‘
u e o s i n th e
EBp aZ
 SYRIAC FORMS OF NEW TESTAMENT N AMES 27

II . C A PE RN A UM , CA PH A RN A UM .

I Ti s well kn o wn that the Tex tus Recep tas of the N e w Testament

has Ka n e p v a ofip while all critical editions spell the word Ka¢ ap
,
!

v a ozi p These names are the subj ect of a study by Profes s or E N estle
. .

in a Festschrift for Theodor Zahn ( Leip z ig 1 9 08 pp 25 1 which , , .

like all Nestle s work is packed full of curious and recondite informa
’

tion .Nestle points out that Ka wep vaofiu is attested by the great
mass of Greek MSS Ka ¢ ap va owp by N B D and also by practically all
.
,
§

the Versions The Syria c has p a n -3m and Nestle conj ectures
.
,

that t he two forms arose from di fferent pronunciations of this It i s .

well kno wn that the East Syrians pronounced 5 hard ( i e hard for . .

Semites ) : if then as: was really a monosyllabi c form and if the Eas t ,

Syrians pronounced the word K ayr then Kawep va oup might have ,
.

arisen from the East Syrian form .

Nestle is quite right in saying that the ancient Syriac Versions

c annot be claimed as witnesses to decide bet ween 71 and (p as they use ,

A indi ff erently for both Bu t the other part equally essential

.
, ,

o f his ingenious theory breaks down on investigation The East .

Syrian pronun c iation of the name is yam s m i e Kp ar N a hum , . .

o r K ha r N a h um not K ayr N This is not only the reading of

p , .

the U rmi editi o n s and those founded upon them : I have ascertained
u nd i i ; is the reading of the Nestorian Masora i e RM ’
that p o , . . .

Add 1 2 1 38 one of the most c areful and accurate MSS ever written
.
, . .

Further the pla c e c alled n

, m
n 153 in Josh xviii 2 4 is called in
"

the U rmi Bible d a m n; 1 5 3 It is therefore evident that the .

, ,

’
e in Ka wep va ovn is definitely rej e c ted by the East Syrian tradition .

This brings the matter back where it was Bu t on general ground s .

it was not likely that the solution of thi s c urious problem would
c o me from beyond the Euphrates The main fac ts are that Kam p .

is attested by what D r Hort calls the Antiochian text while Ka¢ ap

.
,

i s atte s ted by all others It is a natural inferen c e that the p ro

.

nunci ati o n of the Greek speaking population of the Antio c hian -

district may have something to do with the matter D r N estle . .

quotes Th eo dore t for Ka wep o av a and Th e o do re t i s c ertainly a witness ,

for fourth to fi fth c en tury Antio chian fashions which is exa ctly ,

w hat i s wanted U sing then Syrian in the sense used by Hort ‘ ’

.
,

i e not for that which is Aramai c but for what is characteristic o f

. .
,

the G reek speaking district of which A ntio c h was the capital we may
-
,

after all agree with Nestle that in the prevalen c e of the spelling ,
28 PROCEE DINGS OF THE BRITI SH ACAD EMY

K a m p v am p in Greek MSS of the Gospels we may see eine der

i
. .
‘

s tarks te n Be s ta ti u n e n der Theorie von W estcott Hort dass der

g g
-
,

Tex tus recep tas die Frucht einer syri s chen Re z ension ist

III . G REE K Z FO R H EBRE W 2 .

TH E Greeks habitually represe nted Se mitic 2 by simple B eside s

words like ELO D for 12 2 which is after al l an exclusively Biblical and
S

Je wish name we have Ecocé v for ,

and Edp e m a for fl5 fl2 No .

rule however is without apparent exceptions and in view of the

, , ,

i mportance of the statement made above ( p 1 6 ) that i n hardly any .

instance Greek 5 stands for Semiti c 2 it is worth while to examine ,

the names in the Greek Bible ( besides Naz areth in whi ch g i s ‘

apparently so used .

In all there appear to be ten Takin g them in their most fa miliar .

E nglish form and in t h e o rder of the English alphabet we have ,

1 Adoni z e deh ( Jo s h x Am ( e Bé ( Aq Sym m Th e od )

'
’ ‘

K
. .
, .
, .

’
Here the L X X has dBws e fe K i e the Greek Bible
P 73 078 .
, . .

reads D ” JWN as in Judges i 5 if This reading seems to have been

P , .

c orrected t o agree with the Hebre w in Origen s Hexapla with the

’

least possible change of the traditional c onsonants Josephus ha s .

dm Be fe x o s It should be noti c ed that Melchi z edek is never spelt

’
.

i n Greek with f either in the Old o r the N e w Testament .

2 Arz are th
. E z ra xiii This is the name of the land where
the Ten Tribes went according to the Latin text of 4 E z ra It
,
: .

appear s to denote some region beyond the sources of the Euphrate s ,

and against all probability it ha s been explained as l fi nN f lN t o ' '

agree with D eut xxix 2 8 Not only is the equation of z and 2.

highly contentious : besides that it is very doubtful whether the ,

word really ended i n areth at all as the Syriac has « 1 s -

sn i f f , "

K A i K fl i e Arz ap h the end o

, .
f t
.h e earth Certainly ,
this word c an .

do very little to prove that the f in N a fap e e c orre s ponds to 2 ’

.

3 B oz ez ( 1 Regn xiv
. The rock Boz ez ( V2 13 ) is spelt Baz e c
in B and p a g e in Lu cian Presumably the Greek read rt:
‘ ’
.

for r m) .

4 H ez ron ( Ruth i v
. The grandson of Judah ( pus h ) i s spelt
’
in the NT Genealogies In the OT we find Ea p <6 v .
,
’
A rp a$v and in Josephus A<m a p c6v
’
Besides these E § p <6v
’
Ao p a p
$ ’
o .
,
, ,

o cc urs in the L uciani c text of Ruth i v 1 8 a text whi c h here rest s ,

 SYRIAC FORMS OF NEW TESTAMENT NAM ES 29

upon two minuscules and E Cp a$p occurs in L k iii 33 E i e in an

,
’
.
, . .

inferior U n c ial of the 8 th century There can be little doubt that .

these spell ings have nothing whate v er to do w ith the writers of the
1 s t century A D . .

5 H uz ( Gen x x u 2 1 1 Chr 1
. the brother of Buz i s s pelt i n
, ,

W the sa me name as the land of U z where Job lived

‘
Hebrew Y , , .

The land of U z in the Greek Bible is the XoSp a a i d i n g while in ,

Genesis we find ( I f and in Chronicles S23 Joseph us has 0 650 9

” ”
. .

”
But the L u ci ani c text has Q f for Genesis and O i f for Chronicles
'

z .

This agai n is surely nothing more than a mediae v al v ariant in an

unfamiliar barbarous word .

6 D uke M i bz a r of Edom ( Gen xxxvi 4 2 1 Chr 1 5 3) is spelt

.
,

N a gap in the G reek but M a B dp al s o oc curs

'

, The Hebrew is 1 2 373 o .

7 A nam e cooaz see m s to o cc ur in 1 Chr x x v i 1 4 B where the

.
,

Hebre w h as m Here A ha s “mac

r
”
. .

8 Za lmu nna K ing of Midian ( Judge s viii 5 iii Psalm lxxxiii

.
, ,

appea rs in the Gree k Bible as S a Ana vd or E eh ua v é But Zeba and .

Zalmunna ( 1737352 ) 77 31) are c alled by Josephus Z eBrw Ka t Zap p ov v nv

’ ‘ '

( Anti q v . I s it too fanciful to suppose that in this instance

Josephus mo dified the nam e for the s ake of alliteration
9 Zam ces ( E z ra A i 38 ) corresponds to the M N” of 2 Chr xxxvi 4
. .

It is c on ceivable that there may ha v e been in the Sem iti c original

a mention of Zedekiah but the te x t i s doubtful as B has
ZA I O N and the Latin Za ra ce le m and Za ch a r ia m
P .

These nine instances appear to me to be of 11 0 importance at all .

Th e ca se is di ff erent with re s pe c t to the remaining one

1 0 Zoa r the city near the D ead Sea where Lot took refuge in
.
, , ,

Hebre w 1372 It is mentioned ele v en times in all In eight of

"
. .

these ( Gen xiv 2 8 xix 22 2 3 30 bi s ; D eut xxxi v 3 ; Isai x v 5 ) the

, , ,

Greek Bible has Efiywp a transliteration whi ch points to a v ocali z ation

,

di fferent from the Massoreti c cf Josh xv Further the .

,

use of y for 2 is characteristic of the earlier Greek transliterations .

But besides Efiywp we find in Gen xiii 1 0 Je re m xxxi ( xl v iii ) 4 , ,

Zoyop a and in Je re m xxxi ( xlviii ) 34 Zoyop This is somethi ng

’ ’

more than a transcriber s mistake It is clear that there must ha v e ’

.

been a definite reas on for spelling the name of this town w ith Z .

No doubt the reas on was that Zoar was a known plac e spelt ‘ ’

Zodp a or d p a by Ptolemy ( v Eusebius ( GS 231 ) says ,

'

referring to Gen xiv 2 BaAa if 30 7 1 Etycé p i Kao p e vn

’
r ii v Zw op c
, , .
,
.

’
s é n v ii v o ei r a c
Kat e Z Further there was a spe cial reas on why
.
,

thi s town should be spelt with Z We know from G en xix that .

30 PROCEE D INGS OF THE BRITISH A C AD EMY

the name was s upposed t o mean Littleham o r Littleborough ‘ ’ ’

and Josephus s ays o f it Zwa a i v fiv Ae e r a t

yap oij r s
’ ’

é
'
n K a h ofim
'
o
p K
y . co
‘
EBp a Zo c T5 dM yo v
’
Now though 7 and 2 do not i ndis criminately or
.

regularly interchange yet one or two roots c ontai n i ng the s e letter s

,

do i nterchange and any amis one $ 22 is one of the words for

—
,
.

‘
little in Hebrew while i n Jewi s h Aramai c it i s T V? and in Syriac
’
,
"
0171
. When therefore Josephus says that Zw ip means 7 5 6 Myov it o ,

is Aramai c rather than Bibli cal Hebre w that he has i n mind and ,

very likely he k new of the town o f ZwOp d as the form found in

the Jerusalem Targum to Gen xi v and xix and also in the
‘
,
‘
Jerusalem ( i e Pale s tinian ) Talmud
. . .

Somewhat similarly the root U is used in Syriac ( not in Pales

P
'

tinian Aramai c ) instead of 1 2 s o that e g the a bov x ai o c appear

P , . .

regularly in the Syriac vers i ons as N fi i But this i s an exclusively

P
’
.

Syriac form and does not o cc ur e v en in the Christian Pale s tl m an

diale ct Thus the names o f Zoa1
.
— c ip a do not really form
'

an isolated exception t o the rule that Greek Z doe s not correspond

to Semitic 2 The eviden c e rather suggests that in histori cal times
.

this town was known by an Aramaic name rather than by the

o l d H e b rae o Canaanite one ( 1 22 by which it is called in the Old
-
)
Testament It is possible that the more modern Aramaic name had
.

on c e a footing in the Old Testament itself and that this stage is ,

reflected by the Greek B ible in whi ch po s sibly EnyoSp correspon ds

,

to WW while ZoyOp a represents 19 1 This peculiar case is a very

’ "
.

s lender foundation for supporting the theory that in N a § ap é 0 or

N a gap d the second c onsonant c orresponds to a s ade and not t o
a z ai n .
 I N D EX

Ab add on 7 Dal manuth a 1 5 , 1 7

Abi a 8 D ul e 2 11 .

Ab rah am 2
Acre , s e e P t ol e mais E l am i te s 22 23

Adoni z e de k 28
Ae non 1 3 G ad are ne s 1 0 n
Agab u s 2 5 26 G az a 8
Al ans , s e e El am i te s G e nne sare t 8 1 5 ,

Alph ae u s 5 , 25 , 26 G e rar 1 0 11 .

Annas 6 G e ras e ne s 1 0 n .

Arabi a 6 G e rg e se ne s , G i rgashi te s 91
.

Arabs 6 G e t hs e mane 8
Are ta s 8 G ush am G ash m u 23 11
,
.

Arz are th 28
Az ot us 8 H agare ne s 1 0 n .

H e b re w H e b e r 25 f
,
.

H e zron 28
Barabbas 6 H osanna 5
Bar-Je s us , Bars h uma 22
H uz 29
Barsabb as 6
r
B a t h ol om e w 23 I saac 2
B e e lz e b ub 4 s ee Bars h uma
B e th abara 4 9 f 1 3 24
,
.
,

Be th any 4 1 3 1 4
, , Jac ob 2
B et h e sd a 1 9 f 24 .
Jai rus Jai r 7 22
, , ,

B ethl e h em Se ri eh 1 7 n .

Je rus al e m 4 1 2 ,

B e thph age 6 1 3 24 , , Je s us , Je s u 6
B e t hsaid a 6 9 1 7 , , Job e l s ee O b e d
Be ath a se e B et h e sda
z , Jopp a 8
Be z e th 20 Jord an 1 3
B oan erge s 1 7 Josh ua 6
B oaz 8
B oze z 28 L ydd a 8

Cai ap h as 5 9 M al ch u s 23
,

Cana 1 8 f 2 2.
M attath a 8
Canaanite Cananaean 5 M atthi as s e e Th ol omae us
,
,

Cap e rnaum 1 7 27 f .
M e l c hiz e d e k 28
,

Ce ph as 5 M e s op otam i a 4
Ch oraz i n 6 l 7 f .
M e ssi ah 6
,

Ch uz a 6 Mib z ar 29
 IN D E X
N ai n 8 S apphi ra 6
Na za a 1 6r S are p ta 28
N aza re ne N az orae an 1 6
, , 18 S aro n S h aro n
,
8
N az re th 1 5 f 2 1 2 4
a .
, , Se g o r, s ee Zoa r
N az i ri te s 16 , 18 Sh i nar 1 0
S id o n 28
O bed 8
S i l as 6
S imon Si me on 6
,

S i on 4 1 6 ,
Part hi an s 2 2
Pe t e r 5 n .

Tabi t h a 5
Ph araoh 2
Ph aris e e s 5 Tars us 8
Phyl acte ri e 5 s
,
23
Th add ae us 6
Ptol e malS 8 , 1 2, 23 “1 0 10 111 3 9 1 5 23

Sadd uce e s 5 , 30 Zal munna 29

Sal i m 1 3 Zarace s 29
Sanh e d r in 23 Zoa r,
Zoara