Mark 5.41

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thomas.hagen
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Location: Livorno, Italy

Mark 5.41

Post by thomas.hagen »

I have a question concerning Mark 5.41:

καὶ κρατήσας τῆς χειρὸς τοῦ παιδίου λέγει αὐτῇ Ταλειθά κούμ, ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον Τὸ κοράσιον, σοὶ λέγω, ἔγειρε.

And taking the child by the hand, he says to her, Talitha cumi; which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say to you, Arise.

My question concerns the words “σοὶ λέγω” in Mark’s translation of Jesus’ words in Aramaic. As these words are not part of the actual Aramaic quotation, the question arises as to whether also these words were spoken by Jesus or added by Mark. Some people suggest that this is Mark’s version of John 11.25 where Jesus exclaims: “I am the resurrection and the life;” that is, as if the sense were something like:”Hey kid, I’m the one who’s bringing you back to life; it’s me, Jesus, who’s raising you up.” However, if that were the case, I would have expected something much stronger, along the lines of the way Jesus expresses himself in Matthew 5: “Ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν…”

So my question is this: Can those two words be construed in such a way as to put a very strong emphasis on the subject of the verb “λέγω”? And if not, my second question is whether it is actually “σοὶ” which is in an emphatic position before the verb. In this case the idea would be something like: “Girl, you’re the one I’m telling to arise,” with whatever theological consequences we might want to pull out of that hat.

Or are these words such that no special emphasis can be ascribed?



Thank you for any clarification you can give me on this.

Thomas Hagen
Stephen Carlson
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Re: Mark 5.41

Post by Stephen Carlson »

The way it's punctuated suggests that the emphasis is on σοί. I would need a study how parentheticals are prosodically integrated (or not) to say more.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Stephen Hughes
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Re: Mark 5.41

Post by Stephen Hughes »

thomas.hagen wrote:I have a question concerning Mark 5.41:

... Ταλειθά κούμ, ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον Τὸ κοράσιον, σοὶ λέγω, ἔγειρε.

..., Talitha cumi; which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say to you, Arise.

My question concerns the words “σοὶ λέγω” in Mark’s translation of Jesus’ words in Aramaic. As these words are not part of the actual Aramaic quotation, the question arises as to whether also these words were spoken by Jesus or added by Mark.

So my question is this: Can those two words be construed in such a way as to put a very strong emphasis on the subject of the verb “λέγω”?
[...]
And if not, my second question is whether it is actually “σοὶ” which is in an emphatic position before the verb. In this case the idea would be something like: “Girl, you’re the one I’m telling to arise,”
In the Byzantine text form ἔγειρε is spelt ἔγειραι - same pronunciation, but different part of speech. In that case the question becomes, Why σοὶ not σε? and the answer is that he is describing the speech act that is happening, rather than describing what the speech act is being spoken to achieve. (The 'usual' pattern is verb of speaking + accusative and infinitive). Since it is describing the speech act, rather than the effect that the words were expected to have, then if you really had to reduce it to terms of emphasis, then you could say that the fact that it was directed at the person, rather than at what the person should do, but with regard to your question, simply by adding the phrase σοὶ λέγω, the one giving the paraphrase of κοῦμ(ι) is 'emphasising' that the speaking leads to the resurrection. Your saying, "not part of the ... translation", is not so simple. I mean, without metalanguage, how else could a single word imperative be described? This translation makes the point that it is speaking, that it is directed and that an action results from the speaking.

In regard to your second question, even if it was emphatic, that may be part of the (literal) paraphrasing of the grammatical part of the verb κοῦμ(ι) rather than having some other meaning about it.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Shirley Rollinson
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Re: Mark 5.41

Post by Shirley Rollinson »

thomas.hagen wrote:I have a question concerning Mark 5.41:

καὶ κρατήσας τῆς χειρὸς τοῦ παιδίου λέγει αὐτῇ Ταλειθά κούμ, ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον Τὸ κοράσιον, σοὶ λέγω, ἔγειρε.

And taking the child by the hand, he says to her, Talitha cumi; which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say to you, Arise.

My question concerns the words “σοὶ λέγω” in Mark’s translation of Jesus’ words in Aramaic. As these words are not part of the actual Aramaic quotation, the question arises as to whether also these words were spoken by Jesus or added by Mark.
- - - snip snip - - -
Thomas Hagen
From the context, it seems that Jesus spoke just the two Aramaic words, and Mark gave a translation in which he added the "I say to you"
Shirley Rollinson
thomas.hagen
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Re: Mark 5.41

Post by thomas.hagen »

Stephen Hughes wrote:
thomas.hagen wrote:I have a question concerning Mark 5.41:

... Ταλειθά κούμ, ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον Τὸ κοράσιον, σοὶ λέγω, ἔγειρε.

..., Talitha cumi; which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say to you, Arise.

My question concerns the words “σοὶ λέγω” in Mark’s translation of Jesus’ words in Aramaic. As these words are not part of the actual Aramaic quotation, the question arises as to whether also these words were spoken by Jesus or added by Mark.

So my question is this: Can those two words be construed in such a way as to put a very strong emphasis on the subject of the verb “λέγω”?
[...]
And if not, my second question is whether it is actually “σοὶ” which is in an emphatic position before the verb. In this case the idea would be something like: “Girl, you’re the one I’m telling to arise,”
In the Byzantine text form ἔγειρε is spelt ἔγειραι - same pronunciation, but different part of speech. In that case the question becomes, Why σοὶ not σε? and the answer is that he is describing the speech act that is happening, rather than describing what the speech act is being spoken to achieve. (The 'usual' pattern is verb of speaking + accusative and infinitive). Since it is describing the speech act, rather than the effect that the words were expected to have, then if you really had to reduce it to terms of emphasis, then you could say that the fact that it was directed at the person, rather than at what the person should do, but with regard to your question, simply by adding the phrase σοὶ λέγω, the one giving the paraphrase of κοῦμ(ι) is 'emphasising' that the speaking leads to the resurrection. Your saying, "not part of the ... translation", is not so simple. I mean, without metalanguage, how else could a single word imperative be described? This translation makes the point that it is speaking, that it is directed and that an action results from the speaking.
Dear Stephen Hughes -
I think I understand what you are getting at in your concluding remark ("This translation makes the point that it is speaking, that it is directed and that an action results from the speaking.") and I find that very helpful. But I would like to ask for a clarification, if I may. When you mention the "paraphrase of κοῦμ(ι)", are you referring to the Byzantine text? I can see how "to you I say to wake up/get up" is a paraphrase or description of what an imperative is. (The translation of "Talitha cumi" would be, technically, "Girl, wake up/get up.") I must apologize for not being much into linguistics, so I'm not able to understand your comment about metalanguage. You ask "how else could a single word imperative be described?" Why can't a single word imperative be translated with another single word imperative - "κοῦμ(ι)" = wake up/get up" - as Luke seems to have done in 8.54: "...ἐφώνησεν λέγων Ἡ παῖς, ἔγειρε."? (Or is "λέγων " perhaps Luke's equivalent of "σοὶ λέγω"?)

Thanks again -
Thomas Hagen
thomas.hagen
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Location: Livorno, Italy

Re: Mark 5.41

Post by thomas.hagen »

Shirley Rollinson wrote:
thomas.hagen wrote:I have a question concerning Mark 5.41:

καὶ κρατήσας τῆς χειρὸς τοῦ παιδίου λέγει αὐτῇ Ταλειθά κούμ, ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον Τὸ κοράσιον, σοὶ λέγω, ἔγειρε.

And taking the child by the hand, he says to her, Talitha cumi; which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say to you, Arise.

My question concerns the words “σοὶ λέγω” in Mark’s translation of Jesus’ words in Aramaic. As these words are not part of the actual Aramaic quotation, the question arises as to whether also these words were spoken by Jesus or added by Mark.
- - - snip snip - - -
Thomas Hagen
From the context, it seems that Jesus spoke just the two Aramaic words, and Mark gave a translation in which he added the "I say to you"
Shirley Rollinson
Shirley -
Thank you for your comment which confirms the impression I had. But the main question remains - why?

Thomas Hagen
Stephen Hughes
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Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: Mark 5.41

Post by Stephen Hughes »

@Thomas Hagen
"Paraphrase or description" in the sense that if I tell my friend that I was writing to you (Thomas Hagen), and they piped up with, "你好汤姆 (nihao tangmu - "Hello Tom")", then I could convey that to you with either, "So and so greets you" or "So and so say hello to you". It is either just description, or description including what was said. It seems like this ταλιθά κούμ is a mixture of translation and description. We usually think of a translation as just the bare minimum, but σοι λέγω is a description of what is happening as well as the words spoken.

The point of introducing the textual variant is that for reported speech, the imperative was changed to the infinitive in the Byzantine text. It is combination of translation from Aramaic and description as would happen in reported speech. In the text you have presented, translation of the verb form as conjugated and description is combined. As a further comparison, pure description (which is not what is happening in the text here) might be, "he (3rd person pronoun) told her (3rd person pronoun) to get up".
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
thomas.hagen
Posts: 24
Joined: August 14th, 2012, 4:22 pm
Location: Livorno, Italy

Re: Mark 5.41

Post by thomas.hagen »

@Stephen Hughes

Thank you very much. That makes it much clearer.
Thomas Hagen
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