Marcan Pidgin Greek

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Thu Dec 14 1995 - 20:20:26 EST


I want to continue the discussion of Marcan Greek that is at best
substandard (in comparison, certainly to Matthean and Lucan Greek) and at
worst barbarous.
While I don't really want to make a big issue of source criticism here, I
will comment in passing, as I cite the versions of the three synoptics,
that I cannot imagine the Marcan text ever having been written as an
improvement upon or a conceivable condensation of either the Matthean or
Lucan form of the text.

The Marcan passage is one that I puzzled over for hours when I first looked
at it in the Fall of 1952. Every time I think I understand it, it slips
away from me again, and I don't find the constructions of the passage that
I've worked out very convincing to myself. am I the only one baffled by it?
Enough of the blurb; on to the passage itself:

Mk 2:21a. OUDEIS EPIBLHMA hRAKOUS AGNAFOU EPIRAPTEI EPI hIMATION PALAION;
21b. EI DE MH, AIREI TO PLHRWMA AP' AUTOU TO KAINON TOU PALAIOU KAI XEIRON
SXISMA GINETAI.

21a is unproblematic, but although the meaning of 21b is clear enough, the
syntax is scarcely decipherable. What is the subject of AIREI? Is it TO
PLHRWMA as a synonym for EPIBLHMA? the patch, the fill-in? "The patch pulls
from it the new (from) the old ..." Or is TO PLHRWMA the object of AIREI,
and the subject must then be TO KAINON? "It pulls the patch away from
it--the new (cloth) does--from the old (cloth) ..." This is what I think is
more likely, but I am far from happy with it, and I can't help but wonder:
couldn't Mark have expressed himself just a little bit more clearly? Or: is
it conceivable that this is, in fact, a dominical saying, this proverb, and
that Mark reproduces what he found in the tradition? That's certainly
possible. Can 2:21b be translated back into Aramaic and make any more
sense? Or is it me (bzw. "I") that am being obtuse here? Seeing a problem
that really isn't there?

Mt 9:16a. OUDEIS DE EPIBALLEI EPIBLHMA hRAKOUS AGNAFOU EPI hIMATIWi
PALAIWi; 16b. AIREI GAR TO PLHRWMA AUTOU APO TOU hIMATIOU KAI XEIRON SXISMA
GINETAI.

Here there's none of this "new and old" (the Greek phrase for the first of
the month) in the second clause. But again there's the question: is TO
PLHRWMA the subject or the object of AIREI? And if it's the object, then
what is the subject? "For the patch pulls away from the garment and the rip
gets worse." Or is it "For it pulls the patch-cloth away from the garment
..." What pulls? At any rate, this is a good deal clearer than Mark's
version, from which it certainly appears to be derived. Let's look at Luke.

Lk 5:36b. OUDEIS EPIBLHMA APO hIMATIOU KAINOU SXISAS EPIBALLEI EPI hIMATION
PALAION; 36c. EI DE MH GE, KAI TO KAINON SXISEI KAI TWi PALAIWi OU
SUMFWNHSEI TO EPIBLHMA TO APO TOU KAINOU.

This is the only altogether clear version of the saying. "Shreds" of KAINON
and PALAION from the patchwork of Mark survive sufficiently, it appears, to
indicate that this is indeed a reformulation of the Marcan text. I'd
translate it, "Nobody tears a patch from a new garment and puts it onto an
old garment, or else the new one will also rip and the patch off of the new
one will not fit the old one."

One final question. the 24th edition of NA was the first GNT I ever owned.
In it the last six words of the Lucan verse were bracketed but left in the
text. NA27 indicates, if I read the apparatus correctly (I'm not very
competent and not a bit confident), it appears that the word-order of the
last words is different in Vaticanus and a couple old MSS, but I don't know
that this really makes much difference (if it does, someone please explain
it to me! Please!)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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