Re: KOINE IN JERUSALEM

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Sun Nov 21 1999 - 14:34:07 EST


At 3:14 AM +0000 11/21/99, Eamonnn White wrote:
>Hi everybody,
>"Jesus: The Evidence" by Ian Wilson P.113
>This contains a reproduction of a notice warning Gentiles on pain of death
>to keep out of the Temple's inner precincts.Josephus says that these were
>common and contained Greek and some Roman characters.
>It is written solely in Uncials with neither gaps between words nor
>accents, and appears as five separate lines:
>MHQENAAMOGENHEICPOREUECQAI
>ENTOCTOYPERITOIERONTRU
>FAKTOUKAIPERIBOLOUOCDAN
>LHFQHAUTWIAITIOCECTAI
>DIATOEXAKOLOUQEIN
>QANATON
>
>I think that C is our S.
>
>If this is OK for the List then my question is :
>Can anyone decipher and translate it?

An interesting item; I cannot figure out what I take to be a single word
here given as TRUFAKTOU, and I think that the M in the word given as
AMOGENH should be read as a double-lambda, i.e. ALLOGENH. I'm also less
than satisfied with the syntax of the main clause in the final part insofar
as it depends upon AUTWI, which I assume is actually a reflexive pronoun
hAUTWi. That yields the following

MHQENA ALLOGENH EISPOREUESQAI ENTOS TOU PERI TO hIERON TRUFAKTOU KAI
PERIBOLOU; hOS D' AN LHFQHi, hAUTWi AITIOS ESTAI DIA TO EXAKOLOUQEIN
QANATON.

Which should mean: "No alien (=Gentile) is to enter within the enclosure
(TRUFAKTOU?) and surrounding wall around the Temple; and if anyone gets
caught (doing so), he will be responsible to himself because death is the
consequence."

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/

---
B-Greek home page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek
You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu]
To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-329W@franklin.oit.unc.edu
To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu


This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:40:45 EDT