A forum for people with knowledge of the Bible in its original languages to discuss its manuscripts and textual history from the perspective of historic evangelical theology.
It is rather peculiar that the Harclean Syriac is quoted as supporting the spelling Μαριαμ in NA27 to Luke 2:19. The Harclean uses the Syriac form Mariam regardless of the Greek spelling. To do otherwise might lead to blasphemy in Syriac.
The phrase 'avoiding blasphemy' was only for the purpose of a catchy title. I think that there are obvious reasons why a language using a consonantal script and which has assigned the consonants mry' to a divine title should not wish to use these consonants again for a human female proper name.
Of course. There is a natural tendency to try not to let a divine name appear for other purposes. Thus you can't have the sequence of letters GOD on a British car number plate, you can use yodh he as a Hebrew number 15 and you can't use mry' in Syriac as a proper name of an ordinary person.
I find it even stranger that I can't find mariam in Luke 2:12. -Jq
ReplyDeleteBrikh Mario
Good point. With the typo 2:12 for 2:19 my comment makes no sense.
ReplyDeleteI figured it was a typo... but I couldn't figure out what passage it was supposed to be. I should have read a little farther down. :-)
ReplyDeleteIs there any other evidence for a tendency to avoid blasphemy in this way? -Jq
The phrase 'avoiding blasphemy' was only for the purpose of a catchy title. I think that there are obvious reasons why a language using a consonantal script and which has assigned the consonants mry' to a divine title should not wish to use these consonants again for a human female proper name.
ReplyDeleteOf course. There is a natural tendency to try not to let a divine name appear for other purposes. Thus you can't have the sequence of letters GOD on a British car number plate, you can use yodh he as a Hebrew number 15 and you can't use mry' in Syriac as a proper name of an ordinary person.
ReplyDelete