Introduction to A Hebrew Translation of the Gospel of Mark

How to cite this article: Robert L. Lindsey, “Introduction to A Hebrew Translation of the Gospel of Mark,” Jerusalem Perspective (2014) [https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/16547/].

My Hebrew translation of the Gospel of Mark^[56] grew out of an eight-year personal encounter with this Gospel. Not long after Israel’s independence, I came to the conclusion that a new Hebrew translation of the New Testament was badly needed, especially by the Hebrew-speaking Christian congregations of the State of Israel. I chose to begin with the Gospel of Mark, under the impression that it was the earliest of the canonical Gospels and because it contained the kind of simple Greek text that would make translation relatively easy. According to the widely-held theory of Markan Priority, which I had no reason at that time to doubt, Matthew and Luke used this Gospel as one of their principal sources. According to this theory, Matthew and Luke wrote independently of each other and used not only the Gospel of Mark, but also a second common source usually called “Q.” It is also generally held that the author of Mark derived much of his information from Aramaic oral sources.

To my surprise, however, examination of the Greek text of Mark revealed that its Greek word order and idiom were more like Hebrew than Greek. This gave me the frightening feeling that my translation was “restoring” an original Hebrew text rather than creating a new one. This experience caused me to wonder whether Mark might be a literal translation of a Hebrew original.

At about this time I was introduced by M. K. Moulton of the British and Foreign Bible Society to Professor George D. Kilpatrick of Queens College, Oxford. Professor Kilpatrick, whose research on the Gospel of Matthew is well known,^[57] was kind enough to invite me to Oxford for a few days as his guest and spent many hours listening with a critical but patient ear to my theories and questions. Professor Kilpatrick introduced me to a series of valuable linguistic studies on the Gospel of Mark written by his predecessor at Queens College, C. H. Turner, and printed in volumes xxv-xxviii of the Journal of Theological Studies.^[58] From Turner’s articles I learned that Mark’s Gospel includes a number of parenthetical notes that are best explained by supposing that Mark used written Greek stories but decided to annotate them in an attempt to make them clearer to his readers. In the months that followed I had occasion to investigate the style of these “parenthetic sections,” as Turner called them. I discovered that in at least one of these annotations, Mark 7:3-4, the word order was far less Hebraic than the usual Markan word order.

• ^[1] A case in point is the hypothesis of B. H. Streeter, whose book The Four Gospels: A Study of Origins (London: Macmillan, 1924) is the classic statement of the Markan Priority hypothesis. Streeter, whose teacher William Sanday tried to explain the minor agreements as due to the existence of a recension of Mark possessed by Matthew and Luke that was not quite like our own, broke with his master and insisted that Matthew and Luke knew no other Mark than ours. Explaining many of the minor agreements as due to the harmonization of copyists or to independent correction by Matthew and Luke, Streeter was obliged to avoid discussion of the majority of the minor agreements and to contradict many of the accepted rules of textual criticism. Despite this, he wound up using a number of the minor agreements as evidence for a proto-narrative which, he claimed, was known only to Luke, and which he called "Proto-Luke." On the one hand, Streeter insisted that the Matthean-Lukan agreements were of minor importance, while on the other hand he argued that a few of them hint at a source known only to Luke. Thus Streeter eliminated Ur-Markus from his Synoptic theory only to introduce a different Ur-Gospel. ↩
• ^[2] Matthew and Luke agree in the use of "and behold" (or simply "behold") four other times against Mark: Matt. 8:2 = Mark 1:40 = Luke 5:12; Matt. 9:18 = Mark 5:22 = Luke 8:41; Matt. 17:3 = Mark 9:4 = Luke 9:30; Matt. 26:47 = Mark 14:43 = Luke 22:47. ↩
• ^[3] The expression καὶ ἰδού (kai idou, "and behold") is certainly a Hebraism, וְהִנֵּה (vehinēh, "and behold") being common in Biblical Hebrew, e.g., in Gen. 1:31; 6:12; 8:13; 15:4; 22:13; 24:30, 63; 26:8; 27:36; 28:12, 13, 15; 29:2, 6, 25; 31:2, 10, 51; 32:19; 33:1; 37:7, 9, 15, 25, 29; 40:6, 16; 41:1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 18, 19, 22, 23; 42:13; 43:21; 45:12; 47:1. ↩
• ^[4] "And behold" is the narrative usage of the idiom and is not to be confused with the asyndetic "behold" of Hebrew speech. ↩
• ^[5] See, for instance, my "A New Two-source Solution to the Synoptic Problem." ↩
• ^[6] There is one semi-exception to this claim: Within the pericopae of Jesus in the Temple and The Cleansing of the Temple (Huck 198, 200), Matthew and Luke agree against Mark by stating that Jesus cleansed the Temple immediately after his triumphal entry. ↩
• ^[7] Burnett Hillman Streeter, The Four Gospels: A Study of Origins (London: Macmillan, 1924), 161. ↩
• ^[8] Huck 111 (Mark 6:17-29; Matt. 14:3-12), 113 (Mark 6:45-52; Matt. 14:22-33), 114 (Mark 6:53-56; Matt. 14:34-36), 115 (Mark 7:1-23; Matt. 15:1-20), 116 (Mark 7:24-30; Matt. 15:21-28), 117 (Mark 7:31-37; Matt. 15:29-31), 118 (Mark 8:1-10; Matt. 15:32-39), 119 (Mark 8:11-13; Matt. 16:1-4), 120 (Mark 8:14-21; Matt. 16:5-12), 125 (Mark 9:9-13; Matt. 17:9-13), 187 (Mark 10:1-12; Matt. 19:1-12), 199 (Mark 11:12-14; Matt. 21:18-19), 201 (Mark 11:20-25; Matt. 21:20-22), 217 (Mark 13:21-23; Matt. 24:23-25) and 247 (Mark 15:16-20; Matt. 27:27-31). ↩
• ^[9] Huck 15 (Mark 1:35-38; Luke 4:42-43), 130 (Mark 9:38-41; Luke 9:49-50) and 212 (Mark 12:41-44; Luke 21:1-4). ↩
• ^[10] Nevertheless, Matthew used the introduction of this story (Mark 1:22) as his conclusion for the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 7:28-29). ↩
• ^[11] If we reckon by Lukan order (indicating parallel Matthean numbers by parentheses), we get the following pericopae: Huck 2, 73 (19), 75 (26, 27, 39), 76 (36, 115, 59), 77 (41), 78 (43), 79 (46), 81 (64), 82 (65), 138 (49), 141 (67), 142 (92), 146 (30), 148 (38), 150 (88), 152 (87), 153 (20, 33), 154 (210), 155 (60, 86, 59), 157 (35, 32), 158 (225, 226), 160 (61, 119), 161 (22), 165 (40, 227, 42, 46, 189), 167 (211), 170 (205), 171 (62), 172 (133), 176 (65, 21), 179 (134, 135), 180 (126), 184 (218, 224, 62) and 195 (228), or a total of 33. ↩
• ^[12] References from the synopsis of Kurt Aland are also given (Synopsis of the Four Gospels: Greek-English Edition of the Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum with the Text of the Revised Standard Version [London: United Bible Societies, 1972]). ↩
• ^[13] By including Huck's 4 unnumbered pericopae at the beginning of Matthew (Matt. 1:1-17, 18-25; 2:1-12, 13-23) and his last 2 such units at the end of Matthew (Matt. 28:11-15, 16-20), we reckon the Matthean "unique" pericopae at 29. The numbered units are 21, 23, 25, 28, 29, 31, 37, 59, 63, 68, 96, 100, 101, 102, 103, 128, 136, 190, 203, 227, 229, 243 and 252. Similarly, if we include the first 8 (Luke 1:1-4, 5-25, 26-38, 39-56, 57-80; 2:1-20, 21-40, 41-52) and last 3 (Luke 24:13-35, 36-49, 50-53) unnumbered units of Luke, we get a total of 46 units. The numbered Lukan pericopae are 3, 5, 17, 74, 80, 83, 84, 137, 140, 144, 145, 147, 151, 156, 159, 162, 163, 166, 168, 169, 173, 174, 175, 177, 181, 182, 183, 185, 186, 194, 197, 223, 230, 237d and 245. ↩
• ^[14] For more on the Markan Cross-Factor, see my "An Introduction to Synoptic Studies." ↩
• ^[15] Basil C. Butler, The Originality of St. Matthew: A Critique of the Two-Document Hypothesis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951). ↩
• ^[16] Greisbach's treatise, Commentatio qua Marci Evangelium totum e Matthaei et Lucae commentariis decerptum esse monstratur, has been reprinted in J. J. Griesbach: Synoptic and Text-Critical Studies 1776-1976 (ed. Bernard Orchard and Thomas R. W. Longstaff; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 68-102. It is accompanied by an English translation by Bernard Orchard entitled, "A Demonstration that Mark was Written After Matthew and Luke," 103-135. ↩
• ^[17] William R. Farmer, The Synoptic Problem: A Critical Analysis (New York: Macmillan, 1964). ↩
• ^[18] Streeter, Four Gospels, 152, 167, 201ff. ↩
• ^[19] For details of the moment when I first understood that Luke had been written before Mark, see my "A New Two-source Solution to the Synoptic Problem." ↩
• ^[20] Compare, for example, the much shorter versions of Matthew and Luke against the verbose versions of Mark for the following pericopae: Jairus' Daughter and a Woman's Faith (Matt. 9:18-26; Luke 8:40-56; Mark 5:21-43); The Return of the Twelve, and the Feeding of the Five Thousand (Matt. 14:13-21; Luke 9:10-17; Mark 6:30-44); An Epileptic Boy Healed (Matt. 17:14-21; Luke 9:37-43a; Mark 9:14-29); and The Great Commandment (Matt. 22:34-40; Luke 10:25-28; Mark 12:28-34). ↩
• ^[21] See Herbert Marsh, "Dissertation on the Origin of our Three First Canonical Gospels," in John David Michaelis, Introduction to the New Testament (trans. Herbert Marsh; London: Rivington, 1802), 3.2:314-320. ↩
• ^[22] Marsh, "Dissertation," 316. ↩
• ^[23] Marsh, "Dissertation," 319. ↩
• ^[24] Marsh, "Dissertation," 317. ↩
• ^[25] Alan Hugh McNeile, An Introduction to the Study of the New Testament (2d ed.; revised by C. S. C. Williams; London: Oxford University Press, 1953), 64. The article referred to by McNeile is: William Lockton, "The Origin of the Gospels,” The Church Quarterly Review 94 (July 1922): 216-239 [Click here to read a reissue of Lockton's article on JP]. ↩
• ^[26] Streeter, Four Gospels, xi-xii, 187. ↩
• ^[27] Streeter, Four Gospels, 153-154, 187, 189, 211, 305. ↩
• ^[28] The phrase eis oikon is found without the definite article only here in Luke 14:1 and in Mark 3:20. ↩
• ^[29] Although ἐξίστασθαι appears 17xx in NT, it occurs only 2xx in the sense "be out of one's mind." The other 15 instances of ἐξίστασθαι in NT have the sense "to be astonished," or "amazed at." ↩
• ^[30] Rudolf Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition (trans. John Marsh; Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1963), 52-53. ↩
• ^[31] Luke 5:21, 30; 6:7; 11:53; 15:2. ↩
• ^[32] A Hebraism meaning "by the agency of"; cf. Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, 13. ↩
• ^[33] Where Luke has πνεῦμα δαιμονίου ἀκαθάρτου (pneuma daimoniou akathartou, "[a man having] a spirit of an unclean demon"), Mark's parallel reads ἐν πνεύματι ἀκαθάρτῳ (en pneumati akathartō, "[a man] with an unclean spirit"; Mark 1:23). ↩
• ^[34] The Greek reads, καὶ πᾶς ὃς ἐρεῖ λόγον εἰς τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, ἀφεθήσεται αὐτῷ τῷ δὲ εἰς τὸ ἅγιον πνεῦμα βλασφημήσαντι οὐκ ἀφεθήσεται, which can be reconstructed in Hebrew as: וכל שיאמר דבר בבר אנש ייסלח לו, והמגדף את רוח הקודש לא ייסלח לו (v^ekol sheyo’mar dāvār b^ebar ’^enash yisalaḥ lō, v^eham^egadef ’et rūaḥ haqōdesh lo’ yisalaḥ lō). Charles F. Burney, in his The Poetry of Our Lord: An Examination of the Formal Elements of Hebrew Poetry in the Discourses of Jesus Christ (Oxford: Clarendon, 1925), discussed the intensely Hebraic form of Jesus' sayings and noted Mark's tendency to produce less Hebraic forms of sayings than Matthew or Luke, but he does not discuss this fine example. Suffice it to say that the form and idiom of Luke 12:10 show the usual Lukan faithfulness to the translation Greek of his sources. ↩
• ^[35] This seems to be the meaning of this saying in the context of Luke 12:8-10. ↩
• ^[36] At Mark 2:27 in parallel to Luke 6:5, and at Mark 4:30 in parallel to Luke 13:18. For details on Mark's use of elegon/elegen, see my "A New Two-source Solution to the Synoptic Problem." ↩
• ^[37] The Resurrection and the Virgin Birth (1924), The Three Traditions in the Gospels (1926) and Certain Alleged Gospel Sources (1927), all published by Longmans, Green and Company, London. ↩
• ^[38] Edwin A. Abbott, The Corrections of Mark Adopted by Matthew and Luke (Diatessarica, Part 2; London: Adam and Charles Black, 1901), 307-324. ↩
• ^[39] For a more extensive discussion of these parallel passages, see Robert L. Lindsey, "From Luke to Mark to Matthew: A Discussion of the Sources of Markan 'Pick-ups' and the Use of a Basic Non-canonical Source by All the Synoptists." Cf. also David Flusser, "The Times of the Gentiles and the Redemption of Jerusalem." ↩
• ^[40] Albert Huck, Synopsis of the First Three Gospels (9th ed.), 177. ↩
• ^[41] Evidently, Mark used other early Christian sources besides Luke in the construction of his version of Jesus' prophecy: Mark 13:32 shows the influence of Acts 1:6-7, and Mark 13:35-37 the influence of 1 Thessalonians 5:6-7. ↩
• ^[42] The late Professor David Flusser of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem espoused Lindsey’s synoptic hypothesis. Flusser’s research on the Synoptic Gospels was based on Lukan priority, and he taught his students “Lindseyan” theory. For Flusser's appraisal of Lindsey's synoptic theory, see David Flusser, "How to Know Jesus? Follow Lindsey!" For a few of Flusser’s remarks on the importance of Lindsey's contribution to synoptic studies, see David N. Bivin, "Perspective on Robert L. Lindsey." - Ed. ↩
• ^[43] We may remark, incidentally, that the two versions of this important phrase found in Luke are one of many indications of Luke's use of at least two Greek sources, but obviously neither of these sources is Mark! ↩
• ^[44] In the Pauline Epistles, these verbal contacts are limited to the Epistles of 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Corinthians and the Epistle to the Romans. ↩
• ^[45] Mark 2:4, 9, 11, 12; 6:55; Acts 5:15; 9:33. Found nowhere else in the New Testament except John 5:8, 9, 10, 11. ↩
• ^[46] Another Aramaic sentence in Mark, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me" (Mark 15:34) appears to be a direct quotation from a targum of Psalm 22, and is Mark's replacement for Jesus' quotation of Psalm 31, "Into your hands I commend my spirit," recorded in Luke 23:46. ↩
• ^[47] Martin Werner, Der Einfluss paulinischer Theologie im Markusevangelium: eine Studie zur neutestamentlichen Theologie (Giessen: A. Töpelmann, 1923). ↩
• ^[48] In the Pauline Epistles known to Mark, the term euangelion appears 9 times in Romans; 6 times in 1 Corinthans; 8 times in 2 Corinthians; 6 times in 1 Thessalonians; and twice in 2 Thessalonians. ↩
• ^[49] Gustaf Dalman, The Words of Jesus Considered in the Light of Post-Biblical Jewish Writings and the Aramaic Language: I. Introduction and Fundamental Ideas (authorized English version by D. M. Kay of Die Worte Jesu; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1902), 104. ↩
• ^[50] For a fuller discussion of Mark's use of the expression to euangelion, see Robert Lindsey, "A New Approach to the Synoptic Gospels" under the subheading "Personal Encounter with the Problem." ↩
• ^[51] Henry Barclay Swete, The Gospel According to St. Mark: The Greek Text with Introduction, Notes, and Indices (2d ed.; London: Macmillan, 1902), 8. ↩
• ^[52] Luke's version of Jesus' baptism does contain a non-Hebraic syntactical feature, "ἐγένετο (egeneto) + infinitive as the main verb." For a list of occurences of the non-Hebraic (and non-Septuagintal), but idiomatic Greek "egeneto + infinitive as the main verb" structure, see Randall Buth and Brian Kvasnica, "Temple Authorities and Tithe-Evasion: The Linguistic Background and Impact of the Parable of the Vineyard, the Tenants and the Son," in Jesus’ Last Week: Jerusalem Studies in the Synoptic Gospels 1 (JCP 11; ed. R. Steven Notley, Marc Turnage and Brian Becker; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2006), 270, n. 27 (Critical Note 5). ↩
• ^[53] Rather, as in Jewish baptism, as the officiator, John stood on the bank of the river as a witness to Jesus' act. ↩
• ^[54] Huck (9th ed.) and Tischendorph omit ἐγένετο. Westcott & Hort and Nestle bracket ἐγένετο. Souter and others retain it. With Taylor we omit ἐγένετο since a scribal addition of ἐγένετο seems probable. ↩
• ^[55] The quotation comes from a passage in George Santayana's The Last Puritan: A Memoir in the Form of a Novel (pt. 4, ch.6 [end]). In a letter to Ira Cardiff, Santayana said in reference to changing the truth a little, "That is cynicism without bias, and psychologically exact" (The Letters of George Santayana, Book Eight, 1948-1952 [ed. William G. Holzberger; Cambridge, Ma.: MIT Press, 2008], 51). ↩
• ^[56] Robert L. Lindsey, A Hebrew Translation of the Gospel of Mark (2d ed.; Jerusalem: Dugith, 1973). ↩
• ^[57] Notable among G. D. Kilpatrick’s works are, The Origins of the Gospel according to St Matthew (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1946); and The Trial of Jesus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1953). ↩
• ^[58] C. H. Turner, “Marcan Usage: Notes, Critical and Exegetical, on the Second Gospel,” JTS 25 (100) (1924): 377-386; idem, “Marcan Usage: Notes, Critical and Exegetical, on the Second Gospel,” JTS 25 (101) (1924): 12-20; idem, “Marcan Usage: Notes, Critical and Exegetical, on the Second Gospel,” JTS 26 (102) (1925): 145-156; idem, “Marcan Usage: Notes, Critical and Exegetical, on the Second Gospel,” JTS 26 (103) (1925): 225-240; idem, “Marcan Usage: Notes, Critical and Exegetical, on the Second Gospel,” JTS 26 (104) (1925): 337-346; idem, “Marcan Usage: Notes, Critical and Exegetical, on the Second Gospel,” JTS 26 (105) (1925): 58-62; idem, “Marcan Usage: Notes, Critical and Exegetical, on the Second Gospel,” JTS 28 (1926): 9-30; idem, “A Textual Commentary on Mark I,” JTS 28 (1927): 145-158; idem, “Marcan Usage: Notes, Critical and Exegetical, on the Second Gospel,” JTS 28 (1927): 349-362; idem, “Western Readings in the Second Half of St Mark’s Gospel,” JTS 29 (113) (1927): 1-16; idem, “Did Codex Vercellenis Contain the Last Twelve Verses of St Mark?” JTS 29 (113) (1927): 16-18; idem, “Marcan Usage: Notes, Critical and Exegetical, on the Second Gospel,” JTS 29 (115) (1928): 275-289; idem, “Marcan Usage: Notes, Critical and Exegetical, on the Second Gospel,” JTS 29 (116) (1928): 346-361. ↩