I'm all ears
mark_in_manchester
Shipmate
in Kerygmania
Hi folks
In today's gospel (in an RC lectionary, which is what my daily readings are following and which I think sometimes differs from the RCL), we have the Parable of the Sower. The last part 'let anyone with ears, listen!" has always struck me as a half-pun, given we are talking about grain, corn, you know...
But today it struck me that I might be doing that trick I hate to hear from the pulpit, making shitty etymological points in English which have nothing at all to do with the language in which the text was thought and written. Of course, the Spirit could, in His wisdom, have intended 21stC me to smile at a half-pun which only works in a language which didn't exist when Jesus spoke, and which might require a confusion of two arable crops which happen to have a similar name in English if you're a city dweller and a bit woolly on these things (ears...the web says corn-on-the-cob, or ears of wheat which I think are a thing?). Or maybe not. Was Jesus being funny, ancient language experts (err, @Lamb Chopped )?
In today's gospel (in an RC lectionary, which is what my daily readings are following and which I think sometimes differs from the RCL), we have the Parable of the Sower. The last part 'let anyone with ears, listen!" has always struck me as a half-pun, given we are talking about grain, corn, you know...
But today it struck me that I might be doing that trick I hate to hear from the pulpit, making shitty etymological points in English which have nothing at all to do with the language in which the text was thought and written. Of course, the Spirit could, in His wisdom, have intended 21stC me to smile at a half-pun which only works in a language which didn't exist when Jesus spoke, and which might require a confusion of two arable crops which happen to have a similar name in English if you're a city dweller and a bit woolly on these things (ears...the web says corn-on-the-cob, or ears of wheat which I think are a thing?). Or maybe not. Was Jesus being funny, ancient language experts (err, @Lamb Chopped )?
Comments
In Matthew 11 the phrase is used after discussing John the Baptist.
In Mark 4 it is used in connection with a lamp under a basket.
In Luke 14 it is used in reference to salt.
So, although Matthew, Mark & Luke all give us the parable of the sower and all used the "ears" comment in connection with that, it seems to just be one of Jesus' go-to phrases for emphasis, with no pun intended.
Though I think you are right, and God foreknew the silly puns that would be created in certain languages, and (sometimes?) approved them. I myself was taken aback when I came across Matthew 7:6 in the Greek, which recommended not throwing your margaritas to pigs. I fully agree!
We could let this die quietly - or I could be a pain and ask (anyone) - are there any puns in the bible which you know of, which are intentional - while we're about it?
It's not in the Bible, but in Aristophanes' play Peace Trygeas instructs his slave to throw the remainder of the some barley corn (κριθή) to the audience.
This is somewhat opaque in English translation, but makes sense when you know that κριθή can mean either "barley corn" or "penis". Now Aristophanes was a comic playwright so obviously he's going for the lulz here and working in a very different literary format than any of the authors of the Bible, but this passage is important for two other reasons.
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I was told many, many years ago by someone who knew something about the subject, that there exist at least one carving on a medieval misericord in a church somewhere in East Anglia of people casting flowers before pigs which had been carved by someone who assumed from the Latin Vulgate that what were being referred to were marguerites rather than pearls.
μαργαρίτας
I ran that through the DeepL translator and it comes out as "daisy" or "daisies". If you then ask for other alternative readings, DeepL offers: margaritas, marguerites and pearls.
Maize was, I think, originally known as Indian corn, and quite often ‘corn’ now tends to mean maize, rather than wheat, barley, or oats. But in the UK at least no one would naturally expect a cornfield to be growing maize.
Whereas here, and I am pretty sure also in the US, we apply the name corn to what you would call maize. Enough to make you dizzy.
Maize produces big cobs that stick out of the side. It was unknown here until about 50 years ago and still doesn't really ripen properly. As such, it's normally only used for animal fodder or silage. It, along with the tomato, was completely unknown in 1st century Judea and was going to remain so for another 1500 years. Any reference to 'corn' in scripture, in whatever language, does not mean maize.
@Hedgehog was the translator you ran μαργαρίτας through picking up ancient or modern Greek? The only meanings in ancient Greek I can find are 'pearl' and a type of palm tree, with 'pearl' the normal meaning. Both 'daisy' and the name Margaret appear to derive from 'pearl'. Some sources even seem to imply that as a name 'Daisy' derives more from Margaret than the flower.
The image in my mind is of some drunk pigs surrounded by a bunch of tiny little paper umbrellas.....
Moses (drawn out) would be an interesting example as the 'pun' is iirc the notes Hebrew based but attributed to an Egyptian (and is an established Egyptian name part).
When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.”
The structure repeated elsewhere as I understand it is too definite to be accidental. There's a word connection implied between Moses and drawn out.
If Miriam and Pharaoh's daughter worked out a name that was significant in both languages then I think that counts as a proper billingual pun.
If the writer found the coincidence in the story, and pointed it out, then again that would be an attempted pun/wordplay in the modern sense.
If Miriam just thought of the first thing then it's interesting it works as an Egyptian name. I don't see that working. Or pharoahs daughter thinking in Hebrew.
And back deriving the entire story, I don't think would be a pun but is pretty creative.
I was told that if you write Jonah in cuneiform (which why would you) "vomit" and "Ninevah" only differ by one stroke -- a visual pun.
I suppose it's possible that that part of Jonah was written by someone with knowledge of cuneiform, possibly exilic. or the vomit/Nineveh was established (I'm sure the whales/Wales resemblance is known abroad, and that isn't even insulting)
Actually where was Jonah from, Israel or Judea?
Point of information. Over time, there have been six different forms of Greek. It continues to change over time like English. To ask if a particular translator of Greek is Ancient or Modern is to miss the wider spectrum of the language.
Wikipedia makes this differentiation:
Proto-Greek: the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age.
Mycenaean Greek: the language of the Mycenaean civilization. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards.
Ancient Greek: in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilization. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire. Ancient Greek fell into disuse in western Europe in the Middle Ages, but remained officially in use in the Byzantine world and was reintroduced to the rest of Europe with the Fall of Constantinople and Greek migration to western Europe.
Koine Greek (also known as Hellenistic Greek): The fusion of Ionian with Attic, the dialect of Athens, began the process that resulted in the creation of the first common Greek dialect, which became a lingua franca across the Eastern Mediterranean and Near East. Koine Greek can be initially traced within the armies and conquered territories of Alexander the Great; after the Hellenistic colonization of the known world, it was spoken from Egypt to the fringes of India. After the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek because the Apostles used this form of the language to spread Christianity. Because it was the original language of the New Testament, and the Old Testament was translated into it as the Septuagint, that variety of Koine Greek may be referred to as New Testament Greek or sometimes Biblical Greek.
Medieval Greek (also known as Byzantine Greek): the continuation of Koine Greek up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Medieval Greek is a cover phrase for a whole continuum of different speech and writing styles, ranging from vernacular continuations of spoken Koine that were already approaching Modern Greek in many respects, to highly learned forms imitating classical Attic. Much of the written Greek that was used as the official language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine.
Modern Greek (also known as Neo-Hellenic):Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period, as early as the 11th century. It is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it.
Remember, Jesus likely used Aramaic when he told this parable. It was later translated into Koine Greek. Not sure of the distinction in the Aramaic, though.
And, yes, the Bible is loaded with puns.