Joseph of Arimathea.

[Stephan Huller]

To A1

Yes all of that might be true but the fact that Peter (not Kirby) does not use the title and seems to see him attached to Jerusalem raises a number of issues. I for instance can't see how you don't come away from Peter's account not feeling Joseph was a real resident of Jerusalem, a prominent rich Jew living before the Jewish War. Does Josephus mention having a family sepulcher in Jerusalem?

[Stephan Huller]

Is Arimathea a corruption of the rest of Josephus's name?

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

Good point. For another well-known example of this, consider " John Damascene," i.e. John of Damascus.

Greek: Ἰωάννης ὁ Δαμασκηνός, Iōannēs ho Damaskēnos

I think this is not a "example of this" because John has the article "ὁ" before Damascene. Not so Σίμων Κυρηναῖος (Simōn Kyrēnaios), but Simon the Canaanite (Σίμων ὁ Καναναῖος) in Mark 3:18 (there in accusative).

[Peter Kirby]

Good point. For another well-known example of this, consider " John Damascene," i.e. John of Damascus.

Greek: Ἰωάννης ὁ Δαμασκηνός, Iōannēs ho Damaskēnos

I think this is not a "example of this" because John has the article "ὁ" before Damascene. Not so Σίμων Κυρηναῖος (Simōn Kyrēnaios), but Simon the Canaanite (Σίμων ὁ Καναναῖος) in Mark 3:18 (there in accusative).

Is that so? Golly, I didn't notice that.

What do you think it means?

[Aleph One]

To clarify, the Greek of Mark 15.21 seems to treat Cyrenian as a surname, not Cyrene; since a Cyrenian is a person from Cyrene, the element of from is not exactly absent.

Ah thanks for pitching in there. I didn't have Time to look it up when I wrote that. Also to SH, I see what you mean about it being suspect that gPeter doesn't say anything about his origin.

[Ben C. Smith]

To clarify, the Greek of Mark 15.21 seems to treat Cyrenian as a surname, not Cyrene; since a Cyrenian is a person from Cyrene, the element of from is not exactly absent.

Ah thanks for pitching in there. I didn't have Time to look it up when I wrote that.

You are quite welcome.

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

Also, I had a question about how Joseph of Arimathea's title relates to Mark's "Simon of Cyrene?" I thought I remember it being discussed on this forum before that the greek literally suggests Cyrene being presented as a last name, instead of "from." Does the case of Simon shed any light on how Mark names his characters? Just ignore this if it isn't of any value; I don't know any greek, and I have to run right now, so no time to dig farther.

The problem with Joseph of Arimathea is, that the orignal text is a bit uncertain. There are manuscripts which have

Ἰωσὴφ ὁ ἀπὸ Ἁριμαθαίας (Joseph the from Arimathea)

and others with

Ἰωσὴφ ἀπὸ Ἁριμαθαίας (Joseph from Arimathea)

The two best codices (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) disagree here. The second alternative could also mean, that Joseph was not an inhabitant of Arimathea, but that he came currently from that place.


The only parallel to Josef "from/of" Arimathea (a person + ἀπὸ [from or of]) in GMark is Mark 1:9

Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν ἐκείναις ταῖς ἡμέραις ἦλθεν Ἰησοῦς ἀπὸ Ναζαρὲτ τῆς Γαλιλαίας καὶ ἐβαπτίσθη εἰς τὸν Ἰορδάνην ὑπὸ Ἰωάνου
And it came to pass in those days: It came Jesus from Nazaret of Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan under John.

The only parallel to Simon Cyrenian (a person + a surname which could be a location) is Mark 1:24

λέγων Τί ἡμῖν καὶ σοί, Ἰησοῦ Ναζαρηνέ
saying: What to us and to you, Jesus Nazarene

[andrewcriddle]

Is Joseph of Arimathea in Mark a disciple or merely a pious member of the Sanhedrin ?

In the later gospels he is a disciple/follower of Jesus but Mark is much less clear.

Oh, I totally agree that the pericope itself does not identify Joseph as a disciple of Jesus. I already said that, for all we know from Mark, he may just be a pious Jew like Tobit.

For me the possibility of the pun derives from the earlier pericope (on the death of John the baptist) that Kunigunde Kreuzerin pointed out here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1603&start=20#p36804 (just the lefthand and righthand columns, not the middle one, which I do not see as very tightly related). The verbal similarities to the burial of Jesus are fairly clear; and in that context, comparing one pericope to another, I submit that Arimathea might be bouncing punwise off of the dutiful disciples of John. Not decided yet, but that is the best argument I have seen so far for the efficacy of the pun.

What do you think? Are the verbal overlaps just a consequence of overlapping subject matter, and no direct comparison between the disciples of John and those of Jesus is intended?

Ben.

IMHO one of the most striking features of the burial of John is that his head ends up permanently separated from his body. This seems so distinctive (and possibly in some way symbolically important) that if makes it difficult for me to see the account of John's end as parallel to that of Jesus.

Andrew Criddle

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

If Mark invented the story we might speculate that he chosed the name „Joseph“ because Joseph buried Jacob (Israel) in the cave of the patriarchs in Mamre (both LXX and Mark has „mnemeion“). Mark 12:26-27 could lead to the assumption that Mark was thinking about the death of the patriarchs (… how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.) Further: Joseph of Arimathea asks Pilate to bury Jesus as Joseph asked the Pharao to bury Jacob (Gen 50). Both were honourable counsellors. Joseph was the „best of the twelve“ and that could lead to the „best disciple“.

I worked hard to make sense of how Arimathea could be Ramath as a Markan theme or an OT-allusion. But it was not possible for me.

[JoeWallack]

I gave the evidence in the OP, where the Hebrew definite article does indeed get rendered as an initial alpha: compare Ramathaim-Zophim (הָרָמָתַ֛יִם צוֹפִ֖ים) in 1 Samuel 1.1 with the LXX transliteration in 1 Kingdoms 1.1 LXX (Αρμαθαιμ Σιφα).

JW:
I saw this the first time and was not impressed.

1 Samuel 1:1 [The Christian translators are struggling here with the original Hebrew (as Yeshu Barra would say, "sounds like deja Jew all over again") so I'm going to supplement with Chabad.org (Chabad corrections in blue)]

NASB ©	Hebrew	Transliteration	Strong's	Definition	Origin
Now there was	וַיְהִי	-	8033	there, thither	a prim. adverb
was a certain one	אֶחָ֜ד	e·chad	259	one	a prim. card. number
man	אִ֨ישׁ	ish	376	man	from an unused word
from	מִן	mean	-	-	-
from the Ramathaim-zophim	הָרָמָתַיִם צוֹפִים	tzo·v·fim	7436	"double height of watchers," a city in Ephraim	from ramah and tsaphah
from the hill country from Mount	מֵהַ֣ר	me·har	2022	mountain, hill, hill country	of uncertain derivation
of Ephraim,	אֶפְרָ֑יִם	ef·ra·yim;	669	a son of Joseph, also his desc. and their territory	from the same as apher

JW:
At the risk of being labeled a deconstructionist here, I see the following problems with trying to take the above as support for the supposed underlying geographical location of "Mark's" (author) "Arimathea":

• 1) The definite article הָ (as I'm sure you know, the Hebrew at that time would not have had any vowels) before רָמָתַיִם צוֹפִים does not appear to indicate that a city follows (from the Ramoth*). The lack of a definite article would generally indicate a city (from Ramoth*).
  
  2) It's unclear what הָרָמָתַיִם צוֹפִים means here. If it's unclear to the Rashi than I think it would be unclear to you.
  
  3) הָרָמָתַיִם צוֹפִים sounds like and may refer to a clan.
  
  4) 3) is supported by a definite location which follows, from "Mount Ephraim", which suggests that הָרָמָתַיִם צוֹפִים is not the location here.
  
  5) Of course there was no separation of letters in the Hebrew (or Greek), so how could Christians be sure of rightly dividing הָרָמָתַיִם צוֹפִים?
  
  6) If you take the הָ here as the definite article before the city of Ramoth, why add the definite article to a Greek transliteration for "Ramoth"?
  
  7) Hebrew has two silent letters that could have an "a" sounding vowel, aleph and ayin. Are these ever transliterated into the Greek alpha?

Where's spin (picture me saying this like the Thenn saying "Where's Mance"?).


Joseph

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