James the Just's name Oblias (Ωβλιας)

[DCHindley]

I had hastily and half-jestingly posted some of what follows on one of Lena Einhorn's threads and another thread that touched on James, but deleted them both in deference to taking a serious look at the meaning of the name "Oblias" and what Hegesippus is represented as saying it meant in Greek, "bulwark of the people".

Eusebius of Caesarea, History of the Church 2.23.7:

7) Because of his exceeding great justice	7) Δια γε τοι την υπερβολην της δικαιοσυνης αυτου,
he was called the just,	εκαλειτο δικαιος
and oblias,	και ωβλιας,
which in Greek signifies a bulwark of the people,	ο εστιν Ελληνιστι περιοχη του λαου
and justice,	και δικαιοσυνη,
in accordance with what the prophets declare concerning him.	ως οι προφηται δηλουσι περι αυτου.

I looked up use of περιοχὴ and was not getting anywhere in other places in Eusebius (at least the works covered by the Perseus.org databases) or Josephus, so I also searched that word in BibleWorks 8 LXX (Rahlfs). As I started to step through the list of 25 hits, I got to LXX Psalm 59:11 (60:09 in RSV and Hebrew WTT = LXX Psalm 107:11/108:10 in RSV/WTT), and found something that I consider interesting.

LXX Psalm 59:11	Brenton Psalm 60:9	WTT Psalm 60:11 (transliterated)	RSV Psalm 60:9
τίς ἀπάξει με	Who will lead me	mi yobileni	Who will bring me
εἰς πόλιν περιοχῆς	into the fortified city?	`ir masor	to the fortified city?
τίς ὁδηγήσει με	who will guide me	mi nahani	Who will lead me
ἕως τῆς Ιδουμαίας	as far as Idumea?	`ad-´edom	to Edom?

The key G[r]eek words are:

ἀπάξει (apaxei) verb 3rd sg fut ind act/mid of ἀπάγω [α^γ]:
A. lead away, carry off, “ἀπάγουσι βόας καὶ ἴφια μῆλα” Od.18.278; “ἀ. τινὰ ἐκτόπιον” S.OT1340 (lyr.), cf.1521, etc.; προσάγειν . ., ἀπάγειν, bring near . ., hold far off, Arist.GC336a18; ἀ. ἀχλὺν ἀπ᾽ ὀφθαλμῶν remove it, Thphr.HP7.6.2; “τὸ ἱμάτιον ἀπὸ τοῦ τραχήλου” Plu.Ant. 12; οὐκ ἀπάξετε ταῦτα; stop this fooling! Jul.Or.7.225a:—Med., take away for or with oneself, “παρθένον” Hdt.1.196, cf. 4.80, Ar.Nu.1105, etc.; or that which is one's own, X.Cyr.3.1.37, etc.:—Pass., “ἐς ὀξὺ ἀπηγμένας” brought to a point, tapering off, Hdt.7.64, cf. 2.28, Arist. PA658b30.
2. lead away, draw off troops, “τῆς στρατιῆς τὸ πολλόν” Hdt.1.164, cf. Th.1.28, al.; “ἄπαγε τὸν ἵππον” Ar.Nu.32.
b. elliptically, retire, withdraw, Hdt.5.126, X.HG1.1.34, al.; 'go off', Apollod.Epit.3.3.
3. abduct, Aeschin.1.80, Luc.Tim.16:—Pass., “πρὸς ὕβριν -εσθαι” Id.Anach.13.
II. bring back, bring home, Il.18.326; “ἀπήγαγεν οἴκαδε” Od.16.370, cf. S.Ph.941, X.An.1.3.14; “ἀ. ὀπίσω” Hdt.9.117.
III. return, render what one owes, pay, “τὸν φόρον” Ar.V.707, cf. X.Cyr.2.4.12, Th.5.53; render service, honour, etc., “κώμους πρὸς τάφον” E.Tr.1184; “θεωρίαν εἰς Δῆλον” Pl.Phd. 58b.
IV. arrest and carry off, “ἀπάγετε αὐτὸν παρ᾽ ἐμέ” Hdt.2.114, cf 6.81; “δεῖν κἀπάγειν ἐφίετο” E.Ba.439:—Pass., “ἀπαχθέντας παρ᾽ ἑωυτόν” Hdt.6.119.
2. law-term, bring before a magistrate and accuse (cf. “ἀπαγωγή” 111), Antipho5.85; ἀς<*>βείας for impiety, D.22.27; “ἀ. ὡς θεσμοθέτας” Id.23.31; “ἀ. τοῖς ἕνδεκα” Id.24.113; τὴν ἐπὶ θανάτῳ -εσθαι Sch.Arist.Rh.1397a30ap.D.H.Amm.1.12.
3. carry off to prison, Pl.Grg.486a, Ar.Ach.57; “εἰς τὸ δεσμωτήριον” And.4.181, D.23.80, 35.47 (Pass.): abs., “ὡς γόης ἀπαχθῆναι” Pl.Men.80b; “ἀπαχθείς” Lys.25.15.
V. lead away, divert from the subject, esp. by sophistry, “ἀπὸ τοῦ ὄντος ἐπὶ τοὐναντίον” Pl.Phdr.262b; “ἀ. τινὰ ἀπὸ τῆς ὑποθέσεως” D.19.242; “ἀ. τὸ ὀργιζόμενον τῆς γνώμης” divert . ., Th. 2.59; ἀπὸ δεινῶν ἀ. τὴν γνώμην ib.65.
b. in Logic, reduce, “εἰς ἀδύνατον” Arist.APr.29b9:—impers. in Pass., “ἀπῆκται ἄρα εἰς . .” Papp. 798.11.
c. in later Greek, reduce, drive an opposing disputant, “ἐπὶ ψεῦδος” S.E.P.2.233; εἰς ἀντίφασιν, εἰς ἄτοπον, Phlp.in APr. 21.31, 58.14:—Pass., “εἰς ἀδύνατον ἀπαχθῆναι” Arr.Epict.1.7.25, cf. Phlp.in APr.129.2.
2. receive, “ἀπ᾽ ὄψεως . . τὰ δοξάζοντα ἀ.” Pl.Phlb.39b.
3. separate, “ἀπάγεται καὶ χωρίζεται” Id.Phd.97b.
VI. simply, carry, “ἐν ἀριστερᾷ τόξον” Id.Lg.795a.

περιοχῆς (perioches) noun sg fem voc/nom from περιοχ-ή , ἡ, (περιέχω):
A. a containing, enclosing, Plu.2.1078b, Herm. ap. Stob.1.49.69.
2. compass, circumference, “σφαίρας” Placit.3 Prooem., cf. J.BJ5.4.3, Cleom.1.11, 2.3, Diog.Oen.24; opp. μῆκος, BGU492.10 (ii A.D.); ἡ ἐκτὸς π., of the body, Arist.Col.797b22, cf. Pr.870a10, D.S.1.91 ; κατὰ τὰς τῶν ἐθνῶν π. according to their extent, Id.17.58 ; mass, body, Plu.Lys.12 ; “π. τις οὐρανοῦ” Epicur.Ep.2p.37U. ; ἀκατάληπτος π., of the world, Secund.Sent.1.
3. generally, compass, extent, “ἡ π. τῆς ὅλης περιβολῆς καὶ πράξεως” Plb.11.19.2 ; aggregate, Dam.Pr.88,95 bis.
b. content of a definition, etc., Corn.Rh.p.382H., Alex.Aphr.in APr. 278.11, etc.
c. summary, Herm. ap. Stob.1.41.1 ; σύντομος π. Procl.in Ti.1.73; periochae, title of summaries of books of Livy.
4. inclusion, S.E.P.3.101 ; κατὰ περιοχήν τινος including . . , Ph. 2.488.
II. portion circumscribed or marked off, section of a book, Cic.Att.13.25.3, Act.Ap.8.32.
III. pod, husk, shell, Thphr.CP 1.19.2.
2. fence, fortification, LXX 1 Ki.22.4, al. ; πόλις περιοχῆς ib.Ps.30(31).21,al.
IV. straitness, = θλῖψις, συνοχή, Phot.; esp. siege, LXX Je.19.9 ; ἦλθεν πόλις ἐν περιοχῇ ib.4 Ki.24.10; ὕδωρ περιοχῆς ib.Na.3.14.
V.=περιπέτεια, Phot.

ὁδηγήσει (hodegesei) verb 3rd sg fut ind act; 2nd sg fut ind mid; 3rd sg aor subj act from ὁδηγ-έω:
A. lead one upon his way, guide, c. acc. pers., Ps.-Phoc.24, A.Pr. 728, Act.Ap.8.31, X.Eph.1.9 : abs., E.HF1402 ; “φύσιος εἰς τὸ ἄριστον -εούσης” Hp.Lex 2 :—Pass., Plu.2.954b, Vett. Val.359.30 :— also ὁδηγ-ετέω , Them.Or.11.151c.

Unt also, as herr Hüller vud gif, der Hebrew vorts, mit einer English descripten (hey, it's just supposed to sound German-ish, 'cuz that will make me sound sofittikated. I am sure I butchered the Hebrew transliterations, which didn't translate well into regular fonts, but hopefully the sense comes through):

יבל (yobil-eni) verb hiphil imperfect 3rd person masculine singular suffix 1st person common singular
0835.0 יָבַל (yabal) bring, carry, lead, conduct. (ASV same; RSV translates "bear" in Psa 60:29 [H 30].)
(835a) יָבָל (yabal) watercourse, stream, as irrigating. Occurs only in Isa 30:25 and Isa 44:4, as the plural construct, yible (-mayim).
(835b) יוּבַל (yubal) stream, only in Jer 17:8.
(835c) יְבוּל (yebul) produce (of the soil).
(835d) בּוּל (bul) produce, outgrowth, only in Job 40:20; Isa 44:19.
(835e) יוֹבֵל (yobel), יֹבֵל (yobel) trumpet.
(835f) יַבַּל (yabbal) runnings, suppurating, only as the feminine singular yabbelet, as a substantive in Lev 22:22.
(835g) אוּבַל ('ubal) stream, river, only in Dan 8:2, 3, 6.
(835h) תֵּבֵל (tebel) world.

מצור (masor) noun common masculine singular absolute homonym 2
1898.0 צוּר (sur) II, bind, besiege.
(1898a) מָצוֹר (masor) siege, entrenchment.
(1898b) מְצוּרָה (mesura) stronghold.

נחה (nahani) verb qal perfect 3rd person masculine singular suffix 1st person common singular homonym 1
1341.0 נָחָה (naha) lead, guide.

What this all means is that Hegesippus (or perhaps Eusebius] has made an error. The Semitic nickname Oblias did not have anything to do with a wall/bulwark, but with leading. The author or editor should have transliterated Hebrew "masor" into Greek, and not "yobil". OR, Hegesippus' source may actually have used Yobil to signify James was the leader of the Jerusalem congregation. Maybe he meant he was the "offshoot" from Jesus' family, meaning next in succession to lead a sect. Whatever, either Hegesippus misunderstood his source, or Eusebius misunderstood Hegesippus, and guessed at the word that meant bulwark, getting it wrong.

DCH

[Secret Alias]

This might be closer to the name:

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led (יוּבָ֔ל) like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.

[Secret Alias]

The same name = ram = יוֹבֵל and the horn which announces the Jubilee etc. (y)ob(a)liah = Ram of God? The name ram comes from yabal = to be led.

I can't see any traces of the Akedah in the description(s) of the death of James but certainly the canonical letter in his name refers to Abraham as one God considered righteous for what he did in offering Isaac on the altar.

[Secret Alias]

On the importance of the Akedah in early Christianity. https://books.google.com/books?id=Af1dC ... am&f=false

[Secret Alias]

Aramaic ywbl, ywblˀ n.m. jubilee year


1 jubilee year Qumran, JLAtg, PTA, Sam, LJLA. TN Lev25:11 : יובל . (a) jubilee cycle JBA. BT AZ 9b(7) : כללי ביובלי ופרטי בשבועי the 'whole ones' [i.e. the hundreds in the date] as jubilee cycles and the 'portions' [i.e. the remainder] as sabbatical cycles.

2 ram Jud, JBA. PTBer13.c:6[2] : בערביא {קורין}<צווחין> לאימרא יובלא in Arabia they call the lamb yovel. BT RH 26a(45) : היו קורין לדיכרא יובילא when I went to Arabia, they used to call a ram yovel.

[Secret Alias]

Pulled off the Internet

yovel
After discussing shofar, we'll now talk about a synonym - yovel יובל. We find yovel being used as another term for a shofar in Shmot 19:13:

בִּמְשֹׁךְ, הַיֹּבֵל, הֵמָּה, יַעֲלוּ בָהָר - "When the yovel sounds a long blast, they may go up the mountain."

How do we know that yovel refers to a ram's horn? We see in Yehoshua chapter 6 that the yovel is an animal. And Rabbi Akiva in Rosh HaShana 26a says:


"When I visited Arabia I discovered that there they call the male ram 'Yovela'"

Steinsaltz points out that the word yovela does not appear in Arabic. However, it does appear with that meaning in Phoenician and Punic (for example in the Punic Marseilles Tariff, line 7.) Kutscher points out that the region called "Arabia", actually meant Arabia Petraea, whose capital was the famous town of Petra, where they spoke a dialect of Aramaic-Hebrew.

Klein writes that yovel's meaning of ram derived from the root יבל, meaning "to bear, carry" and therefore the word originally meant "leader of the flock, bellwether".

So yovel at first meant "ram", and the meaning was later limited to "ram's horn". The word's meaning developed even further. In Vayikra 25 we have the description of a special year of emancipation, held every 50 years. The advent of the year was proclaimed by the sounding of the shofar (Vayikra 25:9), and was called the yovel (25:10). So, as Kutscher points out, when the Torah discusses the yovel, it really means "[the year of the blowing of the] yovel." (For further discussion, see Ibn Ezra and Ramban on 25:10).

[DCHindley]

I chose the two Psalm references because, in the LXX, they included the word "bulwark", with Hebrew YBL being a pleasant surprise.

It is hard to tell whether Hegesippus was going off a Greek or Aramaic source (one of his interviewees as he was traveling on business) but it looks to me it was Greek, and had made a reference to Psalm 60. He found a Hebrew scroll of this book, or at least had someone explain it to him, but zeroed in on the wrong Hebrew word.

Yes, I did see that the word was used for a trumpet, and maybe this is why H said that he was a priest who officiated in the temple (the Day of Atonement could be in view.

I was quite surprised to see the reference to Idumeans in this/these psalm(s), as it seemed to compliment my hypothesis that James' story was embellished by an account of a "mock trial" of James, son of Sosa, one of the Idumean commanders, who led his forces into the fortified city.

DCH

[Secret Alias]

There is a consistent mistranslation of words (gate = father) which necessitates the Church received a bad translation of Hegesippus. The gate for father mistake is made in recent times (cf https://books.google.com/books?id=_iMnz ... te&f=false). Compare https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_Rabba

The last reference alone should convince you the text was written in Aramaic (who is the father of Jesup makes more sense than the alternative )

[Secret Alias]

Baba means gate, father and ram (Syriac) interestingly

bb, bbˀ (bāḇ, bāḇā) n.m. gateway; opening; section

1 gate, gateway OfAGen, Palmyrene, JBA, Man. TAD A4.4R.6 : הא שמהת גבריא זי אשתכחו בבבא בנא ואתחדו here are the names of the men who were found and seized at the gate in GN. BT BB 58a(35) : ליתיב אבבא ולידין דינא let him sit at the gate and judge the case. (a) of a city (a.1) see s.v. bbˀ dˀbwlˀ JBA. (b) of a residential structure Com. TAD B3.11 R.4 : מערב שמש לה הו בבא זילך למנפק on its west is your doorway for exiting. (b.1) door Com. BT MQ 25a(32) : פרום באבי ואפקוה they hacked down the doors and removed it [i.e. the bed]. (c) of another structure Com. NsaqPap 26.V.7 : כען אנת גברן כשירן מני בין בביא חסין ינטרו now assign reliable men to firmly guard among the entryways (to the port?/quai?). (c.1) sluice gate JBA. BT MQ 10b(24) : פתח חד באבא he opened one sluice gate. (c.2) see s.vv. bbˀ dˀqlydˀ , bb nhrˀ JBA.

2 court: public area of an institutional structure (a) courtroom JBA. BT BB 65a(21) : דמקרביתו לבבא דריש גלותא דשכיחי דייני you are closer to the court of the exilarch where judges are ubiquitous. (b) of a palace OfAEg, LJLA. TAD C1.1(Ahiqar) .17 : שב אנה לא אכהל למפלח בבב היכלא I am elderly and unable to serve at the palace gate. (c) see bbˀ dmlkwtˀ , bbˀ dmtybtˀ

3 section of a literary work JBA. BT Ned 31a(10) : בתרתי באבי קמיית׳ the two first sections (of the Mishna).

4 uncertain abbreviation ( most likely = בבית )before personal names and pronouns in Elephantine account lists OfAEg. TAD C3.28 R..2.16 : בב נכיס לגן 3־3 TAD C3.28 R..5.66 : בב אנה לגן 3־1
For mng. 4 see DNWSI s.v. bottom. TAD takes it to mean "entry, i.e. section of a list". Most, if not all, of the usages and collocations are direct loans from Akkadian ; cf. AIOA and CAD B s.v.

Page refs. in other dictionaries: DJBA: 183a; Jastrow: 136; Levy Ch-W: 1:79; DNWSI: 142;




bbˀ n.m. papa, father


1 papa, father Syr, Man.

2 ram Syr.

[Secret Alias]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_(honorific)