From Mark to Marcion

[stephan happy huller]

I don't know how many people know this, but the Samaritans pronounce the name of Moses (מֹשה) "Mushi." The next most important person in their canon is their founder Marqe (מֹרקה). I assume that in the earliest period the name was similarly pronounced 'Marki." FWIW the names are numerological equivalents (= 345) and Marqe is consistently described as a second Moses.

It is interesting to note that the Egyptian god Aser-Hapi often identified in Latin inscriptions as Serapi when used as a human appellation becomes Serapion (Σαραπίων). I wonder whether there are any other examples of foreign names ending with the "I" sound becoming Greek names with the addition of ων .

[stephan happy huller]

The name Ἀπίων from the Egyptian god Apis (Api) is yet another example'
Similarly Ανουβίων

[stephan happy huller]

Here is an interesting article http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... 2bRRNBVRow noting how Sabbatai (born on the Sabbath) became the older Greek name Σαμβαθαῖος but in Egypt Σαμβαθίων.

The name Sambaya›o! (derived from Sabbaya›o!) begins to appear in Greek papyri and inscriptions from the Ptolemaic period onwards. It is a transcription of the Hebrew name šabatai meaning "born on the Sabbath" and it is limited to the Hellenistic spheres of the Jewish Diaspora3. An interesting phenomenon is to be observed in documents of the Roman period. V. Tcherikover has demonstrated its existence on the basis of Greek papyri from Egypt in which a new form of the name has replaced the old one: Sambay¤vn for men (the hypocoristic Sambç!) and Sambãyion for women. At this point the name stops being a strictly Jewish one. With the growing popularity of the custom of observing the Sabbath among non-Jews, the name which simultaneously changes its meaning to "one who observes the Sabbath" becomes extremely popular throughout almost the entire Imperium Romanum, and in Egypt especially. It is this very name, a transcription of the Hebrew šabatai, preceded by the Egyptian masculine article p3, used commonly in this position in the onomastics of Graeco-Roman Egypt, which is clearly recognizable in the inscription in question. The presence of the masculine article permits to reconstruct a masculine ending. Taking into account Tcherikover's chronology of the Greek transcription of the name šabatai, it is the ending -ivn that should most probably be restored in our inscription which is dated to the 2nd-3rd cent. A.D. The name should, therefore, read Caampay¤[vn]4

[stephan happy huller]

I sent an email to ADAM ŁAJTAR, the author of that paper to clarify if he really was claiming that the ων suffix added to names was an Egyptian phenomenon.

[stephan happy huller]

Another example - Ἰσίων a name developed from Isi or Eesay (= Isis)
Ἁρποκρατίων ägyptischer Bischof 129,11 (Nr. 188); 159,5 (Nr. 10), melitianischer Bischof 150,19 (Nr. 23), alexandrinischer Presbyter 34,17 (Nr. 8) from Harpocrates (= Harpa-Khruti )

[arnoldo]

http://books.google.com/books?id=Iaqe9C ... es&f=false

[stephan happy huller]

Oh do you recommend this book?

[arnoldo]

It's worth reading to learn about the Egyptian influence on gnosticism which is extensive. Also, for someone wanting to research about one of many competing “mythicist” theories out there this is a well written book regardless of whether D.M. Murdock's hypothesis is true or not. Robert M Price has a review of Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection, by D.M. Murdock (Acharya S.), here.

[stephan happy huller]

I should mention a related point of interest (I am already bored of the original thread). It has long puzzled scholars how the Latin names 'Marcus' and 'Titus' are preserved in Samaritan Aramaic. Moshe Florentin, Professor of Hebrew and head of the section of Hebrew studies in the Department of Hebrew Culture at Tel Aviv University (and former student of Ben-Hayyim) makes the suggestion that the reason that names from Greek and Latin have the suffix [e] in Samaritan Aramaic as in Marqe Tûte and others is that the they were taken over in the form of the vocative case. No one can know for certain when this 'Marcus' fellow lived, nor his father 'Titus,' but estimates range from the late first to the fourth century. For some reason, however the Samaritans always spell his name MRQH (using the English letter equivalents to the Hebrew). The 'H' or he (ה) is puzzling because it isn't what you would expect to replace the Greek -os and Latin -us in the nominative singular.

For instance in Jewish Aramaic the Latin name Vespanianus is preserved as 'Aspasyanos' in Soṭah 9.14. Elsewhere we see Titus preserved as 'Titos,' Severus rendered as 'Asverus.'

The vocative is the case of direct address. It is used when one person is speaking to another, calling out or saying their name, or generally addressing them. With many nouns, the case form of the vocative is the same as the nominative, but the context and function leave no question as to whether the person is being addressed or, alternatively, spoken about. (One should note that, obviously, the vocative is used most often in conjunction with the "second person" form of the verb).

For example: "... Lord Jesus, receive my spirit" (Acts 7:59). Here Stephen is directly addressing the Lord, so the form of "Lord Jesus" is in the vocative case. (Note that the verb "receive" is also in the second person, as would be expected).

It should be noted that while there are at least 128 uses of lord in the vocative in the Greek New Testament, there is no vocative case in Aramaic. What Florentin is suggesting - and it is pretty eye-opening even to consider how this might have occured - the names 'Marcus' and 'Titus' were preserved as Marqe and Tûte in Samaritan from the Samaritan people addressing these figures in the Latin or Greek vocative form. We must again emphasize that this case would only be used in an oral address.

On the peculiar pronunciation of vocative forms in Samaritan Aramaic see also this http://books.google.com/books?id=1dNk_b ... ve&f=false

[Tenorikuma]

Another weird one is that Thaddeus becomes Addai in Aramaic/Syriac.