Why "Egypt" is "where also their Lord was crucified"

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Giuseppe
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Why "Egypt" is "where also their Lord was crucified"

Post by Giuseppe »


And their body will be upon the street of the great city, which is called spiritually Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.

(Rev 11:8)

They (the archons) are Egypt, because they are matter.

http://www.pseudepigrapha.com/PistisSop ... Book1.html
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Irish1975
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Re: Why "Egypt" is "where also their Lord was crucified"

Post by Irish1975 »

At least one manuscript has "our Lord" rather than "their Lord." Thus, the KJV:
And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
My 27th edition of Nestle-Aland prefers "their."

Either way, it is a very difficult passage for historicists; my New Jerome Biblical Commentary (Catholic, 1990s, historical-critical) simply refuses to comment on the image at all.

It is beyond dispute that here you have the image of ho kyrios being crucified, and the image itself is presented not only in opposition to the otherwise clear tradition that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified in the city of Jerusalem, but also in an explicitly "spiritual," mythical, apocalyptic discourse. There is no way to read this text as an instance of Christian tradition spiritualizing an originally historical crucifixion. The link to any type of Markan passion narrative is utterly absent, while the image of the Lord being crucified in one of the lower, wicked realms, exactly where the beast rises up from the abyss, is unmistakeable. A lot of historicists have mocked Earl Doherty's claim that there was a dominical crucifixion in a spiritual realm, but this is exaclty what the text of Revelation says.

Rev 11:9-12 continues the story of the mysterious two witnesses, who lie dead in the street for three and a half days before they are resurrected by the spirit of life from God, and called to ascend to the heavenly realm. All mythical, death and resurrection motifs, including the famous "three days."
nightshadetwine
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Re: Why "Egypt" is "where also their Lord was crucified"

Post by nightshadetwine »

Giuseppe wrote: Thu Dec 20, 2018 1:28 pm
And their body will be upon the street of the great city, which is called spiritually Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.

(Rev 11:8)
I think by Sodom and Egypt the author means the physical realm or realm of matter/physical body/corporeality.

Philo, Allegorical Interpretation II, 15
...and as for Isaac, he indeed was not stripped, but was at all times naked and incorporeal; for a commandment was given to him not to go down into Egypt, {16}{#ge 26:2.} that is to say, into the body.
Philo, Allegorical Interpretation II, 19
On this account, too, that part in us which is analogous to the people, and which acts the part of a multitude, when it seeks "the houses in Egypt,"{22}{#nu 21:5.} that is to say, in its corporeal habitation, becomes entangled in pleasures which bring on death; not that death which is a separation of soul and body, but that which is the destruction of the soul by vice.
The soul is "crucified" when it takes on a corporeal body.

Philo, ON THE POSTERITY OF CAIN AND HIS EXILE, 61
that the body must be thought akin to the souls that love the body, and that external good things must be exceedingly admired by them, and all the souls which have this kind of disposition depend on dead things, and, like persons who are crucified, are attached to corruptible matter till the day of their death.
Plato, Phaedo, 362
...because each pleasure and pain is a sort of nail which nails and rivets the soul to the body...
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Blood
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Re: Why "Egypt" is "where also their Lord was crucified"

Post by Blood »

Irish1975 wrote: Fri Dec 21, 2018 12:00 pm At least one manuscript has "our Lord" rather than "their Lord." Thus, the KJV:
And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
My 27th edition of Nestle-Aland prefers "their."
Technically, it says "the Kurios of them" in translation, so "their Lord" is correct. This is unacceptable to many people, like the KJV, who assume an error and silently change this to "our Lord."

This is the only mention of a crucifixion in Revelation.
“The only sensible response to fragmented, slowly but randomly accruing evidence is radical open-mindedness. A single, simple explanation for a historical event is generally a failure of imagination, not a triumph of induction.” William H.C. Propp
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Irish1975
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Re: Why "Egypt" is "where also their Lord was crucified"

Post by Irish1975 »

Blood wrote: Fri Dec 21, 2018 4:33 pm
Irish1975 wrote: Fri Dec 21, 2018 12:00 pm At least one manuscript has "our Lord" rather than "their Lord." Thus, the KJV:
And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
My 27th edition of Nestle-Aland prefers "their."
Technically, it says "the Kurios of them" in translation, so "their Lord" is correct. This is unacceptable to many people, like the KJV, who assume an error and silently change this to "our Lord."

This is the only mention of a crucifixion in Revelation.
Not sure what you mean by "technically." One or a few manuscripts have hemon, "of us," rather than auton, "of them." It wasn't the KJV translators making it up.
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DCHindley
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Re: Why "Egypt" is "where also their Lord was crucified"

Post by DCHindley »

Irish1975 wrote: Fri Dec 21, 2018 4:48 pm
Blood wrote: Fri Dec 21, 2018 4:33 pm
Irish1975 wrote: Fri Dec 21, 2018 12:00 pm At least one manuscript has "our Lord" rather than "their Lord." Thus, the KJV:
And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
My 27th edition of Nestle-Aland prefers "their."
Technically, it says "the Kurios of them" in translation, so "their Lord" is correct. This is unacceptable to many people, like the KJV, who assume an error and silently change this to "our Lord."

This is the only mention of a crucifixion in Revelation.
Not sure what you mean by "technically." One or a few manuscripts have hemon, "of us," rather than auton, "of them." It wasn't the KJV translators making it up.
The sources that were sewn together to create the Book of Revelation we all know and love is notoriously difficult to tease out (R H Charles did the first thorough analysis of this in the old International Critical Commentary volumes on this NT book which can be found online).

So, I have to wonder whether this really does have to do with figures connected with early Christianity, but maybe figures associated with the Judean rebellion(s). In the case of the "big one" (66-74 CE) these might be the provisional revolutionary government leaders Ananus son of Ananus, his 2nd in command the chief priest Jesus, and Jacob son of Sosas the Idumean leader who sought them out and killed them, but was later killed by Simon bar Giora. I'm just making a guess ...

DCH
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Irish1975
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Re: Why "Egypt" is "where also their Lord was crucified"

Post by Irish1975 »

I just received in the mail my handsome hardcover 28th Nestle-Aland NTG. It does seem "easier to use" (Trobisch) than the 27th. As for Rev 11:8, there is no longer a citation, as in the 27th, of the "few" (pauci) 12th c. manuscripts that have "our Lord" instead of "their Lord." Less confusing (to me at least :confusedsmiley: ) than with the 27th is the notation of the important omission of καὶ and αὐτῶν from the 3rd century Chester Beatty Papyrus and the 4th century Codex Siniaticus.

Nestle-Aland 28 καὶ τὸ πτῶμα αὐτῶν ἐπὶ τῆς πλατείας τῆς πόλεως τῆς μεγάλης, ἥτις καλεῖται πνευματικῶς Σόδομα καὶ Αἴγυπτος, ὅπου καὶ ὁ κύριος αὐτῶν ἐσταυρώθη and their corpse [will lie] in the street of the great city that is prophetically called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.
Chester Beatty Papyrus (P47) & Codex Siniaticus καὶ τὰ πτώματα αὐτῶν ἐπὶ τῆς πλατείας τῆς πόλεως τῆς μεγάλης, ἥτις καλεῖται πνευματικῶς Σόδομα καὶ Αἴγυπτος, ὅπου ὁ κύριος ἐσταυρώθη and their corpses [will lie] in the street of the great city that is prophetically called Sodom and Egypt, where the Lord was crucified.

I admit I know little about textual criticism. In this case I am particularly confused, for two reasons.

1) Why would the editors of NA28 prefer "the corpse of them," -- which seems like nonsense -- to "their corpses"? The latter is attested in the oldest manuscripts, but more importantly it makes grammatical sense.

2) According to Trobisch,
"The intention of NA28 lies not in reproducing the "oldest text" presented in the oldest manuscript but in reconstructing the text of the hypothetical master copy from which all manuscripts derive, a text the editors refer to as the initial text" (NA28 User's Guide, p.5).
That makes sense in the abstract. But for this particular verse it seems strange that the two oldest witnesses, which agree with each other, would be overruled by later witnesses. I wonder if anyone can explain the grounds on which this decision might have been made.
Last edited by Irish1975 on Mon Jun 10, 2019 7:54 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Irish1975
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Re: Why "Egypt" is "where also their Lord was crucified"

Post by Irish1975 »

Correction. <καὶ> in ὅπου καὶ ὁ κύριος does appear to be attested in the Codex Siniaticus.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Why "Egypt" is "where also their Lord was crucified"

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Irish1975 wrote: Mon Jun 10, 2019 2:27 pmWhy would the editors of NA28 prefer "the corpse of them," -- which seems like nonsense -- to "their bodies"? The latter is attested in the oldest manuscripts, but more importantly it makes grammatical sense.
If you are referring to "corpse/body" being singular, the so-called distributive singular is not uncommon in Greek (page 174, bottom paragraph). Other biblical examples include σῶμα αὐτῶν ("their body") in James 3.3 and πρόσωπον αὐτῶν ("their face") in Genesis 9.23, and there are quite a few others.

However, despite this construction being available, I believe that the use of the plural is still more common in such cases, which is possibly an important consideration for your inquiry:
But for this particular verse it seems strange that the two oldest witnesses, which agree with each other, would be overruled by later witnesses. I wonder if anyone can explain the grounds on which this decision might have been made.
I can only guess, but perhaps, because of the above consideration that the plural is more common in these cases than the distributive singular, it was deemed easier to explain a scribe changing the (less common) singular to the (more common) plural.
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Irish1975
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Re: Why "Egypt" is "where also their Lord was crucified"

Post by Irish1975 »

If you look at this photograph of the Codex Siniaticus, at the top of the third column of the page that begins with Revelation 10:8, you can see in the right margin where a later scribe wrote <αὐτῶ[ν]>: "their Lord," in place of "the Lord."

:wtf:
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