Why haven't Goodacre, Gathercole, and I accepted Martijn's claims?

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

Hi Ken, I'm on vacation now. Therefore just a very short answer.

Yes, an existing Semitic word, only obscur for Matthew's readers. I surmise that both the parable and the word zizania should be unclear for the reader and the disciples in the story.

The issue of the meaning is discussed by Paolo Squatriti, Weeds and the Carolingians, page 114ff (see Google-preview). Darnel and white oats were the favourite options. Greetings, Kunigunde

[Ken Olson]

Hi Ken, I'm on vacation now. Therefore just a very short answer.

Yes, an existing Semitic word, only obscur for Matthew's readers. I surmise that both the parable and the word zizania should be unclear for the reader and the disciples in the story.

The issue of the meaning is discussed by Paolo Squatriti, Weeds and the Carolingians, page 114ff (see Google-preview). Darnel and white oats were the favourite options. Greetings, Kunigunde

Thanks for the reference. Reading the chapter now.

Best,

Ken

[robert j]

Perhaps another entry here --- a Greek cousin?

ζειαί and ζειᾷ --------- ZEIAI and ZEIA

This Greek term refers to a wheat-like grain. The LSJ has both einkorn (Triticum monococcum) and emmer (Triticum dicoccum) in the definition. Of those two, emmer is much more likely, and not only because the ancient Sumerian ziz-an is widely accepted to mean emmer, but also the way Homer and Strabo used the term ---

Strabo, Geography, 5.4 (my translation in Strabo only for the Greek “grain” terms) ---

… One proof of the fertility of this country is, that it produces the finest grain (σῖτον). I allude to the groats (χόνδρος) of wheat-grain (πύρινον) which is made superior to all kinds of rice (ὀρύζης), and to almost all other small-grain (ὀλίγῳ σιτικῆς) food. They say that some of the plains are cropped all the year round; twice with emmer (ζειᾷ), the third time with millet (ἐλύμῳ), and occasionally a fourth time with vegetables (λαχανεύεσθαι).

I think Strabo intended his use of ζειᾷ here to be emmer. Elsewhere, Strabo makes a clear distinction between πυρῷ and ζειᾷ --

The whole of this country is fertile, but rather too mountainous, and producing more ζειᾷ (emmer) than πυρῷ (wheat) for the food of the inhabitants. (Geo., 5.2.111-112)

The Greek term πυρός/πυρῷ seems to be associated with free-threshing durum, and free-threshing hexaploid wheat, and perhaps also spelt. In Strabo's time, it could have been any of those. But the term ζειᾷ has much stronger ties to emmer. And the agronomy fits all that perfectly --- the better wheats then would be concentrated in the more fertile plains, but the sturdier emmer happy in both the hills and the plains.

The ζειᾷ in Strabo is almost certainly not einkorn (T. momococcum) which at the time was not widely cultivated in the Mediterranean Basin or the Near East, except perhaps on poor soils in very marginal production areas. Certainly in Strabo’s day, wheat’s very poor relative einkorn would not be used in a crop rotation with desirable crops like millet and vegetables in an area described as “fertile country” that produces the “finest grain”.

Centuries earlier Homer gives a list of πυρός (wheat), ζειαί (emmer), and κρῖ λευκόν (white barley) as food for horses. (Homer, Odyssey, 4.593.604). But those weren’t common work horses, but horses of the privileged, and horses for pulling chariots (4.1.41). Those grains were important food grains for people, and white barley is a refined grain and common people would not have ordinarily fed it to horses.

Also, this Greek term (ζειᾷ and ζειαί) for a wheat-like grain is likely the source of confusion over the terms ‘corn’ and ‘zea’ sometimes used for Old World grains, rather than for the New World corn (Zea maize).

The term zizania/zizanion could very well have, over time as a derivation of the Sumerian ziz-an (emmer), perhaps with Semitic intermediaries, come to refer to a wheat-like weed like darnel ryegrass that resembles wheat before maturity.

Or, I think the possibility is still open that zizania/zizanion in Matthew and Thomas actually refers to emmer as the word might have been used for undesirable emmer growing in free-threshing wheats or in barley. Likely, that would not have been uncommon since emmer was the predominant cultivated wheat-type grain for millennia. Sure, a desirable boutique ancient grain today, but if emmer badly infested a field of more modern-type, free-threshing hexaploid wheat or durum wheat that were often grown in the relevant region and time period, it would be a costly problem for the farmer. If the labor was not expended to separate the plants before harvesting, then in the threshing area after separating the wheat from the chaff, the emmer would still retain a tough hull around the grain. It would take a laborious extra step to remove the tough hulls from the emmer before grinding into flour. If the emmer hulls were not removed, the flour would be coarse and poor quality. And emmer is lower in gluten, so bread made from the resulting flour would not rise as well, depending on how much emmer in the mix.

ETA: more Strabo

------------

A note on the LSJ in Perseus --- don’t rely on the definitions to always be accurate for some Greek grain terms.

[Ken Olson]

I'm posting pages 114-115 from Paolo Squatriti, Weeds and the Carolingians : empire, culture, and nature in Frankish Europe, AD 750-900 (2022), which contains a discussion of what ZIZANIA was taken to mean among ancient (and medieval) interpreters.

Paolo Squatriti - Weeds and the Carolingians (2022) p. 114.png (253.35 KiB) Viewed 1196 times

Paolo Squatriti - Weeds and the Carolingians (2022) p. 115.png (267.77 KiB) Viewed 1196 times

Thanks to Kunigunde Kreuzerin for the reference (above).

Best,

Ken

[Ken Olson]

This is the entry on Darnel (Lolium temulentum) and Syrian Scabious (Cephalaria syriaca) from Michael Zohary, Plants of the Bible (1983) p. 161.

Darnel and Syrian Scabious - p. 161 Plants of the Bible (1983) Michael Zohary.png (754.76 KiB) Viewed 1185 times

Best,

Ken

[gryan]

Re: Which came first? gMatt or gThomas?

The case of the Saying 57

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... mas57.html#

With my working hypothesis of a late gMatt, my guess is that we see a process of editorial expansion: Mark's version is oldest, then came Thomas's, then came Matthew's.

I wonder if there might be other cases where Matt could plausibly have used Mark and Thomas as sources.

[schillingklaus]

So Gryan is just yet another right-wing apologist Markan Prioritists. All others know that Mt did not use Mk as a source but an extinct common forerunner.

[Sinouhe]

So Gryan is just yet another right-wing apologist Markan Prioritists. All others know that Mt did not use Mk as a source but an extinct common forerunner.

So being a markan prioritist is being an apologist now ?
Unfortunately, this theory is far much stronger than Marcion priority.

[robert j]

re-worked & re-posted below

[Bernard Muller]

Mark's gospel: 70-71Mk: late 70 to early 71, probably Corinth http://historical-jesus.info/appd.html (start at section G)
Matthew's gospel: 81 to 93, a city in Syria, probably Antioch http://historical-jesus.info/appd.html then find on "For the dating of Matthew's gospel"
Thomas' gospel: around 115 http://historical-jesus.info/thomas.html

Cordially, Bernard