Re: Basic reason why the name of Pilate was absent in the Earliest Passion Story extrapolated from Mark
Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2024 7:07 am
'' PaLeT", removing the vowels from Pilatos=in Hebrew פילטוס.DrSarah wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 6:31 am
Firstly, could you please give your reference for PLT being the root for the Semitic word 'release'? I don't speak Hebrew, but I've checked a couple of sites and none of the words I can find for 'release' have this root. So I'd like to start out with an initial fact-check, please.
As Aaron releases (פלט) the goat for Hayom Kippur (= the day of atonement) so Pilate=פילטוס releases (פלת) Barabbas for the Pesach.
https://biblehub.com/hebrew/6403.htm?fb ... crR8XY5Qc4
palat: to escape
NASB Translation
calves (1), carries it off (1), deliver (5), delivered (4), deliverer (5), delivers (3), escape (1), preserve (2), rescue (3).
NASB Translation
calves (1), carries it off (1), deliver (5), delivered (4), deliverer (5), delivers (3), escape (1), preserve (2), rescue (3).
Secret Alias is ignoring the fact that one of the possible meanings of PLT is 'deliverer'.
pallet: deliverance
Original Word: פַלֵּט
Part of Speech: Noun Masculine
Transliteration: pallet
Phonetic Spelling: (pal-late')
Definition: deliverance
NASB Translation
cast them forth (1), deliverance (1).
Original Word: פַלֵּט
Part of Speech: Noun Masculine
Transliteration: pallet
Phonetic Spelling: (pal-late')
Definition: deliverance
NASB Translation
cast them forth (1), deliverance (1).
Hence, as you see, PLT can mean, inter alia (and pace Secret Alias), both delivered and deliverer. Pilate wants to deliver Jesus, but he ends to deliver Barabbas.
I think that Richard Carrier gives you indirectly the answer, when he writes just yersterday:
For example, at one point Trobisch argues that Paul’s assistant “Tertius,” who scribed Romans (or at least part of what we now call Romans) on Paul’s dictation (Romans 16:22), must be made up because Tertius means “Third” and yet he is ironically a “third” party to the letter (neither author nor addressee, 180n38). But Tertius was also a well-known name in antiquity—both a Roman gens (family name) and first name (Tertius meant “Third Son” hence “Thirdson,” like Quintus, “Fifthson,” and Sextus, “Sixthson,” even more common first names than Tertius) and even a nickname (a cognomen; examples), but also a slave name. In fact naming slaves or freedmen with a number was even more common than for free men (Frank, p. 692). That the household of Gaius (from where Paul writes: Romans 16:23) also had a Quartus (whom Trobisch also tries to claim is a joke name; it’s not, it’s a real, well-attested name) suggests these are the slaves of Gaius, which is a Roman name, hence likely in this case a Roman citizen—evidently of some wealth, hobnobbing with a city magistrate even. There is nothing improbable here.
(my bold)
Carrier continues:
Contrast the example of Cicero’s joke involving the name Tertia (the female form) attested in Suetonius: (1) the context establishes it is a joke (so we do not have to “posit” that it is) and (2) the joke is based on there being a real actual woman of that name. So it isn’t even a joke name there. It’s just a joke made out of a real person’s name. We cannot argue from this that therefore Junia Tertia didn’t exist, that Suetonius or Cicero made her up. We need better evidence than we have, if we want to get to a conclusion like Trobisch’s
So it seems apparently that both Carrier and dr Sarah are doing the same argument: it is a mere coincidence.
But then Carrier concludes:
Trobisch would be on better ground in the Gospels, where fake names appositely chosen for their roles in the story is common (unlike the authentic Epistles, where there is not a single clear case of it; certainly none as clear as any in the Gospels). But alas, that’s not the context he is trying this on. And yet even there we have evidence. The name Nicodemus, for example, which means “Victory for the People,” has three improbable features rendering its fabrication likely: the name is otherwise unattested in Judea (and is a particularly weird name for a member of the Jerusalem Sanhedrin); and it is weirdly apposite in context, as Nicodemus stands up for the people (John 7:50) and is declared even by Jesus to be “Israel’s teacher” (John 3:10) and prevails in his judgment for their salvation (John 19:38–40); and he has been inserted into stories where he never appeared before (e.g., the Synoptics have Joseph tend the body; now Nicodemus shows up to help, a character never mentioned in any prior Gospel). Combined, all these things together are improbable unless this is a fictional character, whose name serves some symbolical function. Trobisch has nothing like this to offer for Tertius.
Hence my answer to dr Sarah is that we are talking about the gospels. If Pilate was found in the genuine epistles of Paul (and even if Paul had said that Pilate delivered Jesus), then yes, the entire affair of PLT would be a mere coincidence, but in the gospels the probability increases, in the light of the various symbolical functions the mere names assume.
For example, see what William Benjamin Smith wrote about Bethany:
This Bethany is in the Syriac and therefore in the Aramaic Beth "ania" and this latter word has been variously interpreted incorrectly. The corresponding Hebrew stem recurs continually in the Old Testament in the primary sense of vex, afflict, and the derived sense of poor ("ani"). Now in Luke X, 40, it is said that Martha was vexing herself, and the Syriac word is precisely this same "ania," as it is also in the Sinaitic Syriac at John xii, 2 (as noted by Nestle, Phil. Sac, p. 20, and as it now stands in Burkitt's monumental Evangelion da-Mepharreshe, p. 492), where the received text in all the languages now presents served. Bethany, then, means house of her that vexes herself, and we see why John has made it the home of the self- vexing Martha. Whether there ever was such a village need not here be discussed. The obvious suggestion is that the name designates Judea or the Jewish nationality, the home of her that received the Jesus when he came thither from the Dispersion
(Ecce Deus, p. 105, n. 1, my bold)