Monday, May 01, 2017

William Mounce on μνημονεύω

See https://billmounce.com/greek-dictionary/mnemoneuo

Context plays a large role in determining what μνημονεύω means within a given text. For instance, the word clearly appears to signify the act of remembering in John 16:4, 21, whereas Heb. 11:22 possibly references the act of speaking or mentioning undertaken by Joseph.

See A.T. Robertson's note for Heb. 13:7: https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/rwp/hebrews-13.html

14 comments:

Duncan said...

In cultures with less abstract would re-speaking of someone be the sign of remembering them, as an active rather than the passive?

Edgar Foster said...

Interesting question, but there are a number of things I would have to clarify in my own mind to give an answer. First, Barr and those following him think we can't depict cultures as concrete or abstract since all cultures have a mixture of both. Second, I guess it's possible that "re-speaking of someone" could be a sign of remembrance in such circumstances, but I don't understand how the active/passive distinction comes into play here.

Duncan said...

I would define the passive process as a personal remembrance, without passing this recall on. As demonstrated by the OT how the faithful generally are remembered by "name" but the unfaithful are not. As an example the accounts regarding Saul, which I do not believe is his name in the same sense as the name David (whom archaeology suspects had the title "lion" on inscriptions) is to his successor. In fact, Pre vowel pointing & it's interpretation indicates that the tile could well have been - King Sheol - which in the account is a defining characteristic & event, after the fact.

I would define the level of abstraction in a culture by the size of its vocabulary. So I would gauge Greek to be less abstract than modern English (which now has more than a million individual word definitions, which I believe extends the cultures ability to be subtly deceptive) & Hebrew to be even less abstract - ancient pictograph Hebrew even less. Barr like many is pigeonholing the Hebrew of the whole OT - I would suggest that the Hebrew of the Torah is more concrete than the later books. Especially as I do not find many of the argument in a documentary hypothesis convincing.

In our instance regarding the Greek, I still feel able to call it more concrete by comparison to modern English & as you have stated before - Hebrew can have abstraction & Greek can be concrete & they are not that far removed from each other. This I can agree with for the later books of the OT where the cultures overlap, but not for the Torah.

Edgar Foster said...

I'm not going to debate the point you made about Saul's name, but I would like to know which scholars have researched this subject. Or do any Hebrew lexica deal with the issue?

I define abstract not in terms of word count, but more as that which relates to the conceptual/noetic side of things. Having to do with notions or ideas. Languages generally have concrete and abstract ways of expressing ideas, which are themselves abstract. However, to say an entire language is concrete or abstract seems hard to prove, especially where Hebrew-Aramaic and Greek are concerned. Furthermore, to judge abstraction by vocabulary size is dubious IMO. I see what you mean in a way, and Alter admittedly appears to side with you; at least, in some respects But characterizing an entire language this way because of lexical multiplicity is questionable at best.

Whether Greek is less abstract than English depends on how one defines abstract. I recommend Moises Silva's book, Biblical Words and Their Meaning.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3260946?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Duncan said...

http://members.tripod.com/torah_zealots/apostle_paul/secsam22b.jpg


http://members.tripod.com/torah_zealots/apostle_paul/psalm18.jpg

Note, images with vowel points removed. I have not posted the accompanying article as the vowel less text speaks for itself and if no scholar has commented on this then my question is - why ?

I think Jewish scholars are as good as any other at ignoring the elephant in the room.

Duncan said...

http://dssenglishbible.com/psalms%2018.htm

Here as I said before is a poor translation of the vowel less DSS text that is only being translated in light of the MT notation without sowing all the other options.

Edgar Foster said...

I am not trying to belabor the Saul issue, and that conversation is not elucidating the OP. However, the words in question seem close, but different to me. The book, "Exalting Jesus in 1 & 2 Samuel" (Greear and Thomas) also appears to give a different etymology for Saul's name, connecting Saul with sha 'al, meaning "asked" as in the people asked for a king.

Robert Alter wrote a commentary on 1 and 2 Samuel, so he might offer commentary on Saul too.

Duncan said...

Not a different root.

http://thelivingwords.ancient-hebrew.org/hell.pdf

Sheol is the no-place, the ask without reply.

http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/alphabet_letters_vav.html

Duncan said...

You may note that the link to benners work demonstrates that the unanswered question of Sheol to the Hebrews with a lack of speculation demonstrages the languages concrete nature, at least in this respect.

Duncan said...

Scholars have looked far and wide to explain the name Sheol via words found in other languages but no explanation wholly satisfied and we're back to the obvious, albeit difficult to explain, namely that the name Sheol comes from the verb שאל (sha'al), meaning to ask, inquire, borrow, beg:

http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Sheol.html#.WQ32c8vTXqA

Edgar Foster said...

As I said earlier, we have gotten away from the OP, and I'll just make a couple of brief remarks here. Jeff's description of Sheol is problematic, and maybe I will expand in a separate post. Secondly, just because words have the same root or consonants does not mean they can be interchanged. The fact of the matter is that philologists aren't sure about the etymology of Saul's name. Moreover, I see no good reason to doubt that his personal name was Saul anymore than Paul was once known as Saul of Tarsus.

One problematic feature of Jeff's explanation is that nobody I know is suggesting that Sheol refers to an individual grave; the word apparently refers to gravedom--not to a grave.

Duncan said...

Have you ever thought that Saul of tarsus was not a name but a title, something akin to the executioner of tarsus?

Duncan said...

Just came across this issue which seems intriguing.

http://www.behindthename.com/bb/fact/67329

Edgar Foster said...

Duncan, I have not considered that possibility regarding Saul's name. Concerning the link, I just read something last night about Samuel being connected with Saul by etymology. The writer argued that the connection was intentional; he thinks that chapter one of 1 Samuel prepares the way for Samuel and Saul's subsequent relationship.