Wednesday, March 20, 2019

2 Baruch 51:7-11 (Like unto angels and equal to stars)

But those who have been saved by their works and to whom the Torah has been now a hope and understanding an expec­tation and wisdom a confidence shall wonders appear in their time. 8 For they shall behold the world which is now invisible to them and they shall behold the time which is now hidden from them: 9 And time shall no longer age them. 10 For in the heights of that world shall they dwell and they shall be made like unto the angels and be made equal to the stars, And they shall be changed into every form they desire, from beauty into loveliness, and from light into the splendour of glory. 11 For there shall be spread before them the extents of Paradise, and there shall be shown to them the beauty of the majesty of the living creatures which are beneath the throne and all the armies of the angels who are now held fast by my word, lest they should appear, and are held fast by a command, that they may stand in their places till their advent comes.

https://www.cepher.net/2-baruch-51.aspx

6 comments:

Duncan said...

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/second-baruch-a-critical-edition-of-the-syriac-text-9780567046161/

Duncan said...

"Under the course in which these planets move are situated, according to them, thirty stars, which they designate as "counseling gods"; of these one half oversee the region s above the earth and the other half those beneath the earth, having under their purview the affairs of mankind and likewise those of the heavens; and every ten days one of the stars above is sent as a messenger, so to speak, to the stars below, and again in like manner of the stars below the earth to those above, and this movement of their is fixed and determined by means of an orbit which is unchanging for ever. Twelve of these gods, they say, hold chief authority, and to each of these the Chaldeans assign a month and one of the signs of the zodiac, as they are called. And through the midst of these signs, they say, both the sun and moon and the five planets make their course, the sun completing his cycle in a year and the moon traversing her circuit in a month."

Diodorus of Sicily. Bibliotheca historica, Book II, 28:29-31

1st century BC

http://www.faculty.umb.edu/gary_zabel/Courses/Phil%20281b/Philosophy%20of%20Magic/Arcana/Neoplatonism/diodorus.htm

Edgar Foster said...

See also https://muse.jhu.edu/article/461742/pdf

Some warnings about Gurtner's critical edition.

Duncan said...

Thanks. Some are errors and some are translational choices. Seed and children.

Edgar Foster said...

I'm not trying to make a big deal of this isue, but some of the erros look major and that is exactly what the reviewer points out:

While one always welcomes interest into Syriac sources, this volume has serious flaws in the transcription, translation, and analysis of the Syriac, which could have been avoided. Unfortunately, the author did not collaborate with scholars who are more at home in Syriac than he. Collaboration by a New Testament scholar with Syriac scholars working on either of two international projects, namely the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon project at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati or the Peshitta Institute at the University of Leiden, would have improved the volume as a whole and the concordance in particular. Syriac spelling errors flaw the text of the book: read 'weeks' for (28:2); read 'of men' for (73:5); read 'tribes' for (78.title); read 'which exist' for (83:4); read 'delights' for (83:15); read 'place for repentance' (see Ms a) for (85:12). Mistranslations also appear: "property" ( 19:5) should be "prosperity"; "O sons of Jacob" ( 31:3) should be "you seed of Jacob"; "the ruins" ( 35:1) should be rendered "its ruins"; "from your covenant" ( 41:3) should be rendered "from your statutes" as in 48:22; "this is the word" ( 42:3) should be translated "this is the meaning" as in 39:8; "the Creator" ( 44:4) should be rendered "our Creator"; "when it comes" ( 52:3) should be "of then"; "renewed blood" ( 56:6) should be translated "that it be renewed with blood"; "the unwritten Law" ( 57:2) should be "without writing, the Law"; "as long as they lived" ( 66:4) should be translated "while alive"; "the bright waters" ( 74:4) should be "the last bright waters"; "his judgments, which he has decreed against you" ( 78:5) should be rendered "the judgment of the one who decreed against you"; "the end of the letter" ( 87:1) should be "the writing ... is finished." The translation "and every seizure of young crops" (83:14) does not fit the Syriac (all pride and pomp) at all. No English translation appears for the following: 'For why should light dawn again where the light of Zion has darkened?' (10:12); 'those who were beyond the River (Euphrates), in which (letter) were written these things' (78:1). Moreover, the biblical citation in Apocalypse footnote 386 should read: Jer 9:1 (ET = English translation) = 8:23 (MT = Masoretic Text). Then, too, Epistle footnote 191 looks as though it belongs to 83:18

Duncan said...

https://brill.com/view/title/24567