Richard Lenski calls ἄρρητα ῥήματα an "oxymoron," rendering the phrase as "unutterable utterances."
ESV: and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.
KJV: How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.
NWT 2013: who was caught away into paradise and heard words that cannot be spoken and that are not lawful for a man to say.
Rogers and Rogers: ἄρρητος verbal adj., unspeakable, unutterable. The word was often used of divine secrets not intended for human beings (Windisch; Barrett). ῤῆμα word. ἐξὸν pres. act. part. nom. n. sing. ἔξεστιν it is allowed. The word is to be taken in connection w. ἀνθρώπῳ (s. v. 2); “which it is not lawful for a man to speak” (Plummer).
Zerwick and Grosvenor:
8 comments:
What I find interesting about discussions like this is that the Greek is scrutinized while the Hebrew background is not. What about the potential for Hebraisms. Saying the same thing two different ways.
"Various Greek and Roman authors arguably provide evidence for the phenomenon of secrecy and an indication for how “outsiders” interpreted the Jewish practice. Indeed, while certain authors (such as Diodorus Siculus) did know the divine name, the Jewish disposition not to utter it and the inclination for certain Jews to conceive of it as secretive significantly prompted many Greeks and Romans to treat it as unknown, hidden, or even non-existing.53 Alexander Polyhistor (mid-first century b.c.e.), citing the Jewish historian Artapanus, claims that the name of the Jewish divinity was disclosed by Moses to Pharaoh, who was stricken unconscious and, upon being revived, entrusted it to secrecy in the priestly archives. Yet, Polyhistor does not seem to have known what this name was.54 The Roman poet Lucan (mid-first century c.e.) conceived of the god of the Jews as a deus incertus (an undetermined god), and a scholiast who analyzed Lucan’s reference cited a statement of the Roman historian Livy (late first century b.c.e.) in which he asserted that the Jews “do not name” or “do not state the name” (nominant) of the god of the temple of Jerusalem.55 Tacitus, a notable Roman historian and senator (ca. 100 c.e.), noted that Jews “comprehend one god, and with the mind alone,” and Cassius Dio, a Greekwriting historian and senator (ca. 200 c.e.), claims that Jews deemed him either “unnameable” or “not to be named” (ἄρρητος) and formless.56 For the late antique author of the Historia Augusta (late fourth century), the Jewish divinity was a numen incertum (an undetermined divinity).57 All told, such testimony indicates that Greeks and Romans recognized the disinclination of Jews to state or disclose the name and, in certain instances, the tendency for some to treat it as a valuable secret."
pg 216
Andrade, N. (2015). The Jewish Tetragrammaton: Secrecy, Community, and Prestige among Greek-Writing Jews of the Early Roman Empire. Journal for the Study of Judaism, 46(2), 198–223. doi:10.1163/15700631-12340099
I would not recommend ignoring the Hebrew background, nor is that my intent. However, there are times when I'm trying to understand the language of a text without immediately diving into the background situation. Study of a text will lead one to the background material, but I don't think that should always be the starting point. It depends on what one is seeking to accomplish, IMO.
Good study on 2 Cor. 12:1-10 here: https://books.google.com/books?id=N34JXTxJ3VcC&pg=PA308&lpg=PA308&dq=2+corinthians+12:4+ineffable&source=bl&ots=STByrjZYJw&sig=ACfU3U2LydgemvQEuf9cDhuJXr8VJRU0xA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjyjpz8mZvmAhVGheAKHTaaD-wQ6AEwCXoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=2%20corinthians%2012%3A4%20ineffable&f=false
For footnote 255 - see https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/rboustan/files/hekhalot_merkabah_literature._in_the_en.pdf
As per my previous reference, some of this goes back along way.
Page 255 notes that verses 1-4 employ that looks like Hebrew parallelism - see note 66.
Thanks, Duncan. I will check out these references. I have Wallace's book about 2 Cor. 12:1-10.
The footnote 255 is on page 161.
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