LUKE not Skywalker the Evangelist

While I was "convalescing" from a nasty bout of sinusitis and its usual side effects and symptoms I was translating the preface of Luke's Gospel and let me tell you ... its even wierder in Greek!

#NTgreek #newtestamentgreek #luke #gospel

Matthew starts his Gospel with over a dozen verses listing Jesus' ancestors from Abraham to Joseph.

Mark starts with the source of the goodnews of ... cites one of Isiah's prophecies and then its straight to the action of the Baptism.

John is in the beginning was the word ...

Luke however is SO VERY HELLENIC YET STILL JEWISH !

Legend has it that Luke was a physician but Jewish or Hellenic ?

I think both !

He opens with a very greek epeideeper epei+dee+per ..since indeed or in asmuch as  or
I'll stick to the simplest translation since ... since many things I did attempt to arrange (in) a narrative about the and here's a Perfect Passive Participle of all things! ... not even a common term in Hellenisitic greek pepleerophoreemenoon his narrative is about matters pragmatoon that amongst us have been fullfilled events that happened.

He's saying this is history not a story or essay a narration based on ... verse 2 eyewitnesses those who saw the events themselves and "attendants" people who were nearby at the time 

Like Herodotus and other historians he did an enquiry before he wrote a report

Like a doctor he's asked about what happened and taken notes.

Luke also tells us and Theophilos at the beginning of Acts that his previous writings or first words were made about all the things which Jesus began to both do and teach.

Getting back to that wierd perfect passive the things and events and actions he wrote about needed to be expressed in the Perfect tense rather than Aorist because they to him were a sequence of events not one single action.

I should note some translate pepleerophorew as fully believe but note it is a compound of pleerow and phorew something fully carried out FULFILLED

Its as if he's both referring to prophecies being fulfilled but wants to stress they were actions that have consequences and are still having results.

His target audience apart from Theophilos seems to be Greek speaking Literate Jews similar to both Historical literature and the Old Testament and he is said to have come from Antioch a Greek colony.

Unlike the other apostles he feels to the need to emphasize this is history.

and this formal declaration's strength comes across in English and Greek

Next time I may look at some other prefaces ... if my wretched sinusitis finished clearing up and I don't have another relapse into being surrounded by tissue boxes and alternating coughing with sneezing.

Apollo the Archer and Heracles

APOLLO THE ARCHER AND HERACLES

In #Homer and #Hesiod #Apollo is usually described as the Farshooter or as Phoibos the Shining One and on Athenian ceramics he is also shown as an Archer rather than a Sun God.

Here he is disputing with his half brother Heracles who having been refused an oracle at Delphi had taken the tripod used there from the shrine and was threatening to remove it and start his own oracular shrine elsewhere. 

Apollo is depicted as a young aristocrat with fancy boots and long flowing hair and a quiver on his back with his sisters Athena and Artemis watching.

There's another and for me rather amusing version of this by a different potter / painter version in which the Mighty Heracles is shown running away from his brother !

Apollo is also shown as a musician but that will be the topic for the next post.

Starting Luke and a little sociolinguistic mystery

While the next mid week post will feature Apollo our Sunday posts will be on the Gospel of Luke and New Testament Greek therein.

LOUKAS seems to be an attempt to write a Latin name in Greek as the Greeks wrote the Roman U and V with the two letters OU as U in Greek at that time was a different vowel sound.

Its not Lucius the Greeks would have spelt that as Loukios !

A lot of scholars think its a shortened form of Lucanus? 

Eusebius the historian claims Luke was a physician and a Syrian from Antioch.
But a Syrian Greek or Jew ? Perhaps the answer is that local Syrian Greeks and Jews had a usage of spelling Lukios and Lucanus and similar names as Loukas or of changing i to a and vice versa.
There is no other record of such a practice but it would explain why Loukas in its Greek Latin and Aramaic forms rapidly became a popular name. I could see people using the well known gospel writer's name as a support for using a colloquial form and it than spreading beyond Antioch to other parts of the empire.

It also shows how much interchange there was between various ethnic and language groups,

This is reflected in Luke's writings.

While I usually focus in what Jesus said the Preface to Luke's Gospel is worth a close look as an example of that cultural exchange I mentioned. 

So coming up next Apollo midweek  then Luke !

Join me!

Helios the Sun God

#Helios #sungod #greekmythology

People tend to think of Apollo as the Sun god but he actual Charioteer of the Solar Chariot was Helios son of Hyperion. Apollo seems to have taken over his role or been (con)fused with him in the Hellenistic era as people shared stories and encountered other solar cults and tried to make some sense of whether there was one sun god or several, Apollo, Helios, Shams, Horus, Ra, Mithras and others like Lugh of the Gauls and Sol Invictus.

If you see an image in Greek or Roman art wearing the radiate crown without a bow and with or without a chariot it may well be Helios rather than Apollo.

I have picked images from 4 different media ceramics, relief sculpture, mosaic , and a bronze to show its a consistent motif and theme.

To finish a coin of Emperor Probus who supported solar cults.

Note also the four horse RACING chariot !

Next time since its Summer for some of you Apollo.